History Paper Proposal
rough outline for a potential research paper
I am very interested in focusing on female sexuality in the mid 20th century America. More specifically, the emergence of ‘sexual’ knowledge based on research by sexologists like the infamous Alfred Kinsey, that allows the sexual revolution of the 1960s to blast its way through culture and society. The way in which Americans, especially females, were influenced and impacted by this revolution is what I plan on focusing my paper on.
I feel as if I should note that currently, I am unsure if I want to touch upon a narrower topic like female sexual orientation or female sexual practices (ie, masturbation or the orgasm).
Moreover, the main questions I will be addressing in this paper are why the female sexual liberation movement is viewed in a different light than that of the male sexual liberation movement. Why is there a different perception about the sexually active male versus the sexually active female? Why were people so eager to understand the male sex drive, but not the female? Why is there still a stigma on females regarding sex and sexuality? When did sexual liberation become a faux pas for females?
rough draft of a bibliography
Kinsey, Alfred. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. Philadelphia, PA: W.B. Saunders;
1953.
The Kinsey Institute: http://www.indiana.edu/~kinsey/index.html
Klepacki, Linda. A Look at the Sexual Revolution in the United States. October 29, 2007.
Online Available:
August 29, 2005.
Rich, Frank. The Plot Against Sex in America. October 29, 2007. Online Available:
December 12, 2004.
Richardson, Diane. Constructing sexual citizenship: theorizing sexual rights. Online
Available: ; Critical Social
Policy, Vol. 20, No. 1, 105-135 (2000).
Ross, Ellen and Rayna Rapp Sex and Society: A Research Note from Social History and
Anthropology. Online Available: ; Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Jan, 1981), pp. 51-72.
