Permissiveness on television in 1960s Britain. By Elizabeth Moran

In the post-war period, Britain experienced an age of affluence; full employment, an economic boom and the welfare state, all contributed to a rise in overall living standards.[1] The 1960s witnessed significant changes in society such as housing re-development, shopping centres, the arrival of television and the change in attitudes and behaviour.[2] The permissive society in the 1960s became shorthand for the change in attitudes towards taking recreational drugs, pre-marital sex, venereal disease and illegitimate pregnancies. However, the concept of a permissive society has been disputed by prominent historians such as Dominic Sandbrook and Arthur Marwick.[3] In this essay I will argue that attitudes and behaviours towards sexuality began to change slowly by the end of the 1950s. However, the concern in the 1960s for the permissive society came as a result of the change in television. I will highlight how ATV and BBC became more open and frank about discussing sexuality which intensified the debate surrounding permissiveness. I will also demonstrate how youth culture was portrayed on television, which appeared to threaten the moral codes in society, whereas in reality attitudes remained conservative. Finally, I will examine how television engaged with the controversial debate surrounding the Labour reforms. I will examine archive footage from ATV news reel (1962-1969) and the BBC’s Up the Junction (1965) to highlight how television engaged with the wider debate on sexual behaviour.

During the 1960s, television became more open when discussing sexuality due to a relaxation of moral censorship by producers.[4] This caused concern over the influence that television could have on society by critics such as Mary Whitehouse. Furthermore, television ownership increased after post-war austerity had created ‘a hunger for all things new’.[5] Therefore, television was consumed on a massive scale. The new cultural medium helped project the idea that permissive behaviour was widespread, although the experience was limited outside London.[6] In this section I will highlight examples from Up the Junction and ATV news to argue that discussions on sexuality became less restricted on television.

Callum Brown described that television was ‘ambiguous’ for it straddled the ‘traditional discursive world of the establishment’ whilst trying to convey the new, modern world.[7] The BBC’s The Wednesday Play, first aired in 1964, was a documentary-drama programme that presented the challenges of Modern Britain.[8] Nell Dunn’s Up the Junction, a novella of the same name, was directed by Ken Loach and first aired on the BBC in 1965. Up the Junction followed three young women Rube, Sylvie and Eileen living and working in Battersea, London. It was watched by an audience of nearly 10 million people but received 464 complaints for bad language and promiscuity.[9] The programme also hosted discussion of sexual relationships outside of marriage which was shared by the older female characters. It was also well remembered for Rube’s back-street abortion scene, as well as covering pre-marital sex and broken marriages.

The change in television caused controversy amongst critics. Mary Whitehouse was critical of Up the Junction as she believed that it portrayed promiscuity as normal.[10] She formed the ‘Clean-Up TV’ campaign in 1963, later known as the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association (NVALA). The organisation argued that television was responsible for promoting and spreading permissive values.[11] In a telegram to Harold Wilson, Whitehouse declared that ‘someone somewhere has to take responsibility for standards of BBC programmes’.[12] Whitehouse argued that standards at the BBC had lowered, raising concerns for the impact that this would have on society. Similarly, The Daily Telegraph argued that the BBC were ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel’ with Up the Junction and called for tougher censorship.[13] Furthermore, the BBC’s audience research found that some viewers found it ‘disgusting, degrading and unnecessarily sordid’,[14] demonstrating that permissive behaviour was not widespread in society.

Stephen Brooke argues that Up the Junction was ‘taken as a marker of social and sexual change’.[15] The documentary elements of the programme added to its authenticity and caused alarm amongst critics. Loach was conscious that the plays should be not be ‘considered dramas but as continuations of the news’.[16] Therefore, Up the Junction was filmed on location over four days rather than being captured in an electronic studio, [17] which improved its credibility by using real venues across London. The unpolished style of filming adds to the impression that the events might be taking place.[18] These techniques allow the audience to engage with the story as they gain a sense of listening in on people’s stories. Therefore, it was considered to reflect the challenges of modern Britain through its real depiction of promiscuity and abortion.

ATV news reel footage taken between 1962 and 1969 was also responsible for covering a range of issues that were deemed as permissive for the time. The footage provides a middle-class perspective on pre-marital sex, illegitimate births, venereal disease, family planning clinics, contraception, sex education and divorce. In 1962 Look Around, a monthly current affairs programme covered the issue of sex education. The programme featured a Moral Welfare Officer who highlighted the rise in venereal disease, pre-marital sex and illegitimate births.[19] It also featured an interview with Mary, who became pregnant aged 15, who is an example of the consequences of permissive behaviour. Similarly, The Midlands News in 1963 interviewed sixth-form girls after seeing the sex education film, The Yellow Teddy Bears, to highlight young people’s attitudes towards sex.[20] In 1965, Midlands News interviewed Mavis Walker regarding the growth of family planning clinics and she subtly suggested that unmarried women were utilising the service.[21] A Vox Pop from ATV Today in 1967 highlighted the mixed public opinion on the new divorce proposals that made the process easier.[22] The ATV news reel footage highlights how the relaxation on censorship, along with the rise in television ownership, allowed certain topics to be aired publicly and therefore influence opinion that society was becoming more permissive. The ATV news will be discussed in more detail in Sections 2 and 3 in relation to youth culture and the Labour reforms.

The emergence of youth culture in the 1960s had a dramatic impact on society. For the first time young people emerged as a separate group from adults; rebelling against traditional music, fashion and leisure pursuits. Jeffrey Weeks has argued that the anxiety towards the emergence of youth culture was ‘displaced onto the concern of sexuality’.[23] In effect, the physical changes in young people became associated with a lowering in moral standards which was seized upon by media forms such as television. In this section I will highlight how youth culture was portrayed in Up the Junction and ATV news coverage on sex education.

The young female characters in Up the Junction represent a new, modern form of female sexuality that challenges the traditional male authority.[24] Callum Brown argues that in the 1960s the female identity was re-constructed around work, sexual relations and recreational opportunities.[25] This is evident in the film as the women are independent to an extent as they work and seek out men for pleasure. They are perceived as promiscuous as in the opening scene they meet three ‘cheeky’ men in the pub.[26] They enjoy drinking and dancing to the latest music, which features throughout. The film is fun and lively as the approach of editing to music is utilised, employing lyrics to depict the mood at different points. Songs from ‘The Kinks’ and ‘The Searchers’ featuring lyrics such as ‘I’m so hungry for someone to love’ and ‘she said yes’, demonstrate the sexual appetite of the characters.[27] After leaving the pub, the group break in to a swimming pool late at night. The swimming scenes are intimate, as the three couples wrestle in the water in their underwear and passionately kiss one another.[28] The criminal aspect of the scene and the promiscuity of the teenagers, supports the concern over the lowering of young people’s standards.

The concern over young people’s attitudes towards sexuality was incorporated into the debate surrounding appropriate sex education. Government reports reaffirmed the need for suitable instruction in schools.[29] However, these recommendations were ignored, due to the influence of moral conservatives who sought to reaffirm the values of a traditional family life.[30] The debate reached a significant height by the 1960s as contemporaries feared that sex education would exacerbate permissive behaviour in young people.

