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Sound Clip: The Groupies Excerpt by Margaret Noble.
Circa: 1969
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Sound Clip: The Groupies Excerpt by Margaret Noble.
Circa: 1969
It’s hard to convey what it was like back then at the dawn of the so called ‘sexual revolution’.
The advent of the pill, still when it was too early for young women to discover that there were lots of potential adverse side effects, meant that almost every young college girl or responsible hippy chick (in the parlance of the day) was on it. Just as the hippies threw themselves into experimentation with drugs to alter their conciousness, so, they threw themselves into sexuality to alter their conciousness. In all of that free spirited time, I don’t ever recall anyone having an STD, so there was no fear.
Nowadays, a young person takes their life in their hands when they have sex with someone they don’t know well. For all the titilation that abounds in advertising and entertainment, the era seems vastly more conservative.
Of course, my generation (the hippies) were also extremely dysfunctional and had all grown up in very puritanical 50′s american homes so there were huge downsides to all of the rampant drug use and sexuality…………not to mention the rise of the prevalence of STDs (notably Herpes) and eventually, AIDS.
Regarding the Groupies, middle class America and the press considered them to be sluts, whores, what have you………..but, really, most of the ones I met were really sincere, sweet and usually pretty intelligent hippy girls……….they were just experimenting and having fun. Rock and Roll was pretty sexy at that time……….the sexiest it had ever been.
Nice work, Margaret…..it takes me back.
HIV/AIDS is still rampant today and there is no cure for it. we need to practive safe sex all the time because an ounce of prevention is still better than a pound of cure.,,
Ah this is a brilliant recording. What a find
Do you have the rest of the recording? I love hearing snippets in time like this, even if I couldn’t have been there it fascinates me to know that it was happening, like a fly on the wall sort of thing!
warmest regards, Si
This record is on Ebay all the time!
HIV/AIDS is still a problem today despite huge medical advances, i am wondering if there would ever be a cure for this disease .
It is quite scary that there is still no cure for HIV/AIDS and the only way we can fight it is by prevention. How long will it take our scientists to develop a cure or vaccine for this disease?
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