In March 1965, the Supreme Court put into motion legal changes that marked the end of local film censorship as it had existed since the early years of the twentieth century. In Hollywood that same year, "The Pawnbroker" was released with a Production Code Seal of Approval, despite nudity that violated that Code. As sexual liberation occurred onscreen, parallel developments occurred in the way we lived our lives, and by the end of the 1960s, it seemed that Americans were having sex more often, and with more partners, than ever before. There was now a public debate surrounding sexuality, and one of the loudest and most continually active voices in this debate was that of American film. This work begins with an examination of some of the earliest altercations in what later came to be known as "the culture wars," and follows those skirmishes, more often than not provoked by American film, up to the modern day. By looking at how sex in the cinema has contributed to the demise of the fragile consensus between liberals and conservatives on freedom of expression, "The History of Sex in American Film" suggests a perspective from which today's culture wars can be better understood. This work combines close readings of many representative films - including "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", "The Graduate", "Blue Velvet", "Philadelphia", "L. A. Confidential", and "Closer" - with a social and historical account of the most significant changes in American sexual behaviour and sexual representation over the past fifty years.