In November 1963, Reg Harcourt interviewed several sixth-form girls, as part of the Midlands News, after they had seen the sex education film, ‘The Yellow Teddy Bears’, at the Cinephone in Birmingham.

https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165892

The film focuses on a group of girls at an English school who place a yellow teddy bear on their uniform to symbolise that they have had pre-marital sex.[31] The camera is positioned behind the girls, to protect their identities whilst they discuss the film. This suggests that the nature of the conversation was deemed unsuitable for respectable girls to discuss on camera. All of the girls agreed that the film portrayed sexual issues accurately, but insisted that the film should be shown to younger girls, aged 14-15.[32] This suggests that the sixth-form aged girls had some knowledge regarding sexual intercourse. One girl in particular undermines the stereotype of permissive young people as Harcourt questions, ‘Do you know girls like this at your school?’[33] She replied that, ‘no, I myself do not know…but I think it does go on in some schools’.[34]

Look Around, the monthly current affairs programme, broadcast on ATV in 1962 a segment to highlight the inadequacies of sex education.

https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165893

The last section of the programme features Stella Hunt, a Moral Welfare Officer, and Mary who conceived aged 15. Stella cites statistics that demonstrate the lowering of young people’s standards. She explains that a report in 1959 found that 31% more girls conceived than the year before.[35] Similarly, there were 65% more cases in girls and 67.3% more cases in boys of venereal disease.[36] However Stella points out that ‘even that does not give a true picture of the promiscuous intercourse which is carried on by our young people’.[37] Such alarmist language promoted pre-marital sex as widespread amongst young people.

Mary is used as an example of the consequences of receiving inadequate sex education. During her interview her identity is obscured by filming from behind using the same technique as the Midlands News in 1963. Stella questions whether ‘other girls…have intercourse with boys and behave in the same way’, which Mary replies ‘I know they do’.[38] This admission challenges the traditional perspective that placed marriage and the family at the heart of society.[39] Stella concludes by stating that ‘it is often said that the standards in young people today are much lower…than when I was young’.[40]

Newspaper headlines also added to people’s concerns such as ‘teenage morals and the corruption of the times’ from the Evening Standard in October 1961.[41] Similarly, The Sunday Times published an enquiry entitled ‘Your Teenage Daughter’ aimed at the parents of Middle Class sixth-form parents.[42] They expressed a concern for the working class teenage culture corrupting the respectable sixth-form girls. This can be seen when comparing Up the Junction’s depiction of youth culture with the ATV interviews of young people. The newspaper declared permissiveness as widespread and stated that ‘none can afford to ignore it’.[43]

In reality, the concern over the lowering of young people’s standards was exaggerated. Michael Schofield’s 1965 study, The Sexual Behaviour of Young People, disputed the idea that the permissive society had arrived and argued that promiscuity and pre-marital sex were still considered to be exceptional.[44] The majority wanted to marry and expected faithfulness, whilst over 2/3 of boys and ¾ of girls in the study had not experienced sexual intercourse.[45] Furthermore, Eustace Chesser’s 1956 study uncovered that 43% of married women and 30% of unmarried women had experienced sex before marriage in the 1940s and 1950s.[46] This suggests that pre-marital sex existed before the so called ‘sexual revolution’ in the 1960s, and supports Hera Cook’s theory of a long sexual revolution between 1800 and 1975.[47] However, James Hampshire and Jane Lewis have argued that Schofield was in the minority, and that ‘the belief that British society…was undergoing radical change in its sexual attitudes and behaviour was widespread’.[48] As my research has demonstrated, this belief was heightened by the portrayal of permissive behaviour amongst young people on television.

The 1960s witnessed the most ‘significant package of legislative changes on morality for over half a century’.[49] The debate surrounding the Labour reforms focuses on whether the legislation cemented the progressive society or whether it allowed permissive behaviour to develop. In Up the Junction, the backstreet abortion and Sylvie’s separation from her husband demonstrate that attitudes had already changed in Working Class London before the legislation took place. Whereas ATV news reel challenges this assessment but draws on a Middle Class perspective. The Midlands News in 1965 argues that change occurred after the pill was introduced in 1961 which is similar to ATV Today in 1967 that argues that the plans for a Divorce Reform act were contradictory to its respondents’ views.

The Labour reforms can be traced back to the preceding decade, suggesting that attitudes were already changing before the 1960s. The Labour Party Leader, Hugh Gaitskell, argued that everyone should have an ‘equal opportunity for the pursuit of happiness however people decide they can best achieve this’.[50] Similarly, Roy Jenkins (who would become Home Secretary 1965-1967) called for extensions in personal freedoms to overhaul laws on homosexuality, abortion, divorce and censorship.[51]

Lesley Hall argues that the legislation ‘reflected change which has already taken place in social mores and attitudes’.[52] Similarly, Jeffrey Weeks argues that the reforms were an ‘attempt to come to grips with the problems posed by a legal framework that was no longer fit for purpose in the light of changing social realities’.[53] However, Stephen Brooke argues that the legislation served as ‘both symbols and causes of the permissive society’ by transforming Britain from ‘a drab and repressed society’ into ‘swinging London’.[54]

The growth of family planning clinics in the 1960s came partly as a result of the availability of the pill to married women in 1961 and to single women in 1967. The number of family planning clinics in 1938 was only 61, but by 1963 this had risen to 400.[55] On the Midlands News in 1965, Tim Downes interviewed Mavis Walker of the Family Planning Clinic in Birmingham.

https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117263581

She encourages all kinds of people to use the service without providing a judgement on contraception. Therefore, Walker challenges the claim that there was a generational divide regarding attitudes on family planning. However, Downes’ negative perspective is evident through his language. He states that ‘these clinics are increasing at a pretty terrific rate’ and questions ‘what…problems does it bring with expansion’.[56] He suggests that the growth in family planning clinics is linked to the changing sexual attitudes. Downes also questions ‘what kind of people come along?’ suggesting that only a certain type of individual uses the service.[57] Walker responds, ‘almost everybody’ and subtly hints that unmarried women were using family planning clinics as she claims that they also see ‘girls who are getting married’.[58]

The Abortion Reform act 1967 embodies the social changes of the 1960s. Up the Junction was timed to coincide with the Parliamentary debate on the reform in 1965. The BBC was criticised for going against its pledge of impartiality by trying to influence public opinion. The topic of abortion was not new to television but it was portrayed in a frightening manner. Close up footage is taken of Rube’s sweat-drenched face to highlight her pain and distress.[59] She screams and struggles on the bed as several shots have been edited to create maximum impact.[60] The scene lasts for approximately 1 minute and 40 seconds and was designed to draw attention to the pain and suffering of back street abortions. Furthermore, an interview with a doctor is conducted in which he argues that the abortion law should be reformed. He states that there are ’35 deaths per year’ due to the backstreet abortions, whereas an abortion is safer in hospital than removing the tonsils.[61] The scene serves to highlight to the audience that backstreet abortions were taking place in Britain regardless of the law, although to what extent is unclear.

