Erotic City: Sexual Revolutions and the Making of Modern San Francisco

by Josh Sides

Since the 1960s, San Francisco has been America's capital of sexual libertinism and a potent symbol in its culture wars. In this highly original book, Josh Sides explains how this happened, unearthing long-forgotten stories of the city's sexual revolutionaries, as well as the legions of
longtime San Franciscans who tried to protect their vision of a moral metropolis. Erotic dancers, prostitutes, birth control advocates, pornographers, free lovers, and gay libbers transformed San Francisco's political landscape and its neighborhoods in ways seldom appreciated. But as sex radicals
became more visible in the public spaces of the city, many San Franciscans reacted violently. The assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were but the most brazen acts in a city caught up in a battle over morality. Ultimately, Sides argues, one cannot understand the
evolution of postwar American cities without recognizing the profound role that sex has played. More broadly, one cannot understand modern American politics without taking into account the postwar transformation of San Francisco and other cities into both real and imagined repositories of
unfettered sexual desire.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, LGBT, Gender and Sexuality, Sexuality, American History, Queer

304 pages, Hardcover

First published September 21, 2009

About the author

Josh Sides is a Professor of History and Director for the Center for Southern California Studies at the California State University Northridge.

Reviews

[Debjit Sengupta · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a phase in life when most people are attracted to the world of erotica, kamasutra and pornography. If I replace it with one word it’s sexuality. The phase usually begins during adolescent stage and can recur again later. People want to see it , feel it and experience it. The sex cell of the body gets activated . Libidionious energy pumps up and grows stronger. Initial education about sexuality usually begins from erotic books and pornography videos. Let’s not discuss whether it’s the right mode of education or not. The books and videos do not restrict sexuality between couples only. There is infidelity. There is cheating. The orgy parties and swingers makes everything look so tempting . With each visual experience , the erotomania increases. The depicted contents transcend moral and ethical boundaries. The mantra is that there is no fun without sin. However the fun also comes with risk. Obviously the intention is to shield family from it’s harmful effect. So there is an element of malaise. There are conflicting thoughts. There is also school of thoughts, who find everything unsavory. These people were up against sexually maverick people who emerged and challenged unwritten social norms. Sexual revolution started germinating and one city became it’s epicenter. The name of the city is San Francisco. With the city as theme, the book talks about pioneers ,prostitution, pornography, homo sexuality, hippy culture, AIDS and Yippies.

It was during the period between World War I and late 1950 when municipal government, law enforcement, religious leaders and elites of the city sought to suppress human tendency to express sexual desires and identities. Such people were apprehensive about city’s tolerance level. Things were done in an clandestine manner. During the mentioned period, first sign of audacity was shown by an exotic dancer Sally Rand, who used to dance in a club, almost nude covering her breasts and genitalia with feathers. It was a daring act in those days standard. The real act of boldness and defiance was shown by Carlos Doda in mid 60’s. She started hitting the stage topless. Her swim and twist dances were a revelation. She was responsible for nightlife revival in the city. She is considered to be the opening shot of sexual revolution. In the next decade, spectacles of sexuality transformed urban life in San Francisco. Carlos Doda’s acts and similar performances by others drew tourists , servicemen and locals in huge numbers. The so called spectacle had come out to street and other public places from nightclubs. Topless clubs, adult bookstores , adult movie theaters, encounter studios(where patrons paid to converse with nude women), peep shows, strip clubs mushroomed in next few years. This was unimaginable at any other moment of city’s history. The gingerly acts were more public now which means that the critical dimension of sexual revolution was getting increasingly public in nature. Gays, lesbian and bisexuals felt empowered. The unmarried women felt more liberated in the matter of sex. Young men felt more ecstatic who crowded around these strip clubs and sex shops.

