The Fifties/Analysis: Difference between revisions

** Large sections of the populace (especially women) had no idea of the existence of homosexuality, and especially lesbianism. The average person thought he'd never met a gay or lesbian person, even if he had. Gay men were generally considered to be [[All Gays Are Pedophiles|creepy predatory pedophiles]], and probably Commie-loving traitors too. This tended to be less blatant in more sophisticated and/or media circles, but otherwise it was dangerous to appear 'arty'. (A classic example is the victim in [[Agatha Christie]]'s ''Cards on the Table'': 'Every healthy Englishman who met him longed earnestly... to kick him'.) Meanwhile, it was commonly believed that a lesbian could be [[Cure Your Gays|turned straight]] [[Rape as Redemption|through rape]].

** All that said, the [[Seemingly-Wholesome Fifties Girl|common subversion]] isn't really any more accurate, at least not for women (men [[Double Standard|weren't as thoroughly tracked]]). Though of course there were many people in [[Real Life]] who acted like that, they were nowhere near as common as many 1970s+ portrayals of 1950s-era teenage life would have you think. The 1950s era was not, as often portrayed, just [[Eternal Sexual Freedom|modern behavior with more hypocrisy]], there really was significant differences between 1950s sexual behavior (especially for high-school aged people) and today's. Less than [https://web.archive.org/web/20100614161052/http://dragon.soc.qc.cuny.edu/Staff/turner/TechPDFs/13_SexSurveys.pdf 15% of women] who came of age (18 years old) between 1948-1955 had had premarital sex by the time they were 18, less than 25% for those between 1956-61. The median age for for first premarital sex for men and women turning 15 in 1954-63 [http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-12-19-premarital-sex_x.htm was 20.4 years old] (it would be a bit older for women alone), by comparison for marriage for the 1950s, the average age [http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005061.html was only 20.3]. The Sexual Revolution of the (late) 1960s to 1970s of course changed all of this, with people having more premarital sex and doing so younger.

*** It should be pointed out that the latter chart details BIRTHS by teens, not the initial pregnancy. A crucial difference. There are no statistics shown as to which, if any, of those teens were married before the pregnancy or as a result of it. An important distinction.

* As for health, most birth defects couldn't be diagnosed before birth, and nobody knew what caused most of them. Nobody had a clue that smoking, drinking, or poor diet could be a problem (advanced maternal age was understood to be an issue, but why hadn't yet been studied in-depth). There were no surfactants or other treatments for very premature babies; a lot of hospitals didn't even have incubators. It wasn't unusual in the least for a couple to lose a child at or around birth. And not just poor or middle-class families: many famous power couples (like the John F. Kennedys) lost children at birth or soon afterwards.