A sex timeline: 1948-1991

1948 Milton Berle hams it up as TV’s first cross-dresser on Texaco Star Theater.

1952 Lucille Ball is with child on I Love Lucy, but the word pregnant is taboo.

1961 Rob and Laura Petrie (Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore) sleep in twin beds on The Dick Van Dyke Show.

1964 The double bed becomes a TV fixture: Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) shares one with two different Darrins (Dick York and Dick Sargent) on Bewitched.

1965 Barbara Eden’s belly button is banned from I Dream of Jeannie, never to appear until the 1985 reunion movie.

1969 Love, American Style debuts with ”Love and the Pill,” starring Jane Wyatt and Bob Cummings as the perplexed parents of a ”swinger” daughter.

1971 Meathead (Rob Reiner) can’t get it up on All in the Family.

1972 TV’s first movie about gays: That Certain Summer.

1973 Valerie Perrine drops her towel in PBS’ Steambath.

1974 Best supporting body: A streaker zips across the stage during the Oscars.

1976 Charlie’s Angels ushers in the jiggle era.

1977 Bare breasts are shown on Roots.

1977 Billy Crystal plays TV’s first gay regular on Soap.

1978 James at 15 (Lance Kerwin) loses his virginity; the show’s title is changed to James at 16.

1978 Dan Aykroyd reveals his butt crack in a Saturday Night Live refrigerator-repairman skit.

1981 Charles Rocket gets fired after accidentally saying ”fuck” on SNL.

1983 Actors bare their behinds in locker-room scenes of Steven Bochco’s baseball drama, Bay City Blues.

1984 The first TV movie about incest: Something About Amelia.

1984 The Facts of Life‘s Lisa Whelchel refuses to tape an episode about her character losing her virginity.

1985 Aidan Quinn plays an HIV-positive homosexual in An Early Frost, TV’s first movie about AIDS.

1986 The Venus Butterfly makes its debut on L.A. Law. We’re still trying to figure out what it is.

1987 Married…With Children airs a particularly notorious episode in which three women simultaneously get their periods while on a camping trip.

1987 Sam (Ted Danson) won’t get up from a table because he has a woody on Cheers.

1989 First bestiality on TV: Vincent and Catherine (Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton) have a child on Beauty and the Beast.

1989 Interplanetary sex on the sci-fi series Alien Nation — which later features TV’s first pregnant man.

1989 Network TV displays a cowboy’s penis — for less than a second — during the opening credits of a Lonesome Dove episode.

1989 Michael (Ken Olin) promises Hope (Mel Harris), ”I’ll pull out” during a bedroom scene on thirtysomething.

1991 Advertisers pull out when thirtysomething shows two gay men in bed together.

1991 Bisexual attorney C.J. (Amanda Donohoe) kisses heterosexual colleague Abby (Michele Greene) on L.A. Law.