Sexual Mores
Outsiders who thought of Spain as socially restrained and conservative were surprised to note the public changes in sexual attitudes in the country from the late 1970s onward. Once state censorship was relaxed on magazines and films in 1976 and in 1978, the market for pornography flourished. In a country where Playboy was outlawed until 1976, ten years later this and other foreign "adult" magazines were already considered tame and were outsold by domestic magazines. Throughout Spain's large cities, uncensored sex films were readily available in government-licensed theaters, and prostitutes and brothels freely advertised their services in even the most serious press. Despite these attention-getting changes in public attitudes, however, Spanish government policy for some years remained quite distant from social practice in two important areas related to private sexual behavior: contraception and abortion.
Under the Franco regime homosexuals were often persecuted. After 1975, many criminal laws against gays were either lifted or no longer enforced and many gay-themed bars and discos became common in large cities such as Madrid and Barcelona.
Today, Spain permits same-sex marriage and adoption. Spanish LGBT culture has been exported internationally with film directors such as Pedro Almodóvar and events like the Europride celebrated in Madrid in 2007. Visibility of homosexuals has reached several layers of society that were previously unthinkable, such as the army, Guardia Civil, judges.
According to polls, about 95% of young Spaniards, including those who self-identify as Catholic (the overwhelming religious majority), ignore the church's conservative advice on issues such as pre-marital sex, sexual orientation or contraception.
Read more about this topic: Spanish Society After The Democratic Transition