resulted in earlier sexual experimentation reinforced by a later age of marriage. On average, Americans were gaining sexual experience before entering into monogamous relationships. The increasing divorce rate and the decreasing stigma attached to divorce during this era also contributed to sexual experimentation. By 1971, more than 75% of Americans thought that premarital sex was acceptable, a threefold increase from the 1950s, and the number of unmarried Americans aged twenty to twenty-four more than doubled from 1960 to 1976. Americans were becoming less and less interested in getting married and settling down and as well less interested in monogamous relationships. In 1971, 35% of the country said they thought marriage was obsolete. The idea of marriage being outdated came from the development of casual sex between Americans. With the development of the birth control pill and the legalization of abortion in 1973, there was little threat of unwanted children out of wedlock. Also, during this time every known sexually transmitted disease was readily treatable. Swinger clubs were organizing in places ranging from the informal suburban home to disco-sized emporiums that offered a range of sexual possibilities with multiple partners. In New York City in 1977, Larry Levenson opened Plato's Retreat, which eventually shut down in 1985 under regular close scrutiny by public health authorities. Legacy Fraenkel (1992) believes that the "sexual revolution", which the West supposedly experienced in the late 1960s, is a misconception/misnomer, and that sex is never actually enjoyed freely as such, being rather observed in all fields of culture: a stance adopted toward human behavior referable to the concept of "repressive desublimation". According to this concept or interpretation (first evolved by Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse), the 'sexual revolution' would be an instance of a conservative force masquerading under the guise of liberation – a force sapping energies (here sexual) which would otherwise be available for a true social critique of a given behavior – and thus an impediment to any real political change which might emancipate the individual from "totalitarian democracy". (See also Bread and circuses, False consciousness and Frankfurt School). Put baldly, the pursuit of "sexual freedom" may be construed as a distraction from the pursuit of actual freedom. Allyn argues that the sexual optimism of the 1960s waned with the economic crises of the 1970s, the massive commercialization of sex, increasing reports of child exploitation, disillusionment with the counter-culture and the New Left, and a