Whilst the number of legal abortions almost quadrupled between 1968 and 1970,[62] there can be no comparison of statistics prior to the reform in legislation. However, the number of recorded abortions in 1968 was 35,000 which can be taken as indicative of women’s willingness to terminate their pregnancies.[63] It is also evident that illegitimate births were increasing among young people; between 1961 and 1971 extra-marital births increased from 5.8% to 8.4% of all births,[64] but these statistics do not take into account the increase in the teenagers who were part of the baby boom generation.

The Divorce Reform act 1969 ensured couples could separate by mutual agreement without proving fault. In 1965 Up the Junction depicted the marriage of Sylvie and her husband who had separated. Two-thirds of the way through the programme they insult each other and physically fight in the street outside the pub.[65] He accuses Sylvie of being promiscuous and she accuses him of abandoning their son.[66] The scene highlights the reality for Working Class families when marriages breakdown without the ability to get a divorce.

The topic of divorce was also covered by ATV Today in 1967. The Reporter, Rosemary Dunnage interviews 8 Middle Class respondents in the high street, 5 males and 3 females.

https://vimeo.com/118014157

There was mixed responses by all genders and ages to the question, ‘do you favour divorce by mutual agreement?’.[67] More people were in favour of divorce but stated that it should only be allowed ‘under certain circumstances’.[68] The Vox Pop opposes the Working Class view put forward by the BBC’s Up the Junction of people’s willingness to be divorced. The Middle Class views in the Vox Pop contradict the belief that permissive behaviour was widespread and impacting on marriages, when many people’s views remained fairly conservative. However, what is evident is that after 1969, the divorce rate trebled from 2.1 to 6 per 1,000,[69] which suggests that many unhappy couples had been waiting for the new legislation.

This research piece has contended that the portrayal of permissive behaviour on television influenced the debate surrounding the permissive society in 1960s Britain. I have utilised material from the BBC’s Up the Junction and ATV news reel to highlight how the topics covered by television, such as pre-marital sex, abortion, illegitimate births and sex education, changed in the 1960s. I have also demonstrated how anxieties surrounding youth culture were displaced onto concerns over young people’s changing attitudes towards sexuality. Facilitating these changes were the Labour reforms at the end of the decade, which were seen on television to be as a result of the change in attitudes. I have tried to present the reality of the situation in the 1960s which has challenged the misconception that Britain was permissive. Although, it is evident that attitudes had begun to change slowly, and certainly before the 1960s, but not at the rapid rate that has been argued. However, in order to fully assess how television engaged with the concept of a permissive society, further research is needed on other television programmes aired by the BBC and ATV.

 

 

[1] Iain Chambers, Popular Culture: The Metropolitan Experience 4^th edn, (London: Routledge, 1993), 41.

[2] Ibid, 42.

[3] See: Dominic Sandbrook, White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties, (London: Abacus, 2006) and Arthur Marwick, The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy and the United States, c. 1959-1974 2^nd edn, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

[4] Callum G. Brown, The Death of Christian Britain, (London: Routledge, 2001), 175.

[5] See page 161 for television viewing figures and television ownership in the 1960s. Tim O’Sullivan, ‘Television Memories and Cultures of Viewing, 1859-1965’, In Popular Television in Britain: Studies in Cultural History, ed John Corner, (London: British Film Institute, 1991).

[6] Stephen Brooke, Sexual Politics: Sexuality, Family Planning, and the British Left from the 1880s to the Present Day, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 146.

[7] Brown, The Death of Christian Britain, 178.

[8] Oliver Wake, ‘The Wednesday Play (1964-1970)’, BFI: Screenonline. Accessed 16 March 2016 [http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/454700/, accessed 16 March 2016].

[9] John Hill, Ken Loach: The Politics of Film and Television, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 47.

[10] Ibid, 45.

[11] Ibid, 26.

[12] Unknown, ‘Letters from Mary Whitehouse’, The National Archives [http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/sixties-britain/letters-mary-whitehouse accessed 8 April 2016].

[13] Hill, Ken Loach, 47.

[14] Ibid, 47.

[15] Stephen Brooke, ‘Slumming in Swinging London? Class, Gender and the Post-War City in Nell Dunn’s Up The Junction (1963)’, Cultural and Social History 9 (2012), 432.

[16] Ros Cranston, ‘Up the Junction (1965)’, BFI: Screenonline [http://www.screenonline.org.uk.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/tv/id/440997/index.html, accessed 16 March 2016].

[17] Richard I. Kelly, ‘Ken Loach Interview’, Sight & Sound 17 (2007), 31.

[18] Hill, Ken Loach, 39.

[19] Look Around, ‘Sex Education’, first Broadcast 13 July 1962, Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165893

[20] Midlands News, ‘Sex Film at the Cinephone’, first Broadcast 15 November 1963, MACE University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165892

[21] Midlands News, ‘Family Planning Clinic’, first Broadcast 21 October 1965, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117263581

[22] ATV Today, ‘Divorce’, first Broadcast 13 November 1967, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218371/video/118014157

[23] Jeffrey Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality since 1800 3^rd edn, (Harlow: Pearson, 2012), 329.

[24] Brooke, ‘Slumming in Swinging London?’ 433.

[25] Brown, The Death of Christian Britain, 179.

[26] The Wednesday Plays: Up the Junction, DVD, dir Ken Loach (UK, 1965).

[27] Ibid.

[28] Up the Junction.

[29] See: Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: 329.

[30] Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: 329.

[31] Unknown, ‘The Yellow Teddy Bears (1963)’, IMDb [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058169/, accessed 16 March 2016].

[32] Midlands News, ‘Sex Film at the Cinephone’.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Look Around, ‘Sex Education’.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Ibid.

[39] James Hampshire and Jane Lewis, ‘The Ravages of Permissiveness’: Sex Education and the Permissive Society’, Twentieth Century British History 15 (2004), 297.

[40] Look Around, ‘Sex Education’.

[41] Arthur Marwick, The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy and the United States, c. 1959-1974 2^nd edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 76.

[42] Unknown, ‘Your Teenage Daughter’, Sunday Times, 9 December 1961, accessed 8 April 2016, http://find.galegroup.com.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/dmha/newspaperRetrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=DateAscend&tabID=T003&prodId=DMHA&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=R1&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28tx%2CNone%2C8%29teenager%3AAnd%3AFQE%3D%28tx%2CNone%2C5%29moral%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28da%2CNone%2C23%2901%2F01%2F1960+-+12%2F31%2F1969%24&retrieveFormat=MULTIPAGE_DOCUMENT&userGroupName=ulh&inPS=true&contentSet=LTO&&docId=&docLevel=FASCIMILE&workId=&relevancePageBatch=EE1865927160&contentSet=DMHA&callistoContentSet=DMHA&docPage=article&hilite=y

[43] Ibid.

[44] Hampshire and Lewis, ‘The Ravages of Permissiveness’, 296.

[45] Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: 326.

[46] Stephen Brooke, ‘Gender and Working Class Identity in Britain During the 1950s’, Journal of Social History (2001), 783.

[47] Callum Brown, ‘Sex, Religion, and the Single Woman c1950-1975: The Importance of a ‘Short’ Sexual Revolution to the English Religious Crisis of the Sixties’, Twentieth Century British History 22 (2011), 191.

