Catholic Understandings of Female Sexuality in 1960s Britain.

Abstract

Recent interpretations of religious change in modern Britain have stressed the importance of a sudden and abrupt 'sexual revolution' during the 1960s. The role the Churches played in bringing about their own demise remains a point of debate, particularly in the case of the Catholic Church. This article attempts to move beyond existing historical disputes over a 'religious crisis' and whether it was rooted in 'internal' causes (problems within the Church) or 'external', secular developments. It explores the way sexual knowledge was discussed and disseminated by Catholic authorities during this decade of perceived cultural transition, drawing on the previously unpublished papers of the Papal Commission for Birth Control 1963-5 and the training manuals of the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council (CMAC). These sources offer a unique insight into the often problematic task of reconciling Catholic thought with the discourses of 'sexual liberation'. While the central hierarchy's continued opposition to women's contraceptive autonomy has understandably dominated historical attention, the material presented here suggests that Catholic understandings of female sexuality were not universally at odds with the intellectual infrastructure of a 'sexual revolution'. On the question of female sexual pleasure, progressive Catholic authorities in both the Papal Commission and the CMAC made fervent efforts to engage with contemporary scientific modes of understanding. Perversely, this approach served to neglect certain aspects of corporeal and emotional experience, thereby limiting the case for meaningful doctrinal change.