Most girls who grew up in the 40’s and 50’s got the message.
Nice girls don’t.
In our household, with 5 daughters, the message was explicit. We teased our mom that she had a magic wand that would tell if any boy had touched us in our “no man’s zone.” You know the area from your ankles up, you wrists in, and your neck down.
Pretty much covered it all.
Otherwise we would fall into the dregs of dregs…being labeled as a slut. Once in that category, there was no getting out.
And, it was the only other category. No in-between. Just nice girls and sluts.
Being a good girl, the one in the family that obeyed all the rules, I really took this lesson to heart.
I can remember an incident one night at the movies with a boyfriend. When he put his hand on my knee, I quickly lifted it off.
“What’s the big deal?” he wanted to know.
“My mom will get really mad,” I replied.
“How is she going to know?”
I was desperate, and yelled, “She’ll know! She’ll know. I don’t know how, but I’ll really be in for it.”
(Years later, as a mother myself, I finally understood how she knew.)
As you might guess, as a sex therapist starting in the 70’s, I worked with a lot of girls who had been raised just like me.
They were still caught up in the “nice girls don’t” mentality, and both they and their sweethearts wanted more from their intimate life.
You have gotten past those early lessons and injunctions, right?