[48] Hampshire and Lewis, ‘The Ravages of Permissiveness’, 297.

[49] Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: 325.

[50] Brooke, Sexual Politics, 149.

[51] Hill, Ken Loach, 25.

[52] Lesley A. Hall, Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1800, (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), 176.

[53] Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: 324-5.

[54] Brooke, Sexual Politics, 146.

[55] Brooke, ‘Gender and Working Class Identity in Britain During the 1950s’, 782.

[56] Midlands News, ‘Family Planning Clinic’.

[57] Ibid.

[58] Ibid.

[59] Up the Junction.

[60] Ibid.

[61] Ibid.

[62] Lesley A. Hall, Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1800, (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), 178.

[63] Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: 346.

[64] Hampshire and Lewis, ‘The Ravages of Permissiveness’, 297.

[65] Up the Junction.

[66] Ibid.

[67] ATV Today, ‘Divorce’.

[68] Ibid.

[69] Hampshire and Lewis, ‘The Ravages of Permissiveness’, 297.

 

 

Bibliography

Primary Sources –

ATV Videos

Around, Look. ‘Sex Education’. First Broadcast 13 July 1962. Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165893

News, Midlands. ‘Family Planning Clinic’. First Broadcast 21 October 1965. Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117263581

News, Midlands. ‘Sex Film at the Cinephone’. First Broadcast 15 November 1963. Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165892

Today, ATV. ‘Divorce’. First Broadcast 13 November 1967. Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218371/video/118014157

Other sources

4, Channel. ‘It was Alright in the 1960s: Episode 3’. First Broadcast 21 September 2015. Bob National: Box of Broadcasts. Accessed 20 April 2016; http://bobnational.net/record/314280

Loach, Ken. The Wednesday Plays: Up the Junction. UK, 1965. DVD.

Unknown. ‘Letters from Mary Whitehouse’. The National Archives. Accessed 8 April 2016; http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/sixties-britain/letters-mary-whitehouse/

Unknown. ‘Your Teenage Daughter’. Sunday Times. 9 December 1961. Accessed 8 April 2016. http://find.galegroup.com.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/dmha/newspaperRetrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=DateAscend&tabID=T003&prodId=DMHA&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=R1&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28tx%2CNone%2C8%29teenager%3AAnd%3AFQE%3D%28tx%2CNone%2C5%29moral%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28da%2CNone%2C23%2901%2F01%2F1960+-+12%2F31%2F1969%24&retrieveFormat=MULTIPAGE_DOCUMENT&userGroupName=ulh&inPS=true&contentSet=LTO&&docId=&docLevel=FASCIMILE&workId=&relevancePageBatch=EE1865927160&contentSet=DMHA&callistoContentSet=DMHA&docPage=article&hilite=y

Secondary Sources –

Aitken, Ian. The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film. Oxford: Routledge, 2012.

Barker, Dennis. ‘Mary Whitehouse’. The Guardian. 24 November 2001. Accessed 1 April 2016; http://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/nov/24/guardianobituaries.obituaries

Black, Lawrence. ‘Whose finger on the button? British Television and the Politics of Cultural Control’. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 25 (2005): 547-575.

Briggs, Asa. The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: Volume V Competition 2^nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Brooke, Stephen. ‘Gender and Working Class Identity in Britain During the 1950s’. Journal of Social History (2001): 773-795.

Brooke, Stephen. Sexual Politics: Sexuality, Family Planning, and the British Left from the 1880s to the Present Day. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Brooke, Stephen. ‘Slumming in Swinging London? Class, Gender and the Post-War City in Nell Dunn’s Up The Junction (1963)’. Cultural and Social History 9 (2012): 429-449.

Brown, Callum. ‘Sex, Religion, and the Single Woman c1950-1975: The Importance of a ‘Short’ Sexual Revolution to the English Religious Crisis of the Sixties’. Twentieth Century British History 22 (2011): 189-215.

Brown, Callum G. The Death of Christian Britain. London: Routledge, 2001.

Chambers. Iain. Popular Culture: The Metropolitan Experience 4^th edn. London: Routledge, 1993.

Collins, Marcus. The Permissive Society and Its Enemies: Sixties British Culture. London: Rivers Oram Press, 2007.

Cranston, Ros. ‘Up the Junction (1965)’. BFI: Screenonline. Accessed 16 March 2016; http://www.screenonline.org.uk.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/tv/id/440997/index.html

Davis, Christie. Permissive Britain: Social Change in the Sixties and Seventies. London: Pitman Publishing, 1975.

Hall, Lesley A. Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1800. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000.

Hampshire, James and Jane Lewis. ‘The Ravages of Permissiveness’: Sex Education and the Permissive Society’. Twentieth Century British History 15 (2004): 290-312.

Hill, John. ‘Blurring the Lines Between Fact and Fiction: Ken Russel, the BBC and Television Biography’. Journal of British Cinema and Television 12 (2015): 452-478.

Hill, John. Ken Loach: The Politics of Film and Television. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Kelly, Richard I. ‘Ken Loach Interview’. Sight & Sound 17 (2007): 30-33.

Marwick, Arthur. British Society since 1945 4^th edn. London: Penguin Books, 2003.

Marwick, Arthur. The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy and the United States, c. 1959-1974 2^nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

O’Sullivan, Tim. ‘Television Memories and Cultures of Viewing, 1859-1965’. In Popular Television in Britain: Studies in Cultural History, ed John Corner, 159-181. London: British Film Institute, 1991.

Sandbrook, Dominic. White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties. London: Abacus, 2006.

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Unknown. ‘The Yellow Teddy Bears (1963)’. IMDb. Accessed 16 March 2016; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058169/

 

Sex education in 1970s Britain. By Paige Chapman

In 1971, Dr Martin Cole released the sex education film Growing Up, which was the first non-pornographic film to be released in Britain that featured actual sexual intercourse and scenes of men and women masturbating. The explicitness of this film sent shockwaves across Britain and divided public opinion on the whether the themes explored in this film should be shown to school children. During these debates, the woman who took part in the masturbation sequence, Jennifer Muscutt, was dismissed from her position as a teacher by the Birmingham Education Authority. She was later reinstated due to the fact that when the film was made in 1969, Mrs Muscutt had recently left a career in public relations and was not a teacher.[1] This essay will focus on the debates surrounding Growing Up and more specifically, it shall look at how the media portrayed Jennifer Muscutt. By using Siân Nicholas’ method of examining how mass media’s connected and interacted, this essay will explore a number of different mediums such as film, documentaries and news broadcasts, in order to deduce what debates surrounding sex education in 1970s Britain were.[2]

This paper begins by comparing how sex education changed between the 1960s and 1970s, and it does this by focusing on 1960s sex education films and coverage, and the film Growing Up. Within this section, the essay will discuss how people reacted to these changes. Then the argument will go onto exploring ATV’s coverage of the Jennifer Muscutt controversy and whether this reflected people’s reactions to the changes in sex education. Ultimately, this piece supports James Hampshire’s argument that sex education changed dramatically during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and Martin Cole’s film was an exaggerated example of the new direction which sex education gradually moved towards. In turn, this sparked conflicting debates throughout Britain, as some moralist groups interpreted the film as pornographic, whereas others saw the film as enlightening and a necessity.[3] It can be seen that these debates surrounding sex education then translated into the coverage of the Jennifer Muscutt case, as ATV had conflicting and confusing portrayals of Mrs Muscutt and it can be seen that they were reluctant to portray her as entirely guilty or innocent.

