Responsible Pleasure : The Brook Advisory Centres and Youth Sexuality in Postwar Britain

Abstract

This book is a sociocultural history of young people’s sexuality in Britain from the 1960s to the 1990s, using the Brook Advisory Centre (Brook) as a case study. The book examines how and why cultural and social norms about young people’s sexuality changed over a period that has traditionally been associated with growing ‘permissiveness’ and sexual liberation. It does so by focusing on a pioneering sexual health charity operating on the cusp of voluntary and state-financed sectors. From the opening of its first centre in London—followed by other centres including Birmingham (1966), Bristol (1968), and Edinburgh (1968)—to the present day, Brook has been a major provider of contraceptive advice and sexual counselling to unmarried people and teenagers. Brook pioneered an initiative that would form the primary model for the provision of advice on contraception for teenagers in Britain. To this day, the charity remains a key player in sexual health services. Although Brook has provoked fierce opposition and triggered recurrent public debates on teenage sexuality, little is known of its history. As a non-governmental organization, Brook offers a fascinating case study to explore the relationship between changing sexual cultures, sexual politics, and young people’s sexual experiences, intimacy, and subjectivities. Drawing on a wide range of archived and published materials, as well as oral history interviews conducted by the author, this book provides a substantial and original contribution to scholarship on the forging of the modern sexual subject.