Choice #2

How Much Affection (1958)




How to Say No: Moral Maturity












Many people, especially conservatives, look to the 1950s as a moral golden age. The doting, cookie-baking mama stayed at home raising 2.4 kids, while the stern father worked to keep "up with the Jones."The 1950s was a time when image was of utmost importance. In a time of McCarthyism, people were afraid to stray from the norm, so spent their time mass consuming and trying to fit in. Although many conservatives like to use the 1950s as a model time for "family values" these are based on superficial images, not on reality.

One important example is teenage sexuality. The idea today is that people in the 1950s did not have sex until married, and because of family values, there was no problem with teenage pregnancy. This could not be further from the truth. In fact, teen pregnancy was at an all time high; 50% higher than today. About 39% of unmarried girls had gone all the way before they were twenty years old. The average woman married at 20 years old, so, unlike today, did not have to wait long before having marital intercourse.

According to Ann Fessler, author of The Girls Who Went Away, "birth control was tightly restricted, and abortion proved prohibitively expensive or life endangering. At the same time, a postwar economic boom brought millions of American families into the middle class, exerting its own pressures to conform to a model of family perfection." Caught in the middle, single pregnant women were shunned by family and friends, evicted from schools, sent away to maternity homes to have their children alone, and often treated with cold contempt by doctors, nurses, and clergy. A girl who found herself "in trouble" had virtually no power over her life when her family either pushed her into a speedy marriage or to hustle her out of town to have her baby far from the sight of all who would condemn her. "In one of the strictest forms of banishment," Fessler writes, "high schools and most colleges required a pregnant girl to withdraw immediately." Therefore, although the 1950s had the highest case of teen pregnancy, the idea was to hide it. So not only were many of the consequences of teen pregnancy hidden, but there was a complete lack of education beyond "control yourself." This is especially evident in the two health education videos that I have posted.

In the video, How Much Affection (1958), a young woman comes home very upset because she keeps having these "warm feelings" when she was with her boyfriend. The advice of her mother was to not get into situations where she would ever be alone with him, and to think of distractions such as "ask him if he wants a sandwich." She tells her daughter that anything beyond that causes boys stop falling further in love with her. The end of the film shows the young couple dancing, her thinking of what her mother said and asking her boyfriend what kind of sandwich he would want.

In the second clip, How To Say No; Moral Maturity (1951), a group of teenagers sit together, wondering what is the best way to say no to petting, smoking and drinking without "looking like a chump." During the part where they discuss about "the problem with boys...their HANDS, you know?" (6:25 into the film) The only situation they discuss is when "its early enough to stay outside at the end of the date" which is unrealistic sexual situation in the first place. Their advice was to "simply not get into a situation like that" or distract him by saying something like "Hey, how was that track meet last week?" This media gives the impression that teen girls were not interested in sex and that males are always the aggressors. It also discourages honest communication between couples on what the two are comfortable with. Finally, like in How Much Affection, it denies that both partners might desire intercourse, while completely ignoring the birth control issue.

In the real world, statistics show that teenagers desperately needed real advice on how to prevent pregnancy and STDs. Like the way many conservatives believe should be enacted today, sex education consisted of "just say no!" These conservatives only have to look at the 1950s to see the disaster that abstinence-only education creates.

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