By Jericho Slade, WPS News, Ad-Hoc Historian

The popular story says the sexual revolution started at Woodstock, bloomed with flower power, and peaked with disco balls and birth control pills. But that’s a half-truth. The real spark came earlier—from the bedrooms, barracks, and battlefields of a generation of American men who returned from World War II and Korea carrying trauma, disillusionment, and the crushing expectation to shut up and “be normal.”

For many of those men, normal was the enemy. They had seen death. They had killed. And when they came home, they were told to get a mortgage, make a baby, and pretend it never happened. With no psychological support, no language for PTSD, and a culture of enforced silence, the repression only deepened (Herman, 1992).

But something started to crack. These weren’t just traumatized men—they were angry, ambitious, and determined to carve out pleasure and power in a country that told them they had no right to either. They had money now. They had jobs. And they had memories they couldn’t explain. Enter: Playboy, skin mags, burlesque, bachelor pads, strip clubs, stag parties. This wasn’t counterculture. This was mainstream rebellion.

The sexual revolution of the ’60s didn’t spring from peace signs. It came from postwar dissatisfaction. And veterans led the way, whether anyone wants to admit it or not. While younger boomers marched, their older brothers and uncles were already living the sexual revolution in silence—in motels, clubs, porn theaters, and cocktail lounges.

And let’s not forget the women. Many postwar women, especially working-class wives, were trapped in rigid gender roles, doing unpaid emotional labor for men who were emotionally shut down. The rise in divorce, sexual experimentation, and feminist organizing didn’t just happen next to the men’s sexual rebellion — it was a direct response to it. The whole system was cracking.

Yes, the hippies amplified it. But the soil was already turned over by men with haunted eyes and centerfolds in their lockers.

The sexual revolution wasn’t just about love. It was about power, control, and the slow, messy unraveling of the fantasy that America was morally pure. It started with the generation who came home from war, took off their uniforms, and reached for something they could actually feel.

Next up: Part 5 — The Conservative Porn Paradox: From Moral Panic to Market Boom.

This image is provided for historical and cultural study purposes only, illustrating the roots of the sexual revolution. It is not intended as endorsement or exploitation.

References

Fraterrigo, E. (2009). Playboy and the making of the good life in modern America. Oxford University Press.
Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence—from domestic abuse to political terror. Basic Books.

Photo from www.lukeford.net, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

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