A department which vehemently opposed and abhorred such people was San Francisco Police Department(SPFD). Sexual permissiveness with the tacit support of politicians was always present in the city. Any ordinance outlawing prostitution or any obscene act was never seriously enforced by local administrator or SPFD. Prostitutes were beleaguered , just to discourage them from running their trade from specific streets and places.However, there was an attempt to maintain the city as morally clean and reputable. After World War I , erotic entertainment , homosexuality and prostitution were encumbered. SFPD suddenly became very stringent. Sally Rand (mentioned in the last paragraph) was arrested for performing obscene and immoral shows that’s SFPD considered offensive to public decency. Prostitutes were arrested, prosecuted and sentenced. Homosexuals lived in terrifying fear. However, there were social and legal changes which also signaled a new era in San Francisco policing.People were not arrested on the basis of their identity or practice. Arrests were made only if there was violation of law. The judges became less tolerant of SFPD abuses and intimidation. Sally Rand was acquitted and judges could not find any lewdness in nudity. They became more sympathetic especially towards homosexuals.Legal definition of obscenity was significantly reformulated on the eve of the sexual revolution.

The book is not only about nudity and public spectacles of sex. It includes savvy businessmen , movie makers, doctors , journalists and writers whose invigorating acts provided a fillip to the revolution and number of iconoclastic for the cause just proliferated. They defied moralists and law enforcers at times and corollary of their action was unimaginable responses. Let’s highlight some of them here. A lady named Sally Stanford ran a house of prostitution . The business thrived because she had a remarkable intuition and meticulous management. She was sensitive to the needs of men and was an expert in eleventh hour evasion of arrest. Already renowned Mitchell brothers started a theater which was nation first all-nude, alcohol free and lap dance theater. They then went one step ahead and started screening their own films. Most of the actress came from well off middle class families. The brothers are credited with revolutionizing commercial sex industry. A person who probably made maximum impact was Jefferson Poland. He supported the creation of Sexual Freedom League(SFL). While Stanford and Mitchell brothers did everything for their business interest only, Poland was tethered to the cause. He began hosting lectures on different topics. He advocated sexual freedom, legalization of prostitution, legalization of abortion, sex education in primary schools and eliminating laws that required wearing of clothes. He viewed sexual freedom as an important component of human liberation. He raised the profile of SFL. Though he was arrested, he continued to advocate public nudity. He also founded a church which consisted of SFL members, art students and new followers. It was during this time, the organized sex radicalism reached its zenith. The church was headed by Mother Boats- a war veteran and also became one of the most active organizers in the history of sex radicalism. He pushed for radicalism and performative sexual experimentation. He conducted nude rock and roll concerts which culminated into massive orgies that involved both straights ,heterosexuals and bi-sexual. This fused with marijuana consumption resulted in hedonistic pleasures. The flamboyant sex radicalism was also shared by self defined hippies. The postwar relocation and migration had resulted in rise of single mothers. Around this time, a family planning activist and a doctor by profession- Sadja Greenhood and her colleagues routinely performed abortion on demand. The birth control activist once faced strong resistance from religious leaders and medical fraternity too. However, softening of abortion act paved the way for Greenhood and other obstetricians to pursue their goals.

As mentioned before, there was a proliferation of pornographic objects. The blame for debauchery was put on class of people who were hippies, less educated and belonging to lower income groups. However survey made some interesting revelation. The patrons were however affluent, middle class, well educated and white- collar workers. The values of American youth was changing.

Homosexuality was mysterious and its shrouded nature was confirmed by homosexual men vanishing into the sidewalk .They were socially ostracized by friends and families, harassed by law enforcers and silenced by employers. This upshot was that these people suppressed their desires and entered into unfulfilling heterosexual relationship or suffered isolation. The city did provide them with anonymity and erotics possibility, desired by homosexuals. However like other places, there were campaigns running to forcibly suppress homosexuality and they were subjected to ceaseless harassment. They were rounded off for peccadilloes and sometimes no crime. In mid 1950, several lesbians started an organization named Daughters of Bilitis(DOB). It fought for giving lesbians interpersonal, social, economic and vocational identity. It laid foundation for emergence of much more sophisticated homofile organization like Society for Individual rights(SIR). In terms of membership and visibility, SIR superseded other homogeneous organizations. Such organizations did create a communication network among homosexuals and simultaneously raising their profile.

