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Contrary to popular belief, sexual revolution - the increase in risky sexual behavior - didn't occur during the 60s and 70s with the arrival of the birth control pill, but almost a decade earlier in the 50s when people started using penicillin, according to an economist from Emory University.

"It's a common assumption that the sexual revolution began with the permissive attitudes of the 1960s and the development of contraceptives like the birth control pill. The evidence, however, strongly indicates that the widespread use of penicillin, leading to a rapid decline in syphilis during the 1950s, is what launched the modern sexual era," said Emory University economist Andrew Francis, who has conducted an analysis on the subject.

He said that the phenomenon of risky sex after people began using penicillin fits in with the economic law of demand - where lower price leads to a sudden increase in demand. During the 50s, penicillin dramatically lowered the price of recovering from syphilis.

"People don't generally think of sexual behavior in economic terms. But it's important to do so because sexual behavior, just like other behaviors, responds to incentives," he said in a news release from Emory University.

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease that affects the genitals, lips, mouth and anus of both men and women. In the U.S., the disease killed more than 20,000 people in the year 1939. Although penicillin was discovered in the year 1928, it was put into clinical testing during the 1940s and its development mostly began due to the Second World War rising. The military found penicillin effective in fighting diseases and keeping its troops fighting overseas.

In a few years, a disease that had harmed humans since ancient times became a disease that could be cured with a single dose of penicillin.

For the present study, Francis analyzed data from the 1930s through the 1970s from state as well as federal agencies.

He focused on three parameters - rate of illegitimate births, rate of teens giving birth, and the spread of gonorrhea (another sexually transmitted disease).

"As soon as syphilis bottoms out, in the mid- to late-1950s, you start to see dramatic increases in all three measures of risky sexual behavior," Francis said.

Francis added that in the 50s, people associated syphilis with a kind of punishment for sinning. But with the arrival of penicillin, peoples' perspective about the disease changed.

The change in attitude towards syphilis, he said, is comparable to the way people think of HIV/AIDS now.

"Some studies have indicated that the development of highly active antiretroviral therapy for treating HIV may have caused some men who have sex with men to be less concerned about contracting and transmitting HIV, and more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors," Francis said.

Francis also said that policymakers should focus on the changes in behavior to the cost of the disease.

The study is published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.