Female issues: sexual liberation from yesterday to today

Finally love without constraint!

May 1968.The extraordinary collective experience that was Expo 67 for Quebec reveals it to itself, it affirms its identity and its modernity.Like the rest of the Western world, it is in turmoil.Students invade the streets.The miniskirt is everywhere, a real emblem of the sexual revolution that sweeps.One by one, the taboos fall.

With us, sexual liberation is inseparable from the Quiet Revolution, according to Marion Bertrand-Huot, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Les 3 Sex Struggle for Sexual Health."Started in the early 1950s across the West, it gradually made its way in our province, which emerged from the nets of the Catholic religion," she said.

From then on, the idea of a sex life outside marriage becomes thinkable.No more question for Quebecers to have to respect the sacrament of marriage at all costs or to consent to all the desires of their husband.Contraception, still illegal, still benefits from great popularity.

In 1969, pushed by several years of social demands, Canada adopted "omnibus Bill", a vast reform decriminalizing, among other things, sexuality outside of marriage between consenting adults, medically prescribed abortion, as well as the sale and promotion of contraceptive means.A determining event in this sexual liberation.

For the first time, women become aware of their own sexual desire and their power over their sexuality."For a long time, their sexuality has only been at the service of men.As virginity before marriage was essential, they were encouraged to inhibit any form of desire.The sexual revolution will allow women to realize that they too have desires and impulses, and that sexuality is not only associated with reproduction, ”says Francine Descarries, sociologist and figurehead of feminist studiesQuebec.Women therefore go to discover their bodies, their pleasure and their enjoyment during the recent decades.Sexual toys focused on female pleasure are marketed.Recently, with friends, but also in the media, we are talking about the clitoris, the orgasm and the diversity of the means to achieve it.

Despite this considerable progress, the sexual revolution is far from over for women, whose body is still too often associated with maternity, according to Francine Descarries."We have 2,000 years of history anchored in body and mind.We will have to cross many generations before you can think of the vision of female and male sexualities as equivalent, ”she concludes.

Fluid, curious and asserted

A wind of change has been blowing in the bedrooms of Quebecers for the past 10 years.Better informed, young women show great curiosity, dare to talk more about their fantasies and do not hesitate to try various practices.

They are not the only ones.Almost 95 % of women have already masturbated, reveals a study conducted last January with 2,300 women from different countries.They were 80 % to assert the same thing in 2008. Parmi les femmes s’adonnant aux plaisirs solitaires, 78 % se caresseraient au moins une fois par mois, et plus du tiers au moins une fois par semaine, selon cette enquête publiée dans le Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy.

"For a long time, it was tolerated for men to masturbate to meet their needs, while the same practice was seen as deviant or disturbing in women.In the 1970s, we started to conceive that singles could have sexual needs.Today, even celebrities promote masturbation, "said sexologist Marion Bertrand-Huot.We only have to think of the actresses Emma Watson and Eva Longoria, as well as the singer Lady Gaga, who have all approached the subject in an interview.

This search for pleasure does not stop there.It is reflected in the choice of having or not having sexual intercourse."Previously, women mainly mentioned the importance of romantic feelings in the choice of their partners," she notes.Today, curiosity and pleasure are more and more considered, although it is not generalized.There is therefore an increase in so -called casual experiences, which are not part of a couple relationship.In Quebec, a study on sexual health carried out by the National Institute of Public Health with young adults in 2017 (Pixel) indicates that almost a third of women aged 21 to 29 had had more than one sex with afriend or knowledge ("sexual friend" or "fuck friend") in the past 12 months.

But the most significant change remains the greatest sexual fluidity, according to Marion Bertrand-Huot."Young women are less straight.They give themselves the right to experiment, without questioning their identity.An observation reflected in the data of the study of intimate and sexual relational journeys (in love), in which 6,000 Canadians took part, including a majority of Quebecers in their twenties.Among the participants identifying themselves as heterosexual, two in five say they are not "exclusively" attracted by men.

Almost 20 % of women aged 21 to 29 had a one -night sexual partner during the year.(Source: Pixel study, portrait of sexual health of young adults in Quebec, 2017)

A pill with great power

On June 10, 1960, Canada approved the first contraceptive pill.It is officially prescribed in order to regularize the menstrual cycle and remains only intended for married women.

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Although the Catholic Church condemns this method - and the prescription of the pill for contraceptive purposes remains illegal until 1969 -, the Canadian women adopted it with enthusiasm from the start.

"We don't say" get pregnant "for nothing!It is almost impossible for a woman today to imagine the anxiety of our mothers and our grandmothers before each return of menstruation.By making it possible to make love in relative security, the pill offers women for the first time the right to think about sexuality outside reproduction, "recalls sociologist Francine Descarries.

Since then, the small tablet continues to have the side.More than 1.3 million Canadians are now counting on this contraception, or 18 % of women aged 18 to 49, according to Statistics Canada.

