The Best of Both Worlds
While some women did not feel much compunction against engaging in the acts themselves, they were stopped by the thought of the hurt the knowledge of their partaking in these activities would cause their parents, who belonged to an age of earlier and more stolid morals. As Phyllis Blanchard and Carlyn Manasses phrase it in their book, New Girls for Old, “Thus, however emancipated intellectually the modern girl may be, she apparently realizes that social customs are still too powerful for the individual to defy them without risking personal happiness…” (341). As Document 2 shows, some girls during the 1920s found it more objectionable to be viewed by society as acting in an improper manner than to take part in the act itself.
A facet that caused even more befuddlement to young women of the 1920s was the frequent use of the term “freedom” in regard to the increasing liberation of female sexuality. As the Filipino male repeatedly mentions in Document 1, “This freedom and enjoyment of the young people has not yet been comprehended by our people at home [in the Philippines]” (338). Henry James Forman refers to the sexual influence of films on teenage girls, stating that, “…to her sex pictures have brought a new freedom and a new stimulus, as well, perhaps, as some of the muddle-headedness” (343). The use of the term “freedom” implies that the term to which it is referring, namely sexual liberation, is an inalienable right to which all young sexual creatures should be entitled. However, the behavior that was displayed on public beaches and in the movie theaters was often not the message young girls were given at home by the older generations.
In 1934, The Motion Picture Production Code sought to purify their tarnished and promiscuous image by implementing moral codes for film censorship (343). This goal was clearly delineated in the written guidelines that they set for films, heavily denouncing overly sexual acts, as well as those between blacks and whites. This code was in use until 1967 (338); however, it seems to restrict all films to the standards which one might expect to be enforced with a modern day G- rated movie. In effect, the movie industry sought to regain its image as having a family- friendly atmosphere, and to disassociate itself from the loose sexual morals that were being denounced in the young women of the day.
It is not clear from where, exactly, this new standard of acceptable sexual morals for young women sprang. Perhaps it did stem from the pervasive influence of the movie industry. However, one aspect of the reliance of young women on the media was apparent: the flooding of newspapers with letters of query as to what was expected sexually from young women gives a modern day reader the impression that young women of the 1920s were not as sexually loose as they were conveyed to be. They were simply confused as to what was permissive and expected of them, by both their parents and their beaus, as well as society at large.
-Ariella Medows
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