ABSTRACT
One of the most popular cultural narratives of the late twentieth century has been the 1960's and 1970's as an age of 'sexual revolution'. The historiography of sexual revolutions has commonly focused on the ideas of sexual liberals and reformers, such as Margaret Sanger and Alfred Kinsey. Many of the sex researchers who sought to chart shifting patterns of sexual behaviour captured slices of these deeper changes, but some of these practices slipped through the sexology net to be uncovered later by historians. As a public phenomenon early twentieth century liberalization was also largely heterosexual. For homosexuals, sexual liberalism was a two-edged sword. Another powerful force driving new sexual agendas was the emergence of a small group of sexual radicals who vigorously attacked sexual conservatism. A number of studies have analysed the lives and thought of inter-war and early postwar sexual radicals. Feminists and gays had made sex and sexuality a vital question for radical politics and critical theory.