Sex Education from the 1960s to the 1970s

During the 1960s, as Jeffrey Weeks has established, society appeared to be becoming more erotic due to a greater social acceptance of sexual expression and an increase in the explicitness of advertisement.[4] In turn, this led to an increasing anxiety surrounding youth’s sexual practises, and there was a fear that young women in particular were defying social respectability by being promiscuous and no longer waiting until marriage to have sex. Sex education in the early 1960s was relatively accepted across Britain, as many advocates for this teaching believed that it would be a solution to the ‘permissiveness’ of young people’s sexual practises, which they believed were immoral and damaging. Furthermore, in order to combat this, the sex education curriculum would shame young women who were curious about sex, or who fell pregnant before marriage. This is demonstrated in the 1963 Midlands News programme where Reg Harcourt asked a group of sixth form girls about their view of a sex film called The Yellow Teddybears.[5]

https://vimeo.com/117165892

All of the girls are positioned with their faces away from the camera, thus showing how shameful it for young women to be even discussing sex and pregnancy at this time. Harcourt asks questions such as ‘Do you think the problem [of teenage pregnancy] was put fairly?’, thus showing that teenage pregnancy was seen as an issue in the early 1960s, and the response of the young girls was that they believed that sex education films – like the one they saw – would fix this problem of teenage pregnancy. Therefore, sex education films during this period were used as a way to shame young people’s sexual practises and establish traditional gender roles.

Additionally, sex education was very clinical and scientific during the 1960s, with the focus on only informing young people about the biological facts of life. This is clearly visible in the sex education film Learning to Live (1964), as the voiceover discusses the bodily differences between males and females and reinforces the gender roles by saying all women will look forward to one day having babies.[6] Therefore, there was very little discussion about pleasure and emotions surrounding sexual activity. There was also an emphasis in sex education films and broadcasts that it is down to the parents to tell students ‘the full details’[7] of what sex is like, and sex education in schools should only supplement parents teaching of sex, as it is their role to teach the ‘right attitudes and right behaviour’.[8] This explains why sex education in the 1960s was very scientific and focused on how puberty changes the body, as it was the role of the parents to inform young people on the non-biological details of sex.

However, during the late 1960s and early 1970s sex education began to adopt a completely different direction than that outlined above. Due to the influence of the Women’s Liberation Movement and the emergence of the ideology that the private is political, sex education advocates were inspired to begin to discuss sex education more liberally, with a new focus on emotions and issues surrounding relationships.[9] Roger Davidson has argued that sex education was not completely different than that in the 1960s, as the general discourse surrounding sex education was still promoting the sexual purity of women, and sexual urges were still depicted negatively.[10] However, one film that completely undermines Davidson’s argument was Cole’s 1971 film, Growing Up. As mentioned before, the film was very explicit, with scenes of male and female masturbation, naked bodies showing how the genitals transform with age, and a couple having intercourse. Rather than trying to deter teenagers from having sex until they are married, in the voiceover Cole says that ‘by knowing more about yourselves, it is hoped you can enjoy making love when you are ready’.[11] Therefore, the film was seen to be promoting sex between young people, which was a radical concept in comparison to the earlier sex education films. Additionally, in an interview for Muther Grumble, Cole stated that the reason for such an explicit approach was ‘important, [it] was this function of trying to normalise all forms of sexual activity’.[12] Consequently, the film portrays young people’s sexual practices as normal and that sex can even be pleasurable, which is an idea unheard of in sex education previously and was a very radical concept for this period.

It can be argued therefore, that Cole’s film should be seen as acceptable due to the progressive attitudes towards sex that emerged during the late 1960s by the different liberation groups. However, as Weeks has explained, that there was a revival of evangelicalism moralism in the 1970s, and these moralist groups began to condemn sex education as causing the ‘permissive’ society. [13] Many moral traditionalist groups feared the new developments in sex education, and were worried about the content of sex education programmes such as those created by the BBC and ITV, which were released throughout the 1970s.[14] These groups especially targeted the content of Cole’s film. The most prolific group who condemned the film was Mary Whitehouse’s National Viewers and Listeners Association (NVLA), as they believed that this new type of sex education was a part of the moral degradation of British youth and Cole’s film was used as a prime example for this moral pollution.[15] This is evident within Whitehouse’s book Whatever Happened to Sex? (1977), as she states that ‘Whether this plant geneticist has ever considered that to face a child with a live, visual presentation of the adult sex act, and explicitly to demonstrate masturbation, is to run the risk of inhibiting normal emotional growth’.[16] Moreover, these negative reactions can be seen to stem from the idea of sex education possibly corrupting children.

Furthermore, with the increasing controversy surrounding the film, members of the public began to write to Dr Cole voicing their disgust. Some of these anonymous letters said that Cole should ‘be committed to a mental institution for treatment’, whereas others said he had ‘taken something beautiful and pure and belonging to marriage and love and emotions, and turned it into pornography’.[17] Pornography throughout the 1960s was more openly sold and became increasingly explicit.[18] Arguably, there was an influx of pornographic material which disguised itself as educational, for example Alex Comfort’s bestselling guide The Joy of Sex (1972) sold hundreds of thousands of copies in Britain.[19] Within the book, it is regularly emphasised that the guide was written by a medical professional, however the illustrations that accompanied the text were very graphic and not medical at all due to the lack of scientific annotations of the drawings.[20] Therefore, the letters written to Dr Cole show that negative reactions towards Growing Up partially originated from the belief that pornography was being disguised as sex education, which would then result in the corruption of school children.

On the other hand, the reaction to the film was not just negative, but as Dominic Sandbrook has stated ‘the audience of school teachers, educationalists, moral campaigners and wide-eyed teenagers watched [the film] with a reaction of fascination, horror and indifference.’[21] Margaret Thatcher, the Secretary of State for Education and Science, was very passive towards the film and did not condemn or praise the film. Instead, she stated that publicity surrounding Growing Up should not deter the public from the entire subject of sex education as ‘some very excellent work on sex education is being done in the schools in a way of which the parents approve and which is tasteful and satisfactory to all concerned’.[22] There were even positive reactions to the film which mostly originated from younger audiences. David Limond has shown that after a showing of the film at the University of Oxford, the student newspaper would joke that the couple engaging in intercourse were very athletic and caused every male audience member to doubt themselves.[23] This therefore shows their positive amusement towards the film. As well as this, Jane Caunt – a sixteen year old girl from Hertfordshire – said the film was ‘good’ and it was reported that teenage audiences were ‘unanimously supportive of [Cole’s] efforts’.[24] Thus, it has been argued that sex education took a new direction at the beginning of the 1970s, which can be clearly demonstrated with Cole’s film. As a result, there was a variety of conflicting and contradictory reactions to these films, and Growing Up was an excellent example of this.

