Sexual Revolution and CootiesWhy We Die

November 11, 2014

Before the Revolution

• Oldest anti-adultery laws from Ancient Babylon (BCE 2100-1700).

• Continued with Assyrians, Egyptians, Jews, Greeks, Romans.

• This followed the Germanic Tribes across Europe to the Franks, Jutes, Goths, and Saxons.

• The earliest English law codes involved the buying and selling of women.

Before the Revolution

• Ethelbert, Anglo-Saxon king of Kent circa 602 –laws concerning adultery –

• Such laws continued and worsened into the Middle Ages. – Public beating for offenders and whores

– Special torture devices

Before the Revolution

• The Protestant Reformation began during the 1500s – thought Catholics too lax and priests were lecherous parasites

• The spread of syphilis in the 1500s increased fear of unmarried sex

Before the Revolution

• Illicit sex invaded property rights:

• Whoredom spread venereal disease and led to discord in families, lying, drunkenness, infanticide, theft, and murder

• It destroyed families and the social order• In economic and social terms, society made up of

families and households, not individuals

The Revolution Begins

• Sexual revolution began with the Enlightenment – became a more private matter

• Victorian Era – 1st sexual revolution 1870-1910• Freud (1856-1939)• Eradication of syphilis by penicillin in 1910• Playboy 1953, 1st pubs shown 1971• The pill 1960• Increases in literacy and declines in religion• 2nd revolution – 1960-1980 – ended by AIDS,

megachurches, and televangelists – began by Gay rights, women’s movement, sex manuals

Why We Die

• Organisms grow old because nature doesn't need them any more.

• Selfish gene theory –

• Immortality

Life Expectancy for US Women,

by County

Life Expectancy for US Men, by

County