However, this table is changing."Increasingly, doctors in family planning are encouraged to offer their patients the wide range possible contraceptive options, so that they can knowingly choose the method that suits them best,"Indicates Mariane Labrecque, spokesperson for the Quebec Federation for the birth of birth.

After that of the pill, another revolution in female medicine: emergency oral contraception, more commonly known as "tomorrow's pill".Marketed since 2001, the latter plays a big role in the limitation of unwanted pregnancies.In 2018, among women aged 17 to 29, one in five would have used it.

The battle for the right to abortion

Canada's first criminal code, which entered into force in 1892, is unequivocal.Anyone who tries to provoke an abortion is liable to imprisonment for life.The woman who tries to put an end to her pregnancy is exposed to a maximum of seven years of penitentiary.And she also exposes herself to prison if she allows a doctor to practice an abortion on her.

This extremely severe law will remain unchanged until 1969 and will break many lives."In 1966, the main cause of hospitalization of women in Canada was clandestine abortion.Several became infertile forever, "says Louise Desmarais, activist and author of the Battle of abortion-Quebec Chronicle (Les Éditions du Ressue-Ménage).

Faced with the large number of deaths associated with clandestine abortions, the government of Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau introduced in 1969, as part of his omnibus Bill, an exception to the law in order to decriminalize abortion in certain limited circumstances: pregnancy threatensthe health or life of women, it must be practiced by a doctor, in a hospital, and having been previously approved by a committee made up of at least three doctors.

"With hindsight, it is realized that this exception has been implemented only to protect doctors who already practiced therapeutic abortions.Unlike England at the same time, the law made no case of the circumstances of incest and rape, the economic situation of the family or the quality of life of the woman and her children already alive ”,she adds.

The women's movement continues over the following years to lead a fierce struggle throughout the country to have the right of the latter recognized in self -determination, as well as the physical and emotional integrity and the security of their person.These efforts will be rewarded in 1988 by the Supreme Court.The court declares that article 251, which hitherto criminalize abortion, is a deep interference with regard to the women's body, and therefore an attack on their security.

From then on, the use of abortion soar.Among women aged 20 to 24, a group in which the highest increase is observed, the rate of voluntary termination of pregnancy has more than doubled between 1988 and 1998.On the territory of Quebec, 49 clinics are emerging.

However, this ascending curve begins to decline.Since 2003, the abortion rate has decreased by 25 % among Quebecers aged 15 to 34."The latter of course have better access to contraception and information.But this decrease is mainly attributed to the fact that the number of women of childbearing age is decreasing, ”says Mariane Labrecque.

The after-#Moiaussi

Two words that ignited social networks and that have forever changed the way all, men and women, see the notion of consent.

October 15, 2017.Actress Alyssa Milano enjoins the victims of sexual assault to publish two words on Twitter: Me Too.It’s the surge.Celebrities, athletes, unknown: those who had never dared to speak break the silence thanks to the shock formula, which we owe to the African-American activist Tarana Burke.A wave of planetary denunciations floods social networks - in one year, #MeToo will be used more than 19 million times on Twitter.

Three years later, it is clear that what could have been limited to a collective release exercise had concrete impacts.Producer Harvey Weinstein, actor Bill Cosby, the sports doctor Larry Nassar: all guilty after very publicized trials!

In Quebec, assistance and combat centers of sexual assault (Calacs) have been overwhelmed."From October 16 to 26, 2017, there was an increase in new requests for aid varying from 100 % to 533 %," said AMA Maria Anney, of the Quebec Calacs grouping.

The organization draws up a nuanced assessment of #Moiaussi.Of course, we are delighted to see that women speak and seek help faster.But you still have to be able to help them!In the absence of sufficient means, the network still accuses important waiting times - up to 18 months depending on the region.Certain perverse effects have also been observed: trivialization of violence, media voyeurism, uneven compassion for racialized, trans, native women ...

"Rather than seeing a collective responsibility to be born in the face of a social problem, we see that the weight remained on the shoulders of the survivors," analyzes Ama Maria Anney.

And young people in all this ?Annick Kerschbaumer, sexologist for the Kamouraska-Rivière-Loup school service center, declares himself optimistic.Secondary students that she meets seem to have abandoned the attitude "what is happening in the party remains in the party"."They assert themselves more than before, for sure," she said.In fact, the second surge of reports from last summer, launched this time by millennaria.Chance also wanted that at the time of #Moiaussi, the Quebec Ministry of Education planned on the overhaul of the sexuality education program, which has become compulsory at the start of the 2018 school year."The planets were aligned!"She says.Because, inevitably, the issues raised tested its content."The concept of informed consent returns to several places in the program," she illustrates.So, even when the students will no longer know what #Moiaussi was, this heritage will remain.»»