The Unpermissive Society

Precisely why society today should be described as “permissive” is far from clear. What is and what is not permitted by the social climate of a particular period inevitably changes, but the England of 1972 is in many respects far less permissive than England in the first decade of this century, the England of my youth.

There has been far less change in sexual permissiveness than is generally assumed. Some of the younger and less- informed champions of our miscalled permissive society appear to believe that in the Victorian and Edwardian ages, a young man who was detected in a liaison would meet with universal condemnation. All that interested the more dissolute of the friends of my youth was the permission not of society but of the particular young woman who was the object of their discreditable intentions.

SL

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Sir Arnold Lunn

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Precisely why society today should be described as “permissive” is far from clear. What is and what is not permitted by the social climate of a particular period inevitably changes, but the England of 1972 is in many respects far less permissive than England in the first decade of this century, the England of my youth.

There has been far less change in sexual permissiveness than is generally assumed. Some of the younger and less- informed champions of our miscalled permissive society appear to believe that in the Victorian and Edwardian ages, a young man who was detected in a liaison would meet with universal condemnation. All that interested the more dissolute of the friends of my youth was the permission not of society but of the particular young woman who was the object of their discreditable intentions.