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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FEM1970 (The Discovery of Pleasure. Female Sexuality and Value Change in West Germany and Italy in the Long Seventies)

Teaser

Summary

This project has received funding from the European Unionâ€™s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie SkÅ‚odowska-Curie grant agreement No 748862. Its aim was to confirm a transformation in public representations and social behaviour as regards female sexuality in two European countries, Italy and West Germany, and compare them. The research identified radical cultural and conceptual changes in both countries, with the emergence in public opinion of a view of female sexuality no longer tied to marital reproduction, but instead as a physical and psychic experience oriented towards the expression of individual potential and the construction of the personal identity of women. This phenomenon occurred within the context of a European transformation that included male sexuality, and it resulted in the cultural resolution of a widespread double standard in European and Western culture. Starting from the mid 1970s consumption, media, TV, advertising, and the press directed towards diverse sectors of the public in both countries contributed to a reformulation of female sexuality and its social functions, with significant consequences in both national contexts. An analysis of autobiographical sources, national statistics, surveys and enquiries conducted during that period confirmed the changes in behaviour and habits, especially among the generation born in the 1950s. In both countries the reactions of the generations born in the 1940s were instead very critical with strong commitments to earlier traditions. In response to the shared public inclination to acknowledge the value of women\'s sexual freedom, each country developed its own peculiar trends and contradictions. The general vulgarization and commercialization of female sexuality was expressed differently in each of the two countries, with greater emphasis on eroticism in Italy, and a more voyeuristic racism in Germany. We believe that the results obtained help to interpret the processes of transformation of sexuality in Western society, and considering the most recent developments associated with the spread and easy access of sex on social networks and internet, they merit further dissemination in the future in both the academic and public spheres.

Work performed

The project embraced a wide variety of research including online databases, archives and libraries in Italy, Germany, and Great Britain. Analysis was carried out on national statistics, surveys, and enquiries into the distribution of marriage, divorce, fertility, and abortion in the respective national populations distinguished by gender and from a long term perspective. These were compared with statistical service data from France, England, and Wales, making it possible to identify shared trends and national traits within the context of a general European transformation expressed in each country on a different timescale. The reception of the revolutionary studies by the American biologist Alfred Kinsey in Italy and Western Germany in the late 1960s, combined with the impact of media and consumption on the popularization of the theme of sexuality and its representation, helped redefine the public inception of the forms, concepts, and idioms of female sexuality, releasing a desire for change that had been frustrated up until the Second World War. An examination of magazines aimed at women, young people, intellectuals, political debate, and for middle and working class families in both countries revealed distinct characteristics and mechanisms of reconceptualization of the female body and sexuality according to social position and role, generation, and gender. Advertising, consumption, and images played a decisive role in this process of reconceptualization. Consultation of egodocuments preserved at the National Diary Archive of Pieve Santo Stefano in Italy, and of Emmendingen in Germany, the archives of the Feminist Documentation and Information CentreÂ (Frauenforschungs-, Bildungs- und Informationszentrum, or FFBIZ), and the Feminist Women\'s Health Centre (Feministisches Frauengesundheitszentrum, or FFGZ), literature from agencies for sexual counselling like the Association for Demographic Education (AIED) in Italy, and Pro Familia in West Germany, allowed an assessment of the impact of the conceptual paradigm shift in society. The sources suggest that men and women born in the 1950s showed the largest degree of modification in sexual behaviour and habits, expressed in different ways according to gender, geography, and social role. There were similarities between the populations of the two countries, suggesting that there were particular reasons and opportunities for change specific to this period.
During the 1960s and 1970s female sexuality underwent a radical reconception in both Italy and Germany. The most common and widely shared current conceptions can be traced back to this turning point. The social consequences of the reconception were very contradictory and diversified according to the generation and area of the country involved, but with consequences that influenced attitudes and trends across all of society of both countries.

Final results

The results of the FEM1970 project confirmed and exceeded all the expected social and cultural observations. An epochal transformation in female sexuality was verified, with the end of the social double standard, and dispelling a perception of female sexuality as either reproductive or deviant dating back to the 1800s and early 1900s. In addition, it was also possible to discern political and institutional implications for governments of Western societies deriving from the changes in the sexual sphere during the 1960s and 1970s. It was the end of a society organized exclusively around marriage based families, and the affirmation of new social actors detached from the old model of social and moral order. These included singles, new social actors legitimized in their role by an acceptance of sexual freedom. The developments of these two decades still condition current Western societies today. The study of sexuality thus offered a privileged perspective on social history, capable of giving new insights into social issues that are not always possible when observed through the conceptual lenses of institutional social policies. We hope that in the future more detailed studies into the inter-relations between social history, sexual history, political and institutional history might offer further and ulterior research opportunities, possibly with implications for government policies.