The Sexiest Decade

[SouthernCrossfire]

The 1980s was sexiest decade in my recollection, but I must admit that I was too young through most of the 1960s to understand sex appeal, so maybe that's unfair to the 60s.

Regarding ogg's 1890s, it was an exciting time when things were changing quickly and women were becoming more sexual and sexualized in some parts of society. Having done quite a bit of research on the period in the United States, I've written one series of romantic (sexy but not erotic) stories on another website and have one story here (The Valentine's Dance) that takes place over a number of years following the American Civil War with it coming to a culmination in 1892 and 1893.

P.S. On Emily's list, while she may have looked more mature in the 1990s, Michelle Pfeiffer was on my radar for years in the 1980s, too, with Grease 2 [No, I didn't watch that one, but knew she'd been in it], Scarface, Ladyhawke, Dangerous Liaisons, The Fabulous Baker Boys, and more.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Dude, most millennials are in our thirties. We aren't listening to K-Pop

Interesting. I'd been reading millenials as anyone born around or after the turn of the milleniium - definitely after Gen X. I googled just now and it seems to include any born in the early 1980s as well. This seems way to old to me but you cant argue with Google.

Funny, I always thought I was Gen X (I went to see Wayne's World in the cinema goddam it)

The good news is having been born at the end of the 1970s, I'm apparently neither a boomer nor a millenial and thus can sit that conflict out.

I'll change my joke as soon as I've found a suitable term to refer to someone who is currently 17 years old. Aparantly the phrase is Generation Alpha, but no I refuse until the socioligists come up with something half-decent.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Interesting. I'd been reading millenials as anyone born around or after the turn of the milleniium - definitely after Gen X. I googled just now and it seems to include any born in the early 1980s as well. This seems way to old to me but you cant argue wit Google.

Funny, I always thought I was Gen X (I went to see Wayne's World in the cinema goddam it)

The good news is having been born at the end of the 1970s, I'm apparently neither a boomer nor a millenial and thus can sit that conflict out.

I'll change my joke as soon as I've found a suitable term to refer to someone who is currently 17 years old. Aparantly the phrase is Generation Alpha, but no I refuse until the socioligists come up with something half-decent.

We're Gen Y. Millennials are kids who graduated high school (basically turned 18, in American) round 2000.

I like to call us the Microserfs generation, because Douglas Coupland's sequel to Generation X came out when I was 20. I then read Gen X - it was definitely about people 10-20 years older.

 

[MrPixel]

 

[MrPixel]

I still hold that the 1970s were the sexiest decade, or at least the decade best known for open and relatively carefree sex, starting with The Pill in 1968, "the summer of love" in 1969, and Roe v. Wade in 1973. Herpes took the "carefree" part away in the hetero community ~1980 - still no cure, 43 years later - and the first reported case of what we now know as AIDS was in mid-1981.

That last stuff sort of put a damper on everybody's fun.

 

[Voboy]

I'll change my joke as soon as I've found a suitable term to refer to someone who is currently 17 years old. Aparantly the phrase is Generation Alpha, but no I refuse until the socioligists come up with something half-decent.

Lol.

Current 17-year olds are Generation Z. They don't particularly care whether you think that's decent or not. It's what they call themselves. If you call them milennials, they'll probably say, "Okay, Boomer." And you'll shake your fists and insist you're not a boomer, that they're mislabeling you, when the beauty is that it's the same thing you're doing to them.

I know. We've all been railing against "those damn Millennials" for a long time, and it feels and sounds right to us. But time marches on. The kids who infuriate you now? They're not Millennials. The Millennials are handling your mortgage already, or popping out kids, or styling your hair, or they're the RNs fluffing your pillow or changing your IV. They've aged. So have you.

Look, I enjoy being a curmudgeon too. But bitching about different generations is pointless.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Lol.

Current 17-year olds are Generation Z. They don't particularly care whether you think that's decent or not. It's what they call themselves. If you call them milennials, they'll probably say, "Okay, Boomer." And you'll shake your fists and insist you're not a boomer, that they're mislabeling you, when the beauty is that it's the same thing you're doing to them.

I know. We've all been railing against "those damn Millennials" for a long time, and it feels and sounds right to us. But time marches on. The kids who infuriate you now? They're not Millennials. The Millennials are handling your mortgage already, or popping out kids, or styling your hair, or they're the RNs fluffing your pillow or changing your IV. They've aged. So have you.

Look, I enjoy being a curmudgeon too. But bitching about different generations is pointless.

I wasn't bitching about them. My original joke was more in the spirit of praise. It does seem that I'm perpetually confused about terminology though. Calling ourselves Gen X Y and Z makes us sound like Pokemon.

 

[Voboy]

I wasn't bitching about them. My original joke was more in the spirit of praise. It does seem that I'm perpetually confused about terminology though. Calling ourselves Gen X Y and Z makes us sound like Pokemon.

X was because we didn't have a name, following the famous Greatest, Silent, and Boomer generations. I remember reading about this in the early '90s; demographers thought using X was clever, in the sense that we were undefined somehow.