There was no stopping of sexual tsunami. It was moving at a galloping speed. Just then in late 70’s , new phenomenon came to the light of medical fraternity which halted its progress. The number of cases of amoebiaisis, giardiasis, shigellosis, Hepatatis A and Hepatatis B rose alarmingly. I had no idea about few of the diseases mentioned here. Most victims were gay. In the early 80’s , new symptoms were noticed which later came to be known as AIDS. Opportunistic disease like Kaposi sarcoma and pneumonia accompanied AIDS. There was fear and apprehension. There was confusion and death. Sexual revolution was coming to an end. Though unprotected sex especially among gay men were on decline but the disease had already ravaged the city. Sexual revolution promoted a culture and AIDS attacked and destroyed it. Soon, business services like banking and finance simultaneously with computer industry started making their presence felt in the city. Sexual revolution was now in a moribund stage.

In the mid 80’s a new urban class emerged which craved and thrived on prestige, social status, fame, glory, power and money. They were known as yuppie. They transformed the city with their affluence and and affinity for urban life. The transformation was of unimaginable proportion. Tastes were changing. Sexual urge never die down. The massage parlour soon became the model brothel. The advantage was that the massage parlour provided relative privacy, illusion of cleanliness and legitimacy.

During the sexual revolution, one public place that was thoroughly transformed was Golden Gate Park. The place was so dense and impassable that it provided limitless sexual possibility. The place was about taking drugs and experiencing other people. The events intensified erotism in the park. The beauty of anonymity let people experience freedom. Hippies started turning up in large numbers. The nudism and open sexual relationship took place with regularity. Hippies were emboldened with the spirit of the moment and the police were unable to catch them. Moral guardians of the city persistently complained about their uncouth activities and licentious ethos but without much success. For law enforcing agencies, this phalanx of people were a conundrum which was getting difficult to control. There was a sizable population who were beta-noire of hippies.

The journey from sexual deprivation to sexual freedom was interesting. The sexual revolution as discussed was not a revolution in private sexual behavior. On the contrary, it was public visibility of sex. This started fifty years back. I was wondering what would have been the scenario now had AIDS not played the spoilsport. The fear of the disease kept most people away from such spectacles. It never made a comeback to 1960-70’s level. We do hear about nude galleries, nude theaters and nude beaches but we seldom hear about group of people indulging in public sex. Even if parties involving drug and sex takes place, this may be done in private and with complete secrecy. The book has been beautifully packaged including every itsy bitsy detail. Read it with an open mind. Keep your moral and ethical cells of your body inactive. The narrations here are simple and as it is facts. Even though the book contains nude photos , it’s not on erotica genre. Moreover the pictures are themselves not seductive. Some of the facts can astonish you. This review anyway tells you what to expect from the book.

[Nils · Rating 3 out of 5]

A workmanlike history of sexual (and to a lesser extent, gender) nonconformism in San Francisco, which makes the case that sexual and political radicalism have always been bedfellows in San Francisco. There has always been a sizable subculture of sexual deviance in the City, but in the 1960s beginning with the hippies a lot of theatre and stigma dropped away, albeit to the face of great resistance by the old school Catholic political establishment, led by the likes of Dianne Feinstein, who campaigned unsuccessfully in the 1970s to prevent open sex work and sex shops along Market and Broadway, and more successfully in the 1980s to close gay bathhouses in the face of the AIDS epidemic. (The sexual revolution, particularly for gays, was also attended by significant interpersonal violence, often perpetrated by working class youth.)

As with many urban histories, the book suffers from a lack of comparative frame: how much was the sexual revolution in San Francisco part of a larger national trend, the leading edge of that trend, or a true outlier? The book never really attends to such questions, preferring to dwell in local anecdote and color.

[Boyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

San Francisco native Josh Sides has written a very interesting "sexual" history of SF. From Barbary Coast Days thru the sexual freedom days, Gay revolution, AIDS and today's massage parlors, the story is more complex than you might think. Entertaining and enlightening.

[Alissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

An enlightening portrait of the dynamic changes of San Francisco. Manages to look systematically and critically about how changing attitudes towards sex, sexuality and gender identity play out politically and culturally with a consistent look at the different impacts across racial and gender lines. There's a very critical take on second wave feminism and the systematic exclusion of transgender people. There's also a good amount of attention turned to bisexual activism and visibility. I might have liked to see a bit more on the role of BDSM, but that's a pretty minor complaint (and the Society of Janus is discussed and has plenty of resources on their website). It would also have been great to see more about how different Asian communities in the city were impacted, since that's such a large and visible minority in SF.

[Peter Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful and informative book about the sexual politics that have helped to shape modern San Francisco.

