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Oral Contraceptive Pill And Its Effects On The Way Different People Experience Sexuality Essay

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Technological advances in terms of contraception have impacted on the way different people experience sexuality throughout history, but the extent to which they shape these experiences is a highly contested topic. The introduction of the oral contraceptive pill in the early 1960s is often attributed as the spark of the ‘sexual revolution’ as it put the power of a woman’s fertility in her hands, but I will argue that the feminist movement of the 1970s (as a social factor) had more of an effect on the sexual freedom of women than the contraceptive pill (as a technological factor). The pill provided a safety net against the ever-looming threat of pregnancy, and a method in which to exercise female sexual control, while feminism gave rise to the social conditions that allowed for them to exert that freedom. By many people looking back, the pill is seen as placing the ultimate control of fertility in the hands of women (Sexual Revolution turns 50, 2010; A Prescription for Revolution, 1993), but many women at the time saw little change directly related to the introduction of the pill. The 1960s are often referred to as the ‘sexual revolution’, a phrase which conjures images of freedom and sexual anarchy. The stuff.co.nz article ‘Sexual Revolution turns 50’ celebrates the introduction of the pill as the launch of a sexual revolution and Dr Weisberg suggests that the pill eliminated the threat of pregnancy and therefore opened up sex as an area for more than just reproduction.

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