The twentieth century has seen more changes than any other century in the history of mankind. And these changes have reflected in our values which too have changed drastically in the last fifty years. While our values regarding most of the social conventions have undergone some serious changes, nowhere is this change more apparent than in our attitudes regarding sex. The sexual permissiveness that we see around today was frowned upon even fifty years ago. Premarital sex, extramarital sex, alternate sexuality and other forms of sexual experimentation were on the fringes of society and definitely not acceptable in a decent, civilized world. In the 2008, people in California voted against same-sex marriages. The very fact that such a matter was put up for vote by the general public shows the huge shift in public attitude towards homosexuals, especially when we consider that as late as in 1984, an article published in the American Journal of Psychiatry purported to help cure homosexuals and help them “change there homosexual preference” (Schwartz & Masters 173). Another measure of this change in value is the teenager’s attitude towards sex. A study by Caron & Moskey found that while in 1950 about 73% of the teenagers believed that sex was acceptable only after marriage, in 2000, as many as 76% teenagers believed that it was alright to have sex once the relationship became serious (519). The survey also highlighted several other attitudinal shifts of the teenagers, like by 1975, teenagers could count on peer support on having sex, which was almost non existent in 1950s (518-519). Most of this change in attitude towards sex can be attributed to the so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s. However, the seeds of the change were laid in the 1950s when the “social mores and court decisions grew more liberal” (Calogero et al). Perhaps one of the first events which marked the beginning of this change was the publishing of the Kinsey Reports in 1948 and 1953. The Reports which consisted of two books, “Sexual behavior in human male” and “sexual behavior in human female”, covered such controversial topics as sexual orientation, extra-marital sex and sadomasochism (Kinsey Reports, Wikepedia). The books “brought sexual topics into widespread public discussion” (Francoeur, Koch & Weis 15) and paved the way for the further opening of the society in the coming years. There were other important developments in the 1950s, which must be mentioned in order to understand the changing values of the society. In 1953, the first issue of Playboy magazine was published. And in 1957, in the Roth v. United States , the Supreme Court set anew criteria for defining obsenity (Francoeur et al 16; Calogero et al). The 1960s are often remembered for the hippie culture and the “Sexual Revolution”. Perhaps the one event which was most responsible for this revolution was the invention of the hormonal contraceptive pill. The Pill took away the fear of pregnancy and being “found out”, allowing women to be more experimental. As the counter culture of the 1960s and 70s challenged the conventional social norms of 1950s, “free love” became a prominent phrase. Men and women intermingled freely, with little regard for the social