ATV Today and Jennifer Muscutt

This essay shall now focus on the media portrayals of Jennifer Muscutt, the teacher who took part in the masturbation sequence within the film and was shortly dismissed – and then reinstated – from her position, and it shall assess whether these portrayals corresponded with the diverse reactions towards sex education that are outlined above. Hampshire has argued that the changes in sex education during the 1970s meant that some interpreted this as a new era of freedom, whereas others saw a nation in moral decline.[25] However, the media did not wholly support either of these views towards the Jennifer Muscutt scandal; instead it constantly changed its opinion on the matter, and would often contradict itself.

ATV Today particularly portrayed Jennifer Muscutt in such a way, which is especially evident during an interview with Mrs Muscutt’s husband when she was suspended. David McQueen has stated that during 1970s, current affair programmes would often explore controversial issues and exposed hidden scandals.[26]

https://vimeo.com/117168205

This is shown during the interview with Mrs Muscutt’s husband, as ATV was trying to make this scandal more controversial by demonstrating that her husband was supporting her, which is apparent in the final interview question ‘[The film] certainly doesn’t embarrass you or it won’t affect your marital relationship?’.[27] This shows that ATV presumed that her husband would not be supportive, and by her taking part in the film, she was ruining their relationship, thus they were portraying Mrs Muscutt’s actions negatively.

On the other hand, by not interviewing Mrs Muscutt’s for her own testimony and only her husband, ATV is ultimately portraying Mrs Muscutt first and foremost as a wife. Additionally, the opening shots in the interview are of the school which she works in and there are pupils waving out of windows. The interviewer asks questions such as ‘Don’t you feel that this will affect the relations between her and her pupils at school?’[28] and the result of these techniques emphasises Mrs Muscutt’s role as a teacher. Furthermore, by showing Jennifer Muscutt as not being a sex icon means that her actions are presented as not intentionally pornographic, which undermines the argument put forward by the NVLA that Growing Up was pornography in disguise. Additionally, when ATV did interview Jennifer Muscutt after she was reinstated into her teaching position, the interview portrays her as ditzy and dumb, by not cutting out unflattering shots of her pulling exasperated faces.[29]

https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117168207

By portraying her as naïve and dim, ATV is not condoning her actions, but instead they are making the statement that she did not understand that what she was doing was wrong, thus they appear to be disagreeing with the idea of her being dismissed, but simultaneously reproving the film.

To add to the further confusion of how ATV perceived Mrs Muscutt, a final interview with a spokesman from Aston University appears to depict her presence in the film in a positive light.

https://vimeo.com/117168206

The shots of the protestors who were outside of Jennifer Muscutt’s hearing are depicted as peaceful and orderly, as there is no rioting and little shouting occurring.[30] Additionally, the student who was interviewed was very well-spoken and the questions asked by the interviewer, unlike those in the previous two interviews, are not leading and show little bias on behalf of the interviewer, which makes the student’s point about Muscutt being reinstated seem more legitimate. In the interview, it is acknowledged that there was a petition calling for the appeal the dismissal of Jennifer Muscutt which had 3500 signatures. Therefore, ATV gave the opportunity for the protestors to voice their opinion, and interestingly, there was no opposing interviews of any parties who wanted Jennifer Muscutt dismissed permanently. This suggests that ATV was not opposed to her actions at all, but seem to support Jennifer Muscutt and want to see her reinstated. Moreover, D.L. LeMahieu has argued that mass media would regularly modify their outputs in response to changing public demands or opinions, and these three separate interviews supports this argument.[31] The interviews show that ATV was influenced by the general public consensus towards Growing Up and Jennifer Muscutt’s role in the film, as ATV had mixed portrayals of whether Muscutt’s actions in the film were appropriate.

Conclusion

To conclude, it can be argued that sex education during the 1970s took a completely new direction from the documentaries and films produced in the 1960s. In films such as Growing Up, there was a focus on the emotional aspects of sex and how to make it pleasurable, rather than the films produced in the 1960s which usually tried to persuade younger viewers to abstain from sex. However, due to this new type of sex education, this polarised public opinion into two groups, the traditional moralists who saw sex education, and Dr Cole’s film, as pornographic and damaging to schoolchildren, and the other groups who took either a passive, positive or amused view of the film. These public reactions influenced the coverage of the Jennifer Muscutt case in particular, as platforms such as ATV did not know how to portray her and the situation in its coverage, which is why there were often mixed messages within the footage.

 

[1] David Limond, ‘”I never imaged that the time would come”: Martin Cole, the Growing Up Controversy and the Limits of School Sex Education in 1970s England’, History of Education 37:3 (2008), 418.

[2] Siân Nicholas, ‘Media History or Media Histories?: Readdressing the history of the mass media in inter-war Britain’, Media History 18 (2012), 376.

[3] James Hampshire, ‘’The Ravages of Permissiveness’: Sex Education and the Permissive Society’, Twentieth Century British History 15:3 (2004), 292-3.

[4] Jeffrey Weeks, Sex, Politics & Society (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2012), 251.

[5] Midlands News, ‘Sex Film at the Cinephone’, first broadcast 15 November 1963, Media Archive for Central England (hereafter MACE), University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165892.

[6] Learning to Live, DVD, dir. Guy Fergusson and Phillip Sattin (UK, 2011) at 03:15.

[7] Look Around, ‘Sex Education,’ first broadcast 13 July 1962, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165893, at 04:08.

[8] Look Around, ‘Sex Education’, at 08:11.

[9] Callum Brown, ‘Sex, Religion, and the Single Woman c. 1950-75: The Importance of a ‘Short’ Sexual Revolution to the English Religious crisis of the Sixties’, Twentieth Century British History 22:2 (2011), 41.

[10] Roger Davidson, Shaping Sexual Knowledge: A Cultural History of Sex Education in Twentieth Century Europe (New York: Routledge, 2009), 104.

[11] Growing Up, DVD, dir. Martin Cole (UK, 2011) at 03:01.

[12] Unknown author, ‘Sex Education: An Interview with Dr Martin Cole’, Muther Grumble, Issue 6, June 1972, accessed 20 April 2016, http://www.muthergrumble.co.uk/issue06/mg0625.htm.

[13] Weeks, Sex, 273.

[14] Miriam Corrinne Morehart, ‘’Children Need Protection Not Perversion’: The Rise of the New Right and the Politicization of Morality in Sex Education in Great Britain, 1968-1989’ (Masters Diss., Portland State University, 2015), 66.

[15] Hampshire, ‘Ravages’, 292, and David Limond, ‘I hope someone castrates you, you perverted bastard’: Martin Cole’s Sex Education Film, Growing Up’, Sex Education 9:4 (2009), 411.

[16] Mary Whitehouse, Whatever Happened to Sex? (Hove: Wayland, 1977), 29.

[17] Katy McGahan, ‘Growing Up’, in The Birds and the Bees DVD information booklet, 31.

[18] Weeks, Sex, 280.

[19] Dominic Sandbrook, State of Emergency: The Way We Were: Britain, 1970-1974 (London: Allen Lane, 2010), 428.

