The most striking part in “American Moderns” was, to me, the drastic rise in public admittance of sexuality as bohemia and new ideas arose. Obviously, sexuality has been around since the first multi-cell organism came to existence, but the openness about human sexuality was previously unheard-of. However, the bohemian lifestyle advocated the breaking of these social norms in favor of radical new thoughts, some people even going so far as to promote, “nudism, vegetarianism, and the simple life.” These ideas were so out of the realm of normal society that bohemia became the center for all sorts of progressive ideas.

Possibly tied to the rise in feminism and embracing the differences between females and males, talking about sex became acceptable in these social circles. Perhaps the most drastic example of this was the account by the progressive Emma Goldman of her sexual relationship with a man named Ben Reitman. The letters she composed were of a brazen nature and nigh-unacceptable, as it was rare to read “sexually explicit language outside pornography in the early twentieth century.” This newfound openness surrounding subjects of a more sexual nature contributed heavily to the broader definitions of what was acceptable to speak of in those times. The freedom to speak of such things aided the broader freedom to speak and the greater amount of what was “permissible” in society.