If you were young and single in the fifties, there were a lot of bad girls out there. Unmarried females weren’t supposed to have much of a sex life. To do so, would be at great risk to your reputation. Intimacy allowed in unmarried relationships was limited and clearly regulated. Kissing was about the only thing a girl could do if she wanted to have a “good reputation.” If you were going steady in high school, pinned during college, or engaged after that, you might go a little further. But going “all the way” was verboten. Nevertheless, a lot of so-called trashy girls, did. But now, we’re into the 21st century, and you have to wonder. Where have all the bad girls gone?
Of course, the real reason for all the abstinence was the fear of pregnancy. If a bad girl did get pregnant, the young man responsible was expected to marry her. However, there was no DNA testing available. Consequently, If a man wanted to contest a paternity suit, all he had to do was take five of his buddies with him to court. That was the magic number. Five. If five males swore under oath that they, also, had sex with the pregnant girl, the man was off the hook. He didn’t have to marry her or pay child support. The assumption being that promiscuity precluded the ability to ascertain which man was the biological father.
In 1963, availability of oral contraceptives began to change all that. Girls could have sex without worrying so much about pregnancy. The pill was a far more reliable method of birth control than condoms. Then, ten years later , the most important thing happened: Roe Vs. Wade made it legal for women to get abortions. Finally, women were free to act like men always had. Call it free love, free sex, whatever. All of a sudden, girls and boys started living together even if they weren’t married. If a girl got pregnant and had a baby, it was because she wanted to, not because she had to. Now, 40% of all births are to single moms. There are no bad girls anymore.
Which brings us around to the love life of Kamala Harris, the vice presidential candidate for the 2020 election. It’s public knowledge that she had a long time affair with Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco, when she was twenty-nine and he was sixty.. Fifty years ago, a woman who had a very public affair with a married man would have been considered one of those “bad girls.” There were names for women who did such things—four letter words ending with T. Certainly she would not have been seen as fit for the 2nd highest office in the United States. The Times , They Are A Changing..
Where have all the bad girls gone? I’m not sure there ever were any.