“The counterculture represented a complex continuation of the sexual revolution that had been working its way through American culture since the beginning of the twentieth century. By the 1960s the association between pleasure, consumption, and heterosexuality thoroughly permeated popular culture. With the availability of the birth control pill in 1960, for the first time contraception could be separated from any specific sexual interaction and could be almost 100 percent effective. Heralded as ‘the perfect contraceptive,” the pill made it possible for women to separate sexuality and procreation with a confidence never before known. Yet, as young people experimented with new frontiers of sexual freedom, they did so with no critique or reevaluation of female sexuality. Instead, the promiscuity, emotional detachment, and consumption orientation associated with cultural definitions of male sexuality became defined as sexual ‘freedom.’ Women raised with needs for security and affection found themselves accused of being ‘uptight’ and ‘out of it.’ In the midst of these new pressures some did indeed explore new dimensions of themselves, others withdrew in distrust, and still other experienced what they would later name as abuse.” – Sara M. Evans, “Women at War: The 1940s,” Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America