This study examines the period that we still colloquially refer to as the permissive age - the 1960s. Perhaps more than any other period in our recent history, that decade has been the source of some apparently imperishable myths. Permission and Regulation attempts to separate the myths from the realities. It focuses upon a series of legislative changes that are commonly held to illustrate the permissive or liberal character of the era. These central case studies - of the law in relation to abortion, obscenity, homosexuality and prostitution - cast doubt on the view propounded by politicians and moralists that such changes indicated moral relaxation and increasing sexual licence. The book argues that the ideology of permissiveness requires close examination and analyzes the campaigns of Mary Whitehouse to try and pinpoint how this ideology was constructed, applied and challenged. The final chapter compares the permissive era to the moral politics of the Thatcher decade.