About Us

Hello, and welcome to our blog! Whether you wanted to learn more about the cultural movements of the 1960s or stumbled upon our blog accidentally, we hope you find what you are looking for and learn something new.

We are four undergraduate students studying rhetoric in our Scholars Intro to English class at the University of Maryland. After learning about the cultural impact that the 1960s had on American history, we decided to write a refreshing take on the Counterculture movement and the Sexual Revolution of that time.  Counterculture can be defined as a movement in which a group of people accept a way of life and a set of ideas that differ from that of the prevailing culture.  We noticed that this tied in very closely with the sexual revolution which led to accepting sexual behaviors outside of traditional heterosexual relationships as well as embracing sexual freedoms.  Together, these two monumental movements changed American values and shaped the society we live in today.

In this blog we have studied and analyzed the poem “Shot Up in the Sexual Revolution: The True Story of Suzy Creamcheese” by Cynthia Huntington and the advertising poster for Woodstock (shown on the right). We have spent weeks breaking down these texts into their rhetorical pieces using academic resources and techniques, and put down explanations of the rhetorical devices on our blog. This includes audience, kairos, ethos, pathos, logos, and stasis.  We chose these texts because we felt it was interesting and important to revisit the Counterculture movement and the Sexual Revolution, two important cultural shifts in American society, and connect them with our views on sexuality and “fringe” cultural movements that are prevalent today. With this, we hope you retain a better understanding of the rhetoric present during these movements, and can use this knowledge to deconstruct arguments made on cultural and sexual topics, among others, and make better, more educated analyses and opinions on these complex topics.

Our texts were made in the spirit of rebelling against norms and encourage the audience to free themselves from the grasps of repressive cultural conventions and ideas. The poem illustrates a young woman’s attempt to explore her sexuality.  She longs to be liberated from stereotypes of the time and wants to do as she pleases with her body, regardless of her gender.  On the other hand, the Woodstock poster appeals to those who believed in a new path of peace, love, and spirituality by partaking in a hippie-centered music festival. At the same time, these texts also shed light on issues concerning the unfair treatment of women’s sexuality and the horrors of war, particularly the Vietnam War.

Despite the difference in their stasis, presentation, and rhetoric, the poem and the poster share the same message of  having the freedom to choose the path to take in life.  This is a lesson that is still relevant today as we as a society come to grasp with some of our outdated ideas and deal with our modern Counterculture movements, “good” and “bad.” The message about sexuality is especially important, since our society still holds antiquated ideas about sex and gender that need to be addressed. Theses ideas include double standards about of promiscuity in men versus women and stigma surrounding sexually liberal women. We hope this poem will help bring to light a woman’s point of view on these issues that are still prevalent today.

The blog was ordered by rhetorical devices, starting with kairos and ending with the stasis of each of the texts. We prove the major argument for the Woodstock poster of value by analyzing its aesthetic elements and the music festival that the poster itself is advertising for. The stasis of the poem, also value,  is to express emotions that were once covered up and kept hidden from society.  By publishing a raw piece of literature, Huntington adds to the liberation movement of young women, defining an era of change and equality.

The texts continue to have an important impact on society, as they deal with sentiments and problems that are relatable and still exist. No matter what gender you are or how open you feel about sexuality, there are still many people who feel constrained, confused, and shamed from society’s views on sex and sexual pleasure, which makes people struggle over a normal human need. And as for Woodstock, many of the anti-war politics and sentiments can be seen today with modern conflicts such as in Syria and Yemen, and conversations on the United States’ role in protecting human rights and stopping unnecessary suffering. Apart from that, the Counterculture can also teach us how to respect other people’s ideas on life; the marginalization of one of the most interesting and freeing movements in history by the mainstream prevented the society to accept the hippie’s ideas on sex, war, music, and politics that are more accepted today. This can teach us to be more accepting of others, even when we may vehemently disagree, which is a good skill to learn in today’s divided and tense political climate.

We hope you enjoy reading our thoughts and encourage you to read with an open mind, comment, and think in new ways about this important time in American history!

Logos of Shot Up in the Sexual Revolution: The True Adventures of Suzy Creamcheese

Cynthia Huntington uses logic to expose the flaws associated with American practices dealing with sexuality during the sexual revolution of the 1960's. One way she does so is by pointing out many of the societal fallacies present at the time. Huntington highlights a common example of a slippery slope when mentioning how men are quick to kill women when they get pregnant. It is an exaggeration, that was true in many cases, but served to emphasize the unresponsible state of sexually active men.  Huntington also uses specific figures that can be analyzed to strengthen her examples of misguided sexuality. Specifically, she points out how Suzy Creamcheese had intercourse with so many men that "after twenty she stopped counting". Huntington intentionally includes this to show the unreserved nature of people and the unconcerned attitudes toward societal norms. Overall, the use of quantitative figures and fallacies by Cynthia Huntington in the poem convinces the audience of the rapid evolution and unpredictableness of sexual practice during the sexual revolution.

