The Sexual Revolution

The sexual revolution of the '60s encouraged us to liberate ourselves from old sexual taboos.

Of all the gifts God has given mankind, one of the most beautiful and meaningful is the gift of sexuality. Yet it's also one of the most abused.

Sex plays a vital part in God's plan for human beings. The first command recorded in the Bible that God gave to Adam and Eve was to have sexual relations (Genesis 1:28). He essentially repeated the command in Genesis 2:24-25: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed."

One aspect that should leap out at us from verse 24 is that God created sex for marriage. But the 20th century brought dramatic changes in attitudes toward what is considered to be proper sexual behavior.

The sexual revolution of the '60s resulted in a drastic relaxation of sexual mores and—aided by easy availability of birth-control pills—created the notion that freewheeling sex had practically no consequences. The idea of sex with no repercussions led to slogans such as "If it feels good, do it!"

Advocates of sexual freedom said that, since sex is enjoyable, we should shed our inhibitions and jump in. What they didn't say, however, is that sex is never consequence-free, and sex outside of marriage is heavily laden with negative repercussions, especially for girls and women.

The audible furor that accompanied the sexual experimentation of the '60s is no longer as loud, but the revolution was successful in that to a considerable extent the extreme behaviors of that time are now commonplace.

The results have been monumental—and devastating in many countries. As former Harvard University professor Pitirim Sorokin observed about changes in sexual standards: "Any considerable change in marriage behavior, any increase in sexual promiscuity, and illicit relations, is pregnant with momentous consequences. A sex revolution drastically affects the lives of millions, deeply disturbs the community, and decisively influences the future of society" (The American Sex Revolution, 1956, p. 7).

The sexual revolution was not just an American phenomenon. Europe experienced its own upheaval. In fact, much of the world joined in throwing off sexual restraint. Why are millions of Africans infected with the AIDS virus? "The sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s in the West spread globally and penetrated Africa ... We know of many cases where young people, children really, are already sexually active" (Christianity Today, Feb. 7, 2000).