Editing Flapper (section)

=== Petting parties ===
"[[Petting]]" ("[[making out]]" or [[foreplay]] or [[non-penetrative sex]]) became more common than in the [[Victorian era]], for example, with the rise in popularity of "petting parties".<ref>{{cite web |author=Weeks, Linton |title=When 'Petting Parties' Scandalized The Nation | work=[[NPR]] | date=June 26, 2015 | url=https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/05/26/409126557/when-petting-parties-scandalized-the-nation | access-date=December 18, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news | title = Mothers Complain that Modern Girls 'Vamp' Their Sons at Petting Parties | newspaper = [[The New York Times]] | date = February 17, 1922}}.<br />An earlier article in the same newspaper rebutted an attack on the behaviour of American girls made recently in the ''Cosmopolitan'' by [[Elinor Glyn]]. It admitted the existence of petting parties but considered the activities were no worse than those which had gone on in earlier times under the guise of "kissing games", adding that tales of what occurred at such events were likely to be exaggerated by an older generation influenced by traditional misogyny<br />{{Cite news | first = Mrs William Atherton | last = Dupuy | newspaper = [[The New York Times]] | date = October 15, 1921|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=990DE2DC133EEE3ABC4D52DFB667838A639EDE&legacy=true|title=Let Girls Smoke, Mrs. Dupuy's Plea; Penwomen's President Rises in Defense of Young Thing Who 'Parks Corsets' Before Dance. MRS.GLYN WRONG, SHE SAYS Declares Short-Skirt Girl of Today Who Goes to "Petting Parties" Is All She Should Be}}.</ref> At these parties, promiscuity became more commonplace, breaking from the traditions of monogamy or courtship with their expectations of eventual marriage.<ref>{{Cite book | last1 = McArthur | first1 = Judith N | last2 = Smith | first2 = Harold L | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_txLjKkckCYC&pg=PA105 | title = Texas Through Women's Eyes: The Twentieth-Century Experience | year = 2010 | pages = 104–05 | publisher = University of Texas Press | quote = The spirit of the petting party is light and frivolous. Its object is not marriage – only a momentary thrill. It completely gives the lie to those sweet, old phrases, "the only man" and "the only girl". For where there used to be only one girl there may be a score of them now.| isbn = 978-0-292-77835-1 }}</ref> This was typical on college campuses, where young people "spent a great deal of unsupervised time in mixed company".<ref>{{Cite book | last1 = Drowne | first1 = Kathleen Morgan | last2 = Huber | first2 = Patrick | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=CecCHiI95dYC&pg=PA45 | title = The 1920s | page = 45| isbn = 978-0-313-32013-2 | year = 2004 | publisher = Greenwood Publishing }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | last = Nelson | first = Lawrence J | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=o0hCZkuwlhAC&pg=PA39 | title = Rumors of Indiscretion | year = 2003 | page = 39| publisher = University of Missouri Press | isbn = 978-0-8262-6290-5 }}.</ref><ref>{{Cite book | last = Bragdon | first = Claude | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Z12OIL1jIMYC&pg=PA45 | title = Delphic Woman | year = 2007 | pages = 45–46| publisher = Cosimo | isbn = 978-1-59605-430-1 }}.</ref>

[[File:The Enemy Sex poster.jpg|thumb|right|200px|A flapper is featured on the poster for the 1924 film ''[[The Enemy Sex]]'']]

Carolyn Van Wyck wrote a column for ''[[Photoplay (magazine)|Photoplay]]'', an upmarket magazine that featured articles on pop culture, advice on fashion, and even articles on helping readers channel their inner celebrity. In March 1926, an anonymous young woman wrote in describing petting as a problem, explaining, "The boys all seem to do it and don't seem to come back if you don't do it also. We girls are at our wits' end to know what to do. ... I'm sure that I don't want to marry anyone who is too slow to want to pet. But I want to discover what is right. Please help me." Van Wyck sympathized with the problem the writer faced and added, "It seems to me much better to be known as a flat tire and keep romance in one's mind than to be called a hot date and have fear in one's heart."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Dubois|first1=Ellen Carol|last2=Dumenil|first2=Lynn|title=Through Women's Eyes|date=2012|publisher=Bedford/St. Martin's|location=Boston, MA|page=561|edition=Third}}</ref>

In the 1950s, ''Life'' magazine depicted petting parties as "that famed and shocking institution of the '20s", and, commenting on the [[Kinsey Report]], said that they have been "very much with us ever since".<ref>Havemann, Ernest. [https://books.google.com/books?id=EkgEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA45 "The Kinsey Report on Women"] [[Life (magazine)|''Life'' magazine]] (August 24, 1953)</ref> In the Kinsey Report of 1950, there was an indicated increase in premarital intercourse for the generation of the 1920s. Kinsey found that of women born before 1900, 14 percent acknowledged premarital sex before the age of 25, while those born after 1900 were two and a half times more likely (36 percent) to have premarital intercourse and experience an orgasm.<ref>{{cite book|last=Duenil|first=Lynn|title=The Modern Temper:American Culture and Society in the 1920s|date=1995|publisher=Hill and Wang|location=New York, NY|page=136}}</ref>