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Notes -
The sexual revolution began in the mid-1960s, but if you look at population data on partner count and other indicators of promiscuity it didn’t really ‘filter down’ to the masses until well into the ‘70s. After that you had this 20 year period where sex™️ (as something distinct from both marriage and prostitution, which were the two longstanding formats) was new and interesting and a big part of the public consciousness, as reflected in media and art and so on.
Over time, people got bored of this emphasis. Casual sex went from something new and exciting that your parents never did to something your parents did a lot of when they were at Woodstock or hitchhiking to artistic communes in the ‘70s. It’s no surprise that despite increasing general social liberalization, hookup apps and so on, Generation X was actually the most promiscuous generation, because Gen X’s parents (the silent generation) were the last generation to grow up before the sexual revolution.
I know that both of my parents were substantially more promiscuous than me in their youth. And it’s not like they shared horror stories or anything. They both turned out to be broadly well-adjusted and successful people. But there’s nothing original about [soyface] SECKS now; you’re not sticking it to the man, to Dad, to God, to those prude teachers. Everyone’s telling you sex is fine, normal, boring.
When James Bond hooked up with women in the early ‘60s, hookup culture was genuinely not something that the great majority of men had access to unless they were in a handful of artistic/hedonistic circles in a few big cities (Mad Men kind of portrays this transition well). Today, sure, the average guy can’t sleep with Eva Green, but if he’s halfway attractive and has the most basic game it’s just a matter of getting drunk and taking someone home from a party or a club. James Bond still gets to be exciting, but that’s because he’s a secret agent, not because he has sex.
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