Even dating back in the 50’s and 60’s wasn’t all that healthy. In small towns (and large as well) dating consisted a lot of teenagers going to the drive-in theater, smooching and hugging (or worse), then later cruising the parking lot of the “Dairy Queen” and then another “parking” session on some remote road before taking the girl home by 10:30 PM. Going “steady” and breaking up pretty soon was par for the course. - It led to many “unplanned” teenage pregnancies, not surprisingly. - “Dating” was always a miserable experience to me, and I didn’t date much because, fortunately, back then I wouldn’t have known what sex was if it had jumped up and bit me on the backside. So, when the hugging and kissing got boring for us naive and innocent ones, we just found a way to “break up”.
I remember in high school when dating and going steady were in...lot’s of girls would have to leave school because of ‘urinary infections’ and stuff like that.
Kids having sex, getting pregnant and having abortions, isn’t anything new.
Yes you are correct about the 50s. Everybody my age views the 50s through “Leave it to Beaver” colored glasses. The term for that is fiftyism. Gen X and Y had no connection to tradition, the perception of 50s as being like the clean happy Cleaver family is a strong pull, but from what I was told the 60s were the culmination of the gathering immorality of the 50s.
So what I meant was the movement to reverting to the traditions prior to this social upheaval. Such as courting with a chaperon or essentially not being left alone.