The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny

by William Strauss

The midlife Silent discovered eros with the zest that comes to those who have missed it in their own youth. Fortyish men studied to become expert lovers, and “liberated” males pursued what John Updike called a “Post-Pill Paradise.” Barrier-busting impresarios launched Playboy clubs, R-rated movies, and nude plays on Broadway. Looking up and down the age ladder for cues, Silent men assembled a composite definition of masculinity. The result was a hodgepodge of role models who combined G.I. confidence with Boomer sensitivity (Merlin Olsen, Carl Sagan), G.I. machismo with Boomer judgmentalism (Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson), or a neurotic muddle (Alan Alda, Woody Allen). Others became America’s first “out of the closet” gay politicians (Harvey Milk, Barney Frank) and celebrity transvestites (Christine Jorgensen, Renée Richards). Thus whipsawed, many Silent felt like one of Gail Sheehy’s subjects who wished “somebody would let me be what I am, tender sometimes, and dependent, too, but also vain and greedy and jealous and competitive.” Many Silent women resented having allowed themselves to become Stepford Wives, limited to household chores and child care while their husbands’ careers soared. And many looked more skeptically upon vows of fealty in an era when many a midlife married man succumbed to what Barbara Gordon called “Jennifer Fever,” an attraction to sexually liberated younger women. The youngest- and most-married female generation in U.S. history began prefixing the...