re: #226 ObserverArt

. But damn, I remember the old idea of being a gentleman and how that stuff stayed between the people in the relationship.

There was this odd cultural practice, practiced well into the second half of the 20th century in isolated rural parts of America, known as “courtship”. It involved allowing the male to demonstrate that he was a gentleman capable of respecting his partner’s wishes in a number of settings before engaging in any potentially compromising acts with him.

It has come to be supplanted by “the hookup”, in which the young man is only expected to be nice long enough to convince the woman to compromise, or barring that, use force, threats or coercion.

And then, if she complains about it, to call her a “slut” for having had anything to do with him at all in the first place.