Y followed because demographers got lazy, but everyone called them Millennials.

Then along came Z, which turned out to be huge. So they're called the Zoomers, after the Z, the Boomers who were also huge, and the idea that they went through Zoom classes during Covid.

Now we're past Z. So? They just started over with A. Alpha.

X is the only one without a nickname.

 

[Grendelpuppy]

HERE WE GO AGAIN by White Snake, unedited version where Tia Carerra has a nipple slip. Any videos of Stevie Nicks or Heart. Also LEGS by Zee Zee top. Am I dating myself?

 

[vanmyers86]

For me, the sexiest decade is any decade in which I am having sex.
OK, to answer the actual questions:
1. Probably the 1970s. Post-birth control pills, pre-AIDS, and after Roe v. Wade, abortion became safe and legal throughout the United States. It was a free-wheeling time, most of the baby boomers had come of age, and the sexual energy was off the charts. I remember feeling wistful when I became sexually active, because I never got to experience that freedom from worry about disease.
2. I don't remember basing any of my characters on celebrities. They don't interest me like people I know or see in my part of the world, or in the way that the characters who pop into my head do.
3. Most of my stories are set in the present or near-future. The only ones that aren't are No Men to Love and No Men to Love Chapter 2, which take place right after World War I in England. Those two were inspired by learning how English women coped with losing so many men of their generation to the Great War.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I was either not around, or barely able to talk or walk for the 1990s.

I was underage for all of the 2000s.

The 2020s have only just begun.

So I guess I have only one option…

Em

 

[nice90sguy]

So I guess I have only one option…

Em

Not sure why you have to restrict yourself to decades when you were alive?

 

[EmilyMiller]

Not sure why you have to restrict yourself to decades when you were alive?

Hard to experience them when you are not.

I’m sure the 1790s were super sexy.

Em

 

[KeithD]

Not sure why you have to restrict yourself to decades when you were alive?

As long as you are dealing with just impressions, there's no reason why you should restrict yourself on this. I would bet that the 1930s--the depression years--would have had sex very high on the activity list, as little else could be afforded.

 

[Euphony]

For me, 70s and I still wonder why.

I'm not of the proper age group for nostalgia and have limited exposure to content, especially adult, of the era.

Wasn't a fan of my proper contemporary (can't always get what you want but do get what you need) and look backs have only further entrenched my feelings.

I suppose more *natural* is the common reasoning but the 70s were hardly natural and the 80s were only unnatural in pockets.

A grungy but nothing more than lightly emo 90s was always intriguing in an unwrapping a gift sort of way. Especially if the attitudes engendered egalitarian vibes.

Nothing sexier than something that frees people to just be their complex, alluring natural selves.

 

[Grendelpuppy]

HERE WE GO AGAIN by White Snake, unedited version where Tia Carerra has a nipple slip. Any videos of Stevie Nicks or Heart. Also LEGS by Zee Zee top. Am I dating myself?

my bad.
not Tia Carrera.
Tawny Kutane (spelling?)

 

[Grendelpuppy]

Hard to experience them when you are not.

I’m sure the 1790s were super sexy.

Em

If you lived in New England during the 1600s to 1700s, bundling was a commonly accepted courtship ritual. young men who visited their girlfriends were often invited to spend the night. mom snd dad would bundle the young couple up in the girl's bed for the night.

 

[onehitwanda]

The 80's were the sexiest, for one very, very, terribly, gargantuanly important reason.

Michelle Pfeiffer was in her early twenties.

Edit: can I just say how nice it is to discover fellow connoisseurs here


Edit 2: oh my god brain can you just fucking learn to spell already god damn skippy.

 

[SimonDoom]

I was thinking more about this question, and I realized that, somewhat belying my claimed preference for the 70s-80s, with the exception of my fantasy stories and one story set in Spain, I've set all my stories in the present day. I've set none in the 70s or 80s. One reason is that it's easy to set a story in the present day, and I can be more confident that readers will understand what I'm writing. But the other reason is the existence of the Internet, email, and social media and the substantial role they play in my stories. In that sense I think the present day is very "sexy" because it's easy to write a sexy story set in the present day, because of all the plot elements once can glean from the present-day media environment.

 

[yowser]

Where S = sexiest decade, and A = date of puberty (plus five years) and decade = integer, then

S = A-1

You always just missed the best one.

 

[Scareltt]

How about The Summer of 69?

How old is Bryan Adams? Was he of legal age in 69?

 

[SimonDoom]

How about The Summer of 69?

How old is Bryan Adams? Was he of legal age in 69?

He turned 10, so no. He probably just thought it sounded good.

 

[Scareltt]

He turned 10, so no. He probably just thought it sounded good.

Yep I just checked myself..

He was 10 in the summer of 69…

 

[Grendelpuppy]

TCM just showed A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Lots of gratuitous, full frontal nudity of beautiful women. Neither anorexic nor obese. Obviously, no silicone. Natural pubic hair rather than shaved.

This was also the decade when Avril Lund won PENTHOUSE PET OF THE YEAR.