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In the 1960s, public campaigns in Europe and America asserted the right of every citizen
- black, white, male, female, straight or gay - to exercise their basic freedoms
as long as they caused no harm to others.
In Britain, there was also a sexual revolution.
The contraceptive pill, women's liberation, and the legalization of homosexuality.
Today's object is an etching by the British artist David Hockney.
It shows a pair of lovers in bed.
They are two men and it could hardly have been published any earlier than the year it was, 1967,
because until then homosexual acts in Britain were outlawed.
"Then, you couldn't be gay but you could smoke everywhere.
Now it's the other way round.
I mean, story of my life that."
"I think that this is a wonderful image to represent what human rights are all about."
A History of the World in 100 Objects.
Hockney's "In the Dull Village", an etching made in England in 1966.
Two naked young men, half covered by a blanket, lie side-by-side in bed.
We're looking down at them from the foot of the bed.
One lies with his arms behind his head, his eyes closed as though dozing,
while the other lies looking eagerly at him.