America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation by Elaine Tyler May

rate of

    out-of-wedlock births continued to rise. Some young women did not use contraceptives because they “resent the planned, deliberate aspect; they think it ‘nicer’ to get carried away on the spur of the moment.” Although the double standard persisted, the “old taboos are slowly beginning to disappear. . . . The long-standing cold war between men and women in the U.S. may be heading for a détente. ” 27
    But not all agreed that a sexual revolution was under way,
    or that the pill had anything to do with it. As late as 1968, Sci- ence News reported that in spite of the “floodtide of publicity over oral contraception and its moral impact,” the pill had had little effect on the sexual behavior of unmarried men and women. Noting that for nearly a century effective contracep- tive devices had been available to those who wanted to engage in sex and avoid pregnancy, the author claimed that “young people don’t generally base their decisions about sexual behav- ior on contraception.” 28
    Sociologist Ira Reiss, a leading expert on sexual behavior, suggested that changing cultural and religious values had a greater impact on sex among singles than the arrival of the pill. “Perhaps one or two percent of premarital sex incidents are due to the pill,” he asserted, but offered no evidence for that speculation. In his exhaustive study of nearly 3,000 unmarried women and men, he asked dozens of questions about sexual practices but nothing at all about contraception. Nevertheless, Reiss argued against the idea that a sexual revolution was tak- ing place. In 1968, he noted, 60 percent of female college stu- dents were virgins when they graduated, only a small change from the days before the pill was available. Clinical psycholo-

    gist Ernst Prelinger agreed that the pill did not create a sexual revolution. He speculated that young single women were re- luctant to use the pill because it “impairs the poetry of the ex- perience,” and they did not want to appear “always sexually ready.” This reluctance helped to explain the high rate of un- intended pregnancies in spite of the availability of the pill and other forms of birth control. 29
    When news reports suggested that the pill could be used to prevent pregnancy “the morning after” if taken in a large dose, one man wrote a letter to Playboy heralding the development as a means of avoiding the problem: “This . . . will mean that girls can safely say yes, without having to feel that their assent was premeditated. This will eliminate the guilt many now feel about taking the pill before they are sure it will be needed. What a relief it will be when there’s a medication that does not offend the female’s sensibility but safeguards her security.” Ac- cording to this man, a single woman who responsibly planned ahead for her sexual encounters would be plagued by “guilt,” but with the promise of retroactive contraception a man need not worry about seducing an innocent and unprotected “girl,” because she can take care of it after the fact. 30
    Whatever the reasons, large numbers of sexually active young women were not using birth control. A 1968 study of sex and pregnancy among teens found that few had access to family plan- ning programs, that they used birth control inconsistently if at all, and that they experienced high rates of contraceptive failure. Three years later, a survey revealed that more than one fourth of teenage women were sexually active but very few of them used contraceptives consistently. The researchers concluded that when

    “sexual encounters are episodic and, perhaps, unanticipated, pas- sion is apt to triumph over reason.” As late as 1972, a national survey found that three-fourths of sexually active young single women rarely or never used contraception. 31

    Clearly, the pill did not resolve the tensions and confusions that confronted young women during the “sex- ual revolution.” Responding to an Internet survey,