Not to be too terribly nit-picky, but listening to the music that was playing during their college years in Carnal Knowledge, I think that it was supposed to be the post-war late '40s into the pre-rock'n'roll of the early '50s, which really did have "stifled sexual standards."
The later '50s loosened up with Elvis and Doo-Wop groups, the early to mid '60s were my college years with the Beatles and Rolling Stones, and by the time I graduated, it was "sex & drugs, & rock 'n' roll" ~~~ leading to Monterey Pop and many smaller rock concerts, hippies and the Summer of Love, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Woodstock with "free love" abounding throughout the mid-to-late '60s. I just don't perceive much of the '60s being remembered for "surpressed sexual desires," except for the very early '60s in the small towns!
You probably have a very good point with the concept of the divorce rate climbing in the '70s and thereafter! And my understanding of the years that were featured in CK started in the post-war'40s and continued until the early '70s when the sexual attitudes had definitely changed for many people.
Most of your other points about the movie are right on target. I just recall the '50s the way that you remember the '60s and the '60s as being the years of the "Sexual Revolution" and not as years of "Sexual Repression."
reply
share