This was a very interesting reading. It was informative to see the sexual puzzles from a man's point of view of how things were and how sex was viewed back then. It is very similar to the way women talked about sex in "Sexual Puzzles." In the 50's, in order to have sexual intercourse and for it to deemed as being okay was the fact that you had to be married first. Now, in today's society that is something that does not happen. Back then men had the same issue women had. They were curious to see what sex was all about. The funny thing, was the fact that they made it a priority to lose their virginity. Most of the time they just did it with another person who had the same understanding as him and also wanted to lose it. It wasn't for love, it was more of just doing it to gain confidence in yourself and some knowledge of what sex was like. And if they did lose it to someone and wasn't a virgin anymore, they had to try to keep it hush hush so no one would be able to tell that they lost their virginity and be looked at in another way by society.
Another interesting part in the reading was on page 226 when Sandy went to get her diaphragm. In the 50's birth control was not available and women believed the diaphragm was the most effective thing to prevent pregnancy. Most of the women at this time had one and were recommending other girls to go get one. When Sandy went to get one, she explained to the doctor she wanted to have sex with her boyfriend and not get pregnant. When he was finished fitting her for the diaphragm, he told her she was off to the races. The doctor believed that she would become promiscuous and maybe even other women who had the diaphragm.
Overall, this reading had many themes, principles and beliefs that Wakefield covered. I believe Wakefield did a good job covering all this material of the social and sexual norms, the struggles these males in college had as well as pointing out a few the women had also, back in the 50's.
Unfortunately, I wouldn't say that most women in the 50s had diaphragms--originally they were meant to be given only to married women as a method of controlling family size. Single women and women who were dating often had to lie in order to have a doctor fit her for one!
ReplyDeleteBut you hit on a very interesting point here! There's the idea--though to a far lesser degree than we see with girls--that teenage boys shouldn't be sexually promiscuous either. And yet they were also expected to be sexual experts! A very uncomfortable position to be in indeed.