[20] Alex Comfort, The Joy of Sex (London: Octopus Publishing Group, 1972).

[21] Sandbrook, Emergency, 420.

[22] Governmental debate about Sex Film ‘Growing Up’, 6 May 1971, available at http://goo.gl/zZ263v.

[23] Limond, ‘time would come’, 420.

[24] Sandbrook, Emergency, 421, and Limond, ‘castrates’, 413.

[25] Hampshire, ‘Ravages’, 296.

[26] David McQueen,’1970s Current Affairs – A Golden Age?’, in British Culture and Society in the 1970s: The Lost Decade, eds Laurel Foster and Sue Harper (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2010), 76.

[27] ATV Today, ‘Jennifer Muscutt Suspended,’ first broadcast 19 April 1971, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117168205, at 02:05.

[28] ATV Today, ‘Suspended’, at 00:43.

[29] ATV Today, ‘Jennifer Muscutt Interview,’ first broadcast 5 May 1971, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117168207, at 01:09.

[30] ATV Today, ‘Jennifer Muscutt Reinstated,’ first broadcast 5 May 1971, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117168206, at 00:28-00:38.

[31] D. L. LeMahieu, A Culture for Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 18.

 

 

Bibliography

• Arthurs, Jane. Television and Sexuality: Regulation and the Politics of Taste. New York: Open University Press, 2004.
• ATV Today, ‘Jennifer Muscutt Interview,’ first broadcast 5 May 1971, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117168207.
• ATV Today, ‘Jennifer Muscutt Reinstated,’ first broadcast 5 May 1971, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117168206.
• ATV Today, ‘Jennifer Muscutt Suspended,’ first broadcast 19 April 1971, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117168205.
• Brown, Callum C. ‘Sex, Religion, and the Single Woman c. 1950-75: The Importance of a ‘Short’ Sexual Revolution to the English Religious Crisis of the Sixties’. Twentieth Century British History22:2 (2011): 189-215.
• Carter, Cynthia and Stuart Allan. ‘The Visual Culture of Television News’. In Using Visual Evidence, eds Richard Howells and Robert W. Matson, 139-152. London: Open University Press, 2009.
• Cole, Martin. Growing Up. UK, 2011. DVD.
• Comfort, Alex. The Joy of Sex. London: Octopus Publishing Group, 1972.
• Curran, James and Jean Seaton. Power Without Responsibility: Press Broadcasting and the Internet in Britain. London: Routledge, 1997.
• Davidson, Roger. Shaping Sexual Knowledge: A Cultural History of Sex Education in Twentieth Century Europe. New York: Routledge, 2009.
• Davies, Christie. Permissive Britain: Social Change in the Sixties and Seventies. London: Pitman Publishing, 1975.
• Fergusson, Guy and Phillip Sattin. Learning to Live. UK, 2011. DVD.
• Hampshire, James. ‘The Ravages of Permissiveness: Sex Education and the Permissive Society’. Twentieth Century British History15:3 (2004): 290-312.
• LeMahieu, D. L. A Culture for Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
• Limond, David. ‘I hope someone castrates you, you perverted bastard’: Martin Cole’s Sex Education Film, Growing Up’. Sex Education 9:4 (2009): 409-419.
• Limond, David. ‘”I never imaged that the time would come”: Martin Cole, the Growing Up Controversy and the Limits of School Sex Education in 1970s England’. History of Education 37:3 (2008): 409-429.
• Look Around, ‘Sex Education,’ first broadcast 13 July 1962, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165893.
• McQueen, David. ’1970s Current Affairs – A Golden Age?’. In British Culture and Society in the 1970s: The Lost Decade, eds Laurel Foster and Sue Harper, 76-92. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2010.
• Midlands News, ‘Sex Film at the Cinephone’, first broadcast 15 November 1963, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165892.
• Morehart, Miriam Corrinne. ‘’Children Need Protection Not Perversion’: The Rise of the New Right and the Politicization of Morality in Sex Education in Great Britain, 1968-1989’. Masters Diss., Portland State University, 2015.
• Murray, Gillian. ‘Regional News and the Mid-Twentieth Century ‘Housewife’: Exploring the Legacy of Afternoon Television in Midlands News Programmes in the 1950s and 1960s’. Critical Studies in Television 9:2 (2014): 54-73.
• Nicholas, Siân. ‘Media History or Media Histories?: Readdressing the history of the mass media in inter-war Britain’. Media History18 (2012): 379-394.
• Sandbrook, Dominic. State of Emergency: The Way We Were: Britain, 1970-1974. London: Allen Lane, 2010.
• Sandbrook, Dominic. White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties. London: Little Brown, 2006.
• Seymour-Ure, Colin. The British Press and Broadcasting since 1945. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1991.
• Silies, Eva-Maria. ‘Taking the Pill after the ‘sexual revolution’: female contraceptive decisions in England and West Germany in the 1970s’. European Review of History 22:1 (2015): 41-59.
• Unknown author. ‘Sex Education: An Interview with Dr Martin Cole’. Muther Grumble. Issue 6. June 1972. Accessed 20 April 2016. http://www.muthergrumble.co.uk/issue06/mg0625.htm.
• Weeks, Jeffrey. Sex, Politics & Society: The regulation of sexuality since 1800. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2012.
• Whitehouse, Mary. Whatever Happened to Sex?. Hove: Wayland, 1977.

 

 

Look Around. 13.07.1962. Sex Education. By Paige Chapman.

https://vimeo.com/117165893

The 1962 Look Around segment explores the increasingly popular debate surrounding sex education within schools.^[1] It looks at topics such as whose responsibility it is to teach sex education and how to combat the ever-increasing ‘permissive’ society of the 1960s. The piece was shot in a documentary-style and it interviews a range of different people, such as qualified researchers, teachers, moral welfare workers, and parents. The documentary format, and the range of people the film consults, resulted in the show appearing to convey an objective stance on the issue, which means that the audience is more likely to agree with its message. However, this essay will suggest that the programme was not objective at all, instead the purpose of this segment was to persuade audiences that sex education should be taught in schools alongside parental teaching. In addition to this, the show depicts teenage sexuality negatively, as it demonstrates the belief that a regulated sex education can fix the ever-increasing ‘permissive’ society of 1960s Britain.

Sex education became a topic of interest because of the increasing fear that Britain was becoming a ‘permissive’ society during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Jeffrey Weeks has demonstrated that during this period, social life became increasingly erotic and sexually explicit.^[2] Arguably, this ‘permissive’ culture was a vehicle of liberation as there was a greater acceptance of sexual expression.^[3] However with this emerged a growing anxiety about this new ‘permissive’ society, and youth’s sexuality in particular provoked the fiercest debates. These anxieties stemmed from the increasing images in the media of young people, especially girls, breaking away from traditional societal structures and being promiscuous. The New Wave cinema which emerged in the late-1950s epitomised this, as films such as A Taste of Honey (1961) and A Kind of Loving (1962) dealt with issues such as teenage sex and illegitimate pregnancy. Therefore, the sexual practices among the young were increasingly depicted by the early 1960s media as uncontrollable, and those engaging in sex would cause teenage pregnancies and venereal diseases.

