Title: Wallowing in Sex: The New Sexual Culture of 1970s American Television Author: Elana Levine Publisher: Duke University Press Publish Date: 2007 Pages: 320 Genres:: Pop culture, Gender Studies, History, Non-Fiction, Political Studies, Sociology Reviewer: SexHerald Staff

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Wallowing in Sex takes a comprehensive look at how television network shows in the 1970s both reflected and were shaped by the sexual revolution. It’s both an astute study of the topic based in personal response history (the author grew up watching 1970s television shows) and blast from the past. When the networks aired movies showing the suffering of exploited and neglected young women as runaway prostitutes, bullied juvenile hall residents, or targets of pedophiles, Levine writes, it may have resulted less in effectively cautioning younger viewers against sexual predators than sexually exciting them under the guise of public service. To be sure, concern for safety of younger people was not the only reason for the shows being on the air. If you also grew up inhaling TV during this period, personal memories of television shows and movies may come to you in a startling jolt.

Sexual coercion was an almost ubiquitous plot line, crossing and recrossing television genres from daytime television to movies of the week. One example of this is the eventual wedding of Luke and Laura, two characters on long-running soap opera The Young and the Restless, after he forces himself on her one night in a disco. In contrast, this era also heralded the rise of the female action figure, i.e. Charlie’s Angels and Wonder Woman and what was coined as “jiggle television,” referring to the focus on the sexual beauty of the actresses featured on the shows. Comedic sexuality as played out against the backdrop of an unconventional living arrangement (a straight man with two female roommates) as shown on the sitcom Three’s Company further stirred the sex pot. This viewer vividly remembers a two-part Different Strokes episode where Gary Coleman’s character is stunned by the sexual advances the friendly neighborhood bicycle shop owner makes to the character Dudley, his friend.

Levine looks at the irony of the networks and how they wound up in a way revictimizing through exposure the very victims they purported to be helping. This book also offers a glimpse into the mindset of the network executives at the time.

Letters written to the network at the time in protest against sexually explicit shows are revealing in the irony of their fear. Parents, religious, and concerned-citizen groups were afraid the shows on television meant to call attention to the plight of victims were in fact repeating the crime onscreen by showing their children a world they didn’t want them to see, much less be erotically stimulated by.

Levine’s coverage of the subject is most thorough giving an inside view to the motivations behind what drove countless CBS,  NBC and ABC executive decisions.