The sexual revolution, also called sexual liberation, was a social movement that changed how people thought about sex and relationships in the Western world from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. This movement led to greater acceptance of sexual activity outside of traditional heterosexual, monogamous relationships, such as marriage. The legalization of “the pill” and other birth control methods, along with changes in attitudes toward public nudity, pornography, premarital sex, homosexuality, masturbation, different types of sexual relationships, and abortion, followed these changes.