MORALS : Reality Check : Ventura’s debate over a new adult bookstore in the shadow of revitalized downtown evokes full range of emotions.

Remember the 1960s and ‘70s, when free love and the pursuit of happiness were often used as synonyms? When geography seemed like the propelling force behind the younger generation’s break with established sexual values.

Geography, as in, “Hey, they’re not uptight in Scandinavia, are they? Sex is no big deal there. So why shouldn’t it be a natural thing here too?” Or, “Just look at India and the Kamasutra. They wrote that sex manual 1,500 years ago, but people here in the U. S. are still living in the Victorian Age.”

Granted, most of these pronouncements were probably made by people who had never been to either country. But being well traveled, they said, wasn’t the issue. Nor was it, they insisted, what some social scientists were calling the “pendulum effect”--the swinging to one extreme before a middle ground can be reached.

No, what they were talking about, they said to unnerved parents, was free love. The abolishment of sexual hypocrisy. A sexual revolution, no less.

It’s rare to hear anyone talk about a sexual revolution these days. No mystery in that. Even if the threat of AIDS hadn’t put an end to any serious discourse on the subject, most people who once believed in it are probably all married now and too burdened with kids and mortgages to care.

And as for the idea of free love--well, that pretty much landed in a category along with free lunches. Everyone knows how much those can cost.

But as far as sexual hypocrisy is concerned, we seem to be more entrenched--and more squeamish--than ever before. Never before have we been bombarded with so many sexually charged images on MTV, magazines and prime time TV shows. But when it comes to real people with real sexuality, we shut down faster than a fast-food restaurant after a ptomaine scare.

The pendulum effect is still in full swing--in the other direction now--and geography, it seems, is still a compelling factor in the discussion.

Last week, that became apparent when the Ventura City Council was on the brink of enacting a temporary moratorium on new adult bookstores. If passed, the ordinance would give the city up to two years to decide where such businesses could be located.

Should they be allowed in downtown where a “revitalization” effort has been going on? Or should they be limited to designated areas in the city--perhaps where another low-class business wouldn’t be noticed? The decision was delayed until June 29.

The council has already had plenty of input from local merchants, anti-pornography groups and church groups, who have expressed outrage at a Woodland Hills company’s plans to open up the city’s second adult bookstore. Besides threatening to turn Ventura into another San Fernando Valley, they argued, the proposed location of the bookstore also is just one block from the county superintendent of schools’ office.

God forbid the superintendent should be subjected to that.

The passion surrounding the issue is probably best symbolized by the kind of morality argument offered by Kenneth Rose, a former employee of the Woodland Hills company who urged the council to adopt the ban because he “became a victim” of his work-related exposure to pornography.

“I came very close to abusing my own stepdaughter,” he said.

An accountant who used his job to explain why he cheated on his taxes would be dismissed with the wave of a hand. But there is little challenge here to the assumption that anyone who is interested in this kind of material either has or will develop criminal tendencies. Rose, who urged a return to “real morality in this country,” was applauded by the audience.

I’m as in favor of moral behavior as the next person. But I don’t subscribe to the idea of a universal morality--nor would I want someone else’s imposed on me. As for another person’s sexual behavior, if no one is harmed I consider it none of my business.

What constitutes harm is open to interpretation. Personally, though, I find the slew of television shows with gratuitous violence and suggestive scenes, and the family video stores with open racks of X-rated films, a lot more harmful to my children, for example, than anything they might see in Three Star Books on Main Street.

But maybe none of the council members have bothered to look inside.

On one book-lined wall are mysteries, Westerns, science fiction and romances no steamier than Danielle Steele. A comic book rack--filled with G-rated Batmans and Donald Ducks--is in the middle. On a far wall are recent video releases, with nothing more graphic than what you’d find at local theaters. In one corner are recent issues of Playboy and Penthouse.

The X-rated films are kept discreetly behind a counter in unmarked cassettes. Kamasutra oil, sold also in some health food stores, is in a glass case. On a recent afternoon, a businessman stopped in to pick up a copy of Forbes and then left. Those who would rather not see adult material don’t have to.

Force a store like that into a run-down part of town, though, and things will be different. And if the council decides that the only suitable location for such businesses is next to tattoo parlors, bars and pay-by-hour motels, they can hardly be surprised if you end up with a sleazy ghetto.

People living there now may not relish the idea--although I doubt whether anyone has bothered to ask them.

Those who are pushing hardest for the move seem to be saying that “real morality” can only take place in certain parts of town.