[Chuck · Rating 5 out of 5]

While cities in the United States tend to be fairly progressive when it comes sexuality and gender, San Francisco is doubtlessly the most progressive of them all. It is fabled for its tolerance and more closely identified with sexual liberation—particularly gay liberation—than any other city in the world. As such, it is a major destination for sexual radicals of all types and often used as a symbol of freedom or decline, depending on your perspective, in national battles over sexual mores.

But how exactly did it become such a city and at the cost of what efforts?

Josh Sides’s outstanding, newish book, Erotic City Sexual Revolutions and the Making of Modern San Francisco, goes a long way toward answering these questions and will likely be the definitive work on the topic for years to come. Though focused particularly on the sexual revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s, his study goes as far back as the skirmishes between sex radicals and conservatives in the mid-nineteenth century and right up to the debates about same-sex marriage that Proposition 8 sparked in 2008. It is truly comprehensive.

There are essentially three protagonists in the book: sex radicals, who self-consciously sought to transform sexual relationships; people employed in the sex industry (prostitutes, pornographers, etc), whose livelihoods put them at odds with prevailing norms; and conservatives. Sides’s sympathies clearly lay with the radicals but, to his credit, he concentrates on chronicling a story, not promoting a cause.

Sides shows not only that San Francisco’s sexual physiognomy changed over the years, but also helps explain why it changed. He does this not by focusing on major figures—Harvey Milk, for example—or the vicissitudes of legislation, but rather by looking at the manifold and often subterranean efforts made by activists, partisans, and even those unwittingly thrown into the drama, all of which cumulatively shifted the sexual tides of the city.

To do this, he had to conduct a prodigious amount of research and, indeed, he did: Sides draws from memoirs, newspaper records, interviews, direct observation, among many other sources. And yet, for all his scholarly thoroughness, the book remains highly readable and communicates that a moral drama of great import played out in the streets and bedrooms and barrooms of San Francisco.

Whether you are a scholar of sexual radicalism or just curious about the Bay Area, you will want to grab a copy of Erotic City: Sexual Revolutions and the Making of Modern San Francisco.

[Michael T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was fun and interesting. I had thought that San Francisco had it's wild, "anything goes" reputation continually since the days of the Gold Rush & the Barbary Coast. It turns out not to be the case. Between the 1906 earthquake & fire and the Summer of Love, San Francisco was not considered more of a city of libertines than any other major population center in the US. The Castro district, for instance, before 1970, was working class and primarily Irish & Catholic --the very demographic from whence came Dan White, murderer of George Moscone and Harvey Milk. And Josh Sides lays out pretty convincingly that , while Dan White was the most horrifyingly real incarnation of it, there was during the era of the late 70's, a climate of vigilantism, throughout the country, but particularly in San Francisco (no accident, for instance, that Dirty Harry was shot there) reflecting the tension of how far the sexual revolution was going to go in displacing the older, more conservative order. Dan White was the real life culmination of all of those tensions. A fascinating account & analysis, Well worth reading. Also a plus if, like myself, you are familiar with all the neighborhoods in San Francisco, and want to know more about their specific histories & evolution.

[6655321 · Rating 3 out of 5]

i *really* liked some parts of this book, esp. part 1, but then parts of it delve into a really conservative politics of sexuality and there is some serious sensationalism regarding hippie lifestyles (which isn't a lifestyle that i have any affinity for but it still is unnecessarily alarmist and shrill to claim it was common to dose children with LSD much as its apologist to claim this *never* happened) and some uncomfortable politics regarding POCs hostile response to gentrification that collapses the distinction between "anti-gentrification violence" (which, yes, in some cases had homophobic overtones) and like, the maintenance of white enclaves which aren't exactly the same thing... worth reading but some parts are kinda side eye worthy?

also like a lot of books on gay and lesbian sexual history trans* folx are completely written out for the most part, but i think that's part for the course...

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unlike other urban scholars who paint race as the key driver of city transformation, Sides argues that changes in sexual culture and morality, articulated by specific sexual radicals, drove the changing landscape of San Francisco. Full of interesting detail -- from the Barbary Coast to the Castro to sex positivist lesbian pornography -- Sides argues that the sexual revolution is not yet over and continues to change the Bay Area cityscape.