VH1 and the Sundance Channel are airing  “Sex: The Revolution,” an original four-part documentary series which began airing last night on VH1. The series  tells the story of the sexual revolution and how it changed America.

VH1 will boldly explore a time in American history that challenged centuries of traditional morality about sex. A time that eradicated people’s fear, loathing and ignorance about sex. A time that promoted unprecedented sexual honesty and expression. And in the end, a time when laws were changed and rulings made to end censorship and legal retribution for people’s private sexual behavior. It’s a story of incredible styles, scenes, visionaries who pushed the envelope, movements, fanatics, charlatans–but also the story of the people of traditional values who felt threatened by it all, who condemned it, and launched a counter-revolution.

The series begins in the stultified, sexually repressed America of the 1950s — when kids were taught to “save it for marriage” — and continues through the break out and rise of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. Along the way are Hef, Kinsey, Little Richard, Citizens for Decent Literature, Sex and the Single Girl, the Pill, Sex, Drugs & Rock and Roll, Make Love Not War, Masters and Johnson, Sandstone, Swinging, Burn the Bra, Stonewall, Deep Throat, Forty Second Street, the Continental Baths, the Castro, Roe v. Wade, The Zipless You-Know-What, Plato’s Retreat, Hustler, Herpes and Reagan — and oh, so much more…

The storytellers featured in “Sex: The Revolution” are those who created that revolution, lived it, wrote the books and music and made the films about it, and were shaped by it. Among them: musicians Nile Rodgers and David Crosby; actors Cybill Shepherd, Danny Glover and Dyan Cannon; writers Erica Jong, Armistead Maupin, John Rechy and Gay Talese; publishers Hugh Hefner, Helen Gurley Brown, Gloria Steinem and Larry Flynt; filmmakers John Waters and Paul Mazursky; television host Phil Donahue; writer/publisher Paul Krassner (The Realist); birth control activist William Baird; and Marilyn Chambers, star of the landmark porn film Behind the Green Door. Also contributing are the authors of several recent historical studies: David Allyn (Make Love, Not War), Legs McNeil (The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry) and Martin Torgoff (Can’t Find My Way Home).

“Sex: The Revolution” airs on VH1 on Monday, May 12 – Thursday, May 15 at 10:00pm with encore showings on Sundance Channel Monday, May 19th and Tuesday, May 20th at 12:00am.