Stasis of the Woodstock Flyer

The organizers of Woodstock originally planned for the music festival to be a paid event and as such their major argument was the value of attending the event. The flyer acts as propaganda, selling the value of the event as something to be sought after, something that you would want to be at. The flyer advertises the festival as "3 Days of Peace and Music" making it attractive to a target audience of the time, colloquially known as "Hippies", who were largely anti-war. Along with this, they sought freedom through several forms of expression including music. The artists listed on the flyer, including Janis Joplin and The Grateful Dead, were outspoken critics of the Vietnam war and they also added greater qualitative value to the festival. The aesthetic of the text works in its favor as well with the colors chosen being that of a tie-dye pattern that was also associated with this era. With the widespread dissemination of these flyers and due to the stasis of it, over 400,000 people showed up in New York to experience Woodstock. Because of this, I would consider their major argument to be very persuasive as it achieved the original goal of enticing people to attend an unprecedented music festival out in the middle of nowhere.

Logos in the Woodstock Poster

There is very little to no appeal to logos in the Woodstock poster due to the nature of what the poster was made to do--to inform, and not to make a logical argument. Basically, the most logical play there was related to the poster was that if you were interested in the burgeoning genres of music being played, were a part of the Counterculture, or wanted to have a good time, the Woodstock festival was the place to go.

This lack of logos is purposefully done and is (ironically) logical, as no one would bother to read a concert poster that included research, analysis, and statistics to further the creators' points on attending the concert. That would have just confused the intended audience and would have turned people off, as no one (hippies and culture rebels especially) would want to read an English paper posing as a poster attempting to persuade the masses to attend a concert through the use of logical analysis and deconstructing the logical fallacies of not attending. The creators therefore made a smart decision to not use logic and use ethos and pathos instead, which are much more effective for an event that mostly uses emotions, spirituality, and feelings about culture to define itself anyway.

Stasis to Prove the Major Points of the Poem

Stasis can be used to clarify the main issues and persuasive points in any rhetoric text.  Cynthia Huntington wrote “Shot Up in the Sexual Revolution: The True Adventures of Suzy Creamcheese” as a liberating poem, allowing her to express perverse emotions in an artistic manner.  Although the title reveals that the poem is about Suzy Creamcheese’s experience, Suzy Creamcheese could just be an author surrogate for Huntington herself.  The poem is defined by exposing the sexism of the radical '60s and promoting the contemporary era of freedom and equality.  After publishing this poem, Huntington officially became involved in the women’s rights movement, the counterculture movement, and the sexual revolution.  Her poem explicitly outlines the struggle of a woman who is not free to explore her sexuality and feels trapped in an unforgiving society.  When looking at the poem in a qualitative perspective, there will be differences in how it was perceived in the 60s compared to how it is received today.  At the time of its publication, people who did not identify with the overwhelming heterosexual majority were discriminated against.  Many gay people experienced hate crimes and were cast from society.  So when Huntington released such a bare and voluptuous poem, it caught the attention of those that can relate with the protagonist’s experience and those that do not understand the mindset of a gay woman.  People of the 60s, especially the older generation, viewed the poem as inappropriate, while when read today, it is seen as expressive and honest.  Huntington managed to get her message out to the public and did so with bravery, knowing her poem would be highly scrutinized.  The jurisdiction of the poem was legitimate and precise.  The '60s were an era of reform and publishing the poem at this time makes it all the more relevant.  Huntington took a risk when writing about a sensitive and scandalous subject, but it brought awareness to the audience.  Combining the ideas of sex, feminism, youth, politics, drugs and music in one masterfully created poem served a powerful purpose.  The audience realizes at the end of reading Huntington’s poem that women are struggling to find themselves, but they still have the right to explore in the hope that they find their happiness and acceptance in this cruel world.   

Ethos of Woodstock Poster

Woodstock would not have been able to bring in such a large audience without establishing a reputable presence in connection with the counterculture movement. The poster employed extrinsic ethos by highlighting the popular rock and roll bands performing. This made the audience, which consisted of rock and roll fans, willing to attend the event and contribute to the counterculture movement. Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin were two of the headlining acts and those prominent figures not only had a global outreach, they were well-established activists for the counterculture movement. The poster was not very wordy, but it stated that the event was a peace and music festival. The word "peace" has intrinsic ethos attached to it because it was one of the main agendas of the counterculture movement. This established the counterculture theme of Woodstock in the eyes of the audience. The promotion of peace and the reputable bands were enough to convince attendees that Woodstock was going to be enjoyable, and an important piece of social commentary.

Pathos of "Suzy Creamcheese"

The pathos the poem come from the tone and the descriptions of the events that took place throughout the text. In the first two stanzas, there was an exposition of the game of sex during this change, where the amount of sex occurring in that sort of casual, rebel-like manner would have surprised the audience and would have brought out emotions of disgust, inquisitiveness, or other emotions. The "idol worship" of the penis started to give way to admiring the female physique, particularly the breasts and the vulva, and admiring how much power they had in terms of letting the women get what they want and allowing them pleasure--here the tone is not so much objectifying as it is compelling, and allows the reader to feel that some sort of good did indeed come from throwing away centuries of sexual decorum. However, the poem starts to get more serious when the speaker expresses how she was "throwing [herself] away" to have sex and feel this newfound power and pleasure, which ironically makes her more controlled, as demonstrated by her explaining how men (the "professor") would come and objectify her and other women. The last stanza takes a dark turn, where the speaker mentions how when women get pregnant, the man who got the woman pregnant is an "Abortion Doc" who will kill and dispose of the body to shirk off the responsibility. This is meant to make the audience feel horrified and disgusted, which is meant to remind them how terrible things did happen during the Sexual Revolution amidst all the "free love." This roller coaster of emotion is meant to immerse the audience into experiencing how it was like back then, where feelings of all types around sex made this movement such an important point for change in our culture.