What Happened To Just Holding Hands?

If you listen to the radio on pretty much any station, there are songs about sex, one-night stands, and partying. On television, there are shows like Gossip Girl and Degrassi that depict teenagers in very committed relationships, and then those who are very casual and promiscuous. Even in public, there are girls who go out in booty shorts and midriff tops and other pieces of clothing equally revealing.

But nobody says anything.

In the fifties, you'd be called the modern-day equivalent of a slut - if not worse - if you were something like that.

The 1950's had the values that should be seen today. Teenagers now get in relationships that sometimes only last a week or so; those relationships usually progress ridiculously fast. They can move from going out to making out, all in one day. That kind of time span would be unimaginable to a teenage couple in the 1950's. From the initial point of a boy asking a girl a date, even, it took over a month to get to hand-holding, and even longer until the first kiss. That was considered "getting serious".

"Getting serious" nowadays is more like a girl debating with herself whether or not to give her virginity to her boyfriend of three months (or vice versa, for that matter), because she wants to be pure, but if she doesn't do it, he'll break up with her. "Getting serious" can involve distrust when one of the couple goes away for the summer or other school break, and the other buying a promise ring for the one who's leaving so they can feel secure that nobody's going to cheat.

Life was so much easier in the nineteen-fifties, in the sense that relationships weren't so complicated, and the teenage drama was easily taken care of.