Why so little...

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

Well, the current moral panic is much darker and horrifying - the straight up bonkers QAnon-inspired Wayfair panic of last summer springs to mind.

I can't remember which came first, but there was a YA scene and also a book on youth sexuality that highlighted it as an issue - written by a fundamentalist Christian doctor. I am super fascinated with urban legends and moral panics, so I did a deep dive some years back, sprung from my original fascination with the Satanic Panic of the 80s and 90s. Of course there have been other big panics in recent years, - Tide pods, killer clowns, the Momo sculpture, etc.

I actually remember being pretty upset about the rainbow party panic because it reinforced the worst of what many wanted to believe about young women. Sluts at heart, and also stupid and subservient, asking for no pleasure of their own. This was the same year that the First Lady of Maryland said that, if she could, she'd like to shoot Britney Spears. These were the years when Maury Povich was revealing paternity results on air and it became way more popular to show the woman being wrong about who the father of her baby was than to show that a father was being held to account. I mean, both things are so trashy, it was disgusting, but uuuuuuuugggggggghhhhhhhh.

Sorry, I don't mean to hijack this thread; I know I have veered far off of your original topic. This stuff is just fascinating to me.

As a 'foreigner', keeping up with America's cultural ups and downs has become much harder over time. There are so many layers to every single phenomenon that it's often impossible to comprehend. So, I don't pick up on the contemporary panics, but I do remember a time when MTV was the devil and day-time TV proclaimed 'truths' about wayward teens.

Because I first encountered the rainbow party myth in erotica, I thought it was a fun and creative gimmick. It also felt a little arcane and fantastical.

There's a lot of stuff like that from the era in question. I bet old episodes of Oprah and Dr Phil could provide inspiration for dozens of stories that could be subversive and empowering. Stories that make people feel good about things others wanted them to fear or feel bad about.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Well, the current moral panic is much darker and horrifying - the straight up bonkers QAnon-inspired Wayfair panic of last summer springs to mind.

I can't remember which came first, but there was a YA scene and also a book on youth sexuality that highlighted it as an issue - written by a fundamentalist Christian doctor. I am super fascinated with urban legends and moral panics, so I did a deep dive some years back, sprung from my original fascination with the Satanic Panic of the 80s and 90s. Of course there have been other big panics in recent years, - Tide pods, killer clowns, the Momo sculpture, etc.

I actually remember being pretty upset about the rainbow party panic because it reinforced the worst of what many wanted to believe about young women. Sluts at heart, and also stupid and subservient, asking for no pleasure of their own. This was the same year that the First Lady of Maryland said that, if she could, she'd like to shoot Britney Spears. These were the years when Maury Povich was revealing paternity results on air and it became way more popular to show the woman being wrong about who the father of her baby was than to show that a father was being held to account. I mean, both things are so trashy, it was disgusting, but uuuuuuuugggggggghhhhhhhh.

Sorry, I don't mean to hijack this thread; I know I have veered far off of your original topic. This stuff is just fascinating to me.

Sometimes people will take stuff that is in the media, including things that are obviously fictional, and then go out and really do them. One example is the movie that had a guy lying on the stripes in the middle of a highway - I think it was on a dare perhaps.

Of course, then some young guys went out and really tried it - and some got run over.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Now I’m quite interested in reading the original YA scene! I first encountered it on Lit, years ago. While I knew it was pretty much bullshit, I’ve also always wanted to write a scene based around the concept to add to the dozen or so that already live here.

As you say, it’s rife for fiction. It’s playful and silly and sexy. Plus, anything that leans into moral panic is automatically more interesting (though I don’t think we’ve had a bout of proper American moral hysteria over sex in year, but I’m only an observer so I wouldn’t know).

Reminds me of Go Ask Alice, which many of us were given to read as "non-fiction" once upon a time.

 

[GinnyPPC]

I am sure that if someone in here rewrote the little red riding hood myth, no one would bat an eye.

There is one adaptation on LRRH here: https://www.literotica.com/s/the-pursuit-of-little-red

Not bad for her first writing attempt.

 

[jsmiam]

Snowballing as a term predates the Internet. I get a chuckle here on lit, because use Lit’s search for snowball, you get mostly the expressions like “snowballs chance in hell” and stories including actual snowballs, as in those round icy white things that people make out of packed snow and throw at one another

Searching for “snowballing” puts things more on topic. Story tags are newish, only a year or two old, so finding specific things in older stories isn’t as smooth a process. But there’s a decent share of many kinks out there in lit land, but they aren’t all easy to find.

 

[gordo12]

Let's go to the videotape. College students in 1947 (Manhattanville College, now part of City College):

https://www.mville.edu/sites/default/files/styles/image_responsive/public/1947.png?itok=e4sd5Han

Some bobby