John Hill has argued that the press, film and television all created the association of the teenager with sexual immorality and violence.^[4] Arguably, the Look Around programme supports Hill’s idea and the media’s representation of teenage sexuality. It portrays ‘permissiveness’ as shameful which is evident within the final interview with Stella Hunt, a moral welfare officer, who consults the Church of England Moral Welfare Report of 1959 to state that there were 67.3% more cases of venereal diseases in boys since 1957, and 65% in girls.^[5] This rhetoric supports to the image that teenage immorality was on the rise, and the purpose of referring to these significantly large figures would presumably incite a reaction from the audience that the growing promiscuity of young people needs to be dealt with. Additionally, in the interview on Mary’s teenage pregnancy, Mary is positioned with her back towards the camera and her face is concealed throughout (see appendix 1). As she has to hide her identity, this creates the impression that it is still shameful for a teenager to get pregnant. This message is heightened with Mary’s voice being quieter than Stella’s, and, as her answers are not rehearsed, she stutters which makes her appear to be hesitant and childish. It emphasises her naivety, and in comparison to Stella’s confidence on camera, she is seen to be vulnerable. Ultimately, the interview portrays Mary as a child, which makes her pregnancy seem even more unacceptable.

One study conducted in the late 1940s showed that fewer than one in ten people received no sex education from their parents.^[6] Society began to believe that this lack of sex education contributed to the ‘permissiveness’ of teenagers, which is demonstrated in the Times article from 1961, as it says that ‘there was almost no more really adequate sex education given to children now than there was in the 1920s. It was the most terrible tragedy in the community if the young people ceased to feel that chastity and decency mattered’.^[7] James Hampshire also reiterates this, as he has argued that even though sex education was never an uncontroversial subject, policy-makers offered it as a solution to public health and social problems.^[8] The Look Around segment mirrors the Times’ positive view of sex education, as it argues that effective sex education can stop teenage immorality, as it establishes the ‘right attitudes and right behaviours’.^[9] The show legitimises the teaching of sex education by framing it as a biological subject. This is achieved through the interview with a qualified person, Mr W.A. Simpson. The show emphasises his scientific background by positioning him in an educational environment with books and graphs behind him in the frame (see appendix 2). As The Sex Education Act of 1944 left the content of the school curriculum unspecified and many teachers failed to carry out what was suggested in the Sex Education in Schools and Youth Organisations document^[10], this focus on legitimising sex education as a positive part of the school curriculum can suggest that the programme wanted to advocate a consistent teaching of sex education across all schools in Britain, in order to tackle the problem of teenage promiscuity.

On the other hand, even though the programme advocates a regulated teaching of biological sex education, the show tries not to spark any controversy with this idea. Hampshire has argued that the main disagreements over the implications of a regulated sex education was that there would be disagreements of schools intervening in an area traditionally viewed as a responsibility of the parents.^[11] Arguably, as Look Around was a regional current affairs programme which was broadcasted at 6:05pm, this shows that the segment was aimed specifically at parents, and therefore its purpose would be to convince parents that sex education in schools is necessary. The segment does this by emphasising regularly throughout the programme that the teaching is ‘designed only to supplement parent’s teaching’.^[12] Therefore, the need to persuade the show’s audience demonstrates that there was the anticipation that there would be a negative reaction towards the idea of a regulated sex education, which perhaps shows that people of the early 1960s Midlands may have a conservative attitude towards sex than what is presented in the media.

In Siân Nicholas’ article, she assess the interconnections between different mass medias.^[13] By taking on Nicholas’ method, it can be seen that the Look Around programme supports mass media’s positive attitude towards sex education, such as the New Wave cinema and the article in the Times. However, the segment does have some restrictions in the extent that it can push the idea of a regulated sex education, which may reflect the attitude of the regional audience towards the topic of teenagers’ sexuality. The show is significant as it can inform historians about the differing attitudes and concerns towards sex education and teenage sexuality at this time. It conveys an overall positive tone towards sex education, but young people’s sexuality is depicted as shameful, and needs to be fixed through proper school teaching. We can compare this attitude towards sex education portrayed by the media with those formed at the end of the decade when sex education became problematized, and moralists argued that education actually caused ‘permissiveness’, rather than prevented it.

Paige Chapman (History & Heritage, 2016)

 

^[1] Look Around, ‘Sex Education,’ first broadcast 13 July 1962, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165893.

^[2] Jeffrey Weeks, Sex, Politics & Society: The regulation of sexuality since 1800 (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2012), 251.

^[3] Andrew August, ‘Gender and the 1960s Youth Culture: The Rolling Stones and the New Woman’, Contemporary British History 23:1 (2009), 81.

^[4] John Hill, Sex, Class and Realism (London: British Film Institute, 1986), 13.

^[5] Look Around, ‘Sex Education,’ first broadcast 13 July 1962, Media Archive for Central England (hereafter MACE), University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165893.

^[6] Dominic Sandbrook, White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties (London: Little Brown, 2006), 279.

^[7] Our Special Correspondent, ‘V.D. Among The Young Worries Doctors’, Times, 18 July 1961, accessed 3 March 2016, http://find.galegroup.com/ttda/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=TTDA&userGroupName=ulh&tabID=T003&docPage=article&searchType=BasicSearchForm&docId=CS101277938&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0.

^[8] James Hampshire, ‘The Ravages of Permissiveness: Sex Education and the Permissive Society’, Twentieth Century British History 15:3 (2004), 290.

^[9] Look Around, ‘Sex Education’, at 08:12.

^[10] Weeks, Sex, 255-6.

^[11] Hampshire, ‘Ravages’, 293.

^[12] Look Around, ‘Sex Education’, at 05:55.

^[13] Siân Nicholas, ‘Media History or Media Histories?: Readdressing the history of the mass media in inter-war Britain’, Media History 18 (2012), 379.

 

Bibliography

• August, Andrew. ‘Gender and the 1960s Youth Culture: The Rolling Stones and the New Woman’. Contemporary British History 23:1 (2009): 79-100.
• Brown, Callum C. ‘Sex, Religion, and the Single Woman c. 1950-75: The Importance of a ‘Short’ Sexual Revolution to the English Religious Crisis of the Sixties’. Twentieth Century British History 22:2 (2011): 189-215.
• Dalzell-Ward, A. J. ‘Sex Education’. Times. 22 February 1960. Accessed 5 March 2016. http://find.galegroup.com/ttda/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=TTDA&userGroupName=ulh&tabID=T003&docPage=article&searchType=BasicSearchForm&docId=CS185687638&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0
• Donnelly, Mark. Sixties Britain: Culture, Society and Politics. Harlow: Longman, 2005.
• Hampshire, James. ‘The Ravages of Permissiveness: Sex Education and the Permissive Society’. Twentieth Century British History 15:3 (2004): 290-312.
• Hill, John. Sex, Class and Realism. London: British Film Institute, 1986.
• Luckett, Moya. ‘Sensuous Women and Single Girls: Reclaiming the Female Body on 1960s Television’, In Swinging Single: Representing Sexuality in the 1960s, eds Hilary Radner and Moya Luckett, 277-298. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999.
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