What were the sexual politics of Gen X?

Fear.

R1 I was gonna say--AIDS.

Writing about it more than doing it - Susie Bright, Dan Savage, and a host of imitators

Who cares?

Condom code?

This makes Gen Z's fear of sex make a lot more as they were raised by Gen X.

And also milennial's apparent affinity for orgies.

Date rape as a comic trope, AIDS and pro-porn feminism.

[Quote]Date rape as a comic trope

Safe sex

R2 100%. AIDS. There isn’t even a close second.

Boomers and Milennials got the sex positive revolutions, Gen X and Gen Z got the sex negative revolutions.

Asking "Are you clean?" was just as good as a condom.

Definitely fear of AIDS. Otherwise, I would have come out at 18. I waited three years more, the point where it was either coming out or becoming a total basket case. I came out in 1990 and still faced so much prejudice because of AIDS.

I would have worn a body-covering condom if it had been available. The first time I had sex I demanded a condom for a blowjob (mine and his). The fear was incredible and ingrained.

AIDS? You're kidding, right? Straight people weren't worried about that. AIDS was a gay disease -- unless you were from Haiti, of course.

Gen X had sexual politics? I wasn't aware that Gen Xers had any politics at all, much less sexual politics.

AIDS first, of course, but there were certain young lesbians who chafed at their elders' complete banning of BDSM in the bedroom. There was a feminist magazine called "Off Our Backs" and the young leather dykes started a dirty mag called "On Our Backs."

It was hugely controversial; some bookstores refused to carry it and those that did faced criticism from the old guard.

R14 WTF are you talking about? Straight people were obsessively preoccupied with AIDS. Even the Golden Girls did an episode on it.

Just about every TV show in the 80s had an AIDS-related "very special episode".

[quote] AIDS? You're kidding, right? Straight people weren't worried about that. AIDS was a gay disease

Jason Sudakis was afraid of AIDS in that orgy movie. He said his generation grew up deathly afraid of sex because of AIDS. That’s why he was throwing the orgy.

Woodstock 99 was their moment (the straights)

R2 HIV!

I'll refrain from passing judgement as all previous generations has the same complaints about the younger generation. It happens.

Mono.

R19 It was a success.

Craving the liberation of causal sex, fearing a death sentence.

Whatever Police Academy told us.

It was HIV and AIDS - from 1982/3 to the late 90s. Almost 20 years of fear.

At the same time - teen pregnancies!

[quote][R14] WTF are you talking about? Straight people were obsessively preoccupied with AIDS. Even the Golden Girls did an episode on it.

[quote]Just about every TV show in the 80s had an AIDS-related "very special episode".

Movies too.

When Janeane Garofalo’s character gets an HIV test in “Reality Bites,” she calls it “the rite of passage for our generation.”

[quote]Every time I sneeze... it's like I'm four sneezes away from the hospice. And it's like it's not even happening to me. It's like I'm watching it on some crappy show... like "Melrose Place" or some shit, right? And I'm the new character. I'm the H.I.V.-A.I.D.S. character... and I live in the building, and I teach everybody... that it's OK to be near me, it's OK to talk to me... and then I die... and there's everybody at my funeral... wearing halter tops and chokers or some shit like that.

R27 - I was going to mention the Reality Bites clip in my post at R26. That was (supposedly) THE Gen X film.

I was all about Singles at the time, and didn’t even see Reality Bites until recently. Maybe you had to be there?

R29, I was still in high school when Singles was released, and it's been a while since I've watched it, but I remember a scene where Kyra Sedgwick meets "Mr. Sensitive Ponytail Man" at an on-campus event where condoms were everywhere. Someone may have even been dressed as a condom.

That old woman Kyra Sedgwick was playing a college student?!??

HBO After Hours, OP.

Reality Bites is only a definitive Gen X film in retrospect. It opened and closed in theaters without much attention. The Lisa Loeb song was ten times more popular.

That Boomers free love shit is a myth. I mean them educated ones at prestigious universities laid the foundation but that generation is conservative as fuck. Even the blacks, they just ain’t got vote that way. The first free love hippie Boomer president told gays to have seats in the back of the bus and made his interns suck his mafuckin dick lol. 😂 ok they enjoyed it but still.

If anything the real hippies were young Gen X and Millenials, because we practiced what we preached and have the numbers to back it up. We elected Obama twice and were the core demographic to support gay marriage. We did all kinds of responsible shit in the 90s regarding the environment. Boomers and I must have my own RV, 2nd home, 2nd midsize luxury opposed the shit every step of the way. The only reason this false narrative exists is because Hollywood, and tastemaker class of Boomers is liberal as fuck. But they are the polar opposite of the regular boomer. Hollywood sells ideals though. It’s just like in the 90s, you would think most white people in their 30s didn’t have children if you watched tv. No. They’re focusing on the professional class of LA and New York. That wasn’t the typical white person even one with a well paying job.

Sloppiness and slut shaming.

Or maybe they were too busy enjoying their lives to really think about it.

I’m a millennial, and I suppose I’m not surprised that AIDS gets mentioned first for Gen X. But growing up, from the outside looking in, Gen X always struck me as sex-positive and even dominant compared to my generation.

They had Madonna, MTV, Howard Stern, porn going mainstream via VHS and DVDs, the explosion of porn mags in the ’80s and ’90s, open discussions about sex on TV, safe sex PSAs, late-night sex hotlines, Skinemax, Showgirls, Basic Instinct, Lil’ Kim…

It felt like Gen X owned their sexuality in a bold, unapologetic way—maybe even because of the threat of AIDS, not in spite of it.

But Gen Z? Least sexually active of all, yet somehow the most hyper-aware of everything sexual. They’ve been raised to see assault and grooming around every corner—which, sure, awareness is good, but now everyone’s too terrified to flirt. It’s like they inherited the internet but forgot how to touch.

Gen X was terrified of sex bc of AIDS, but because you couldn't stay home and jack to internet porn — at least, not until the youngest Gen Xers were well into college — you still had to go out and meet people to get off during your formative years.

[Quote] What were the sexual politics of Gen X?

My penis is a Democrat but my testicles are Independent.

SPRING BREAK!!!

MANY college-age Gen-X women were super sexually aggressive, as well as the guys. For str8s, it was pre- "Girls Gone Wild" promiscuous. The sexual revolution was in full swing. Bars and fraternity parties in the late 80s and 90s were veritable fleshpots. I knew/know several Gen-X women who were on The Pill, had lots of sex, some had abortions of convenience and went on to vote for The Rump three times. Read the transcripts of the Kavanaugh SCOTUS hearings for a str8 male perspective.

Many educated women found a way to thrive in the patriarchy, and didn't care about preserving the rights they enjoyed for future generations. It pisses me off, given where we are now.

R40 Such an interesting point. The sexual culture of the 80s was this bizarre dichotomy of fear and raunch, in the same way the economic culture of the 80s was a bizarre dichotomy of austerity and opulence.

Thank Lucifer I was way too interested in clubbing, going to authentic warehouse raves, and doing truckloads of drugs.

[quote] Just about every TV show in the 80s had an AIDS-related "very special episode".

Mr. Belvedere handled it best.

Sex is bad. Sex will kill your. Don’t have sex.

Straight people were worried about AIDS.

Rubber Love

I tried looking for it on the interwebs and couldn’t find it, but straight people were so scared of contracting AIDS from handshakes and kisses in the 80s there was PSA song put out to calm them the fuck down and the chorus was something like “AIDS is hard to get. AIDS is hard to get. It’s hard to get. It’s hard to get.”