Sexuality and Politics around 1968: A Transnational History?

Recent historiography stresses the 'fundamentally transnational' character of '1968'. The revolt against traditional sexual mores in this vein appears to be one aspect of a transnational or even global 'youth revolt'. However, when looking beyond slogans such as 'Make love, not war' and the iconic images of Berlin's 'Kommune 1', we discover fundamental differences in the ways in which protest movements dealt with sexuality. While 'liberating' sexuality in the early 1960s became a core concern of the German New Left, the respective French and British movements paid the topic only scant attention. The article discusses causes and consequences of these divergent paths. It shows that in 1968, the prominence, strategic use and political concept of sexuality in the protests differed widely- A fact that should prompt us to reconsider accepted assumptions about the 'transnational' 1960s. © 2019 SAGE Publications.