Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Civilized Adultery (1970)

Futurism books and documentaries of the 1970s were adament that attitudes towards sex and sexuality would change drastically by the year 2000.

What I call civilized adultery will exist a great deal more in the 21st century. People will agree with each other, husbands and wives, to have adulterous affairs from time to time quite above board instead of having them secretly behind each other's backs. They will not get upset about these any more than lots of people in other societies in the past, and present, do not get upset about adulterous affairs.

The excerpt above is from an essay by Albert Ellis, featured in the 1970 book Prophecy for the Year 2000.

7 comments:

Adam Rice said...

This from the decade that gave us the "key party."

MattyMatt said...

I think this is the first prediction featured on this blog that has actually come true, at least for us here in San Francisco.

Anonymous said...

I don't think it's a good idea, until we see the end of the STD era.

Kozaburo Non-bu said...

Mattymatt: ditto

Anonymous said...

That's why I don't live in San Francisco.

veronica said...

I believe the author was describing polyamory.

Anonymous said...

Humans have not changed that much.

Anyone who thinks one partner who actually has feelings for the other would not care if that partner slept around is fooling themselves.

We're still a very jealous species. By all rights biologically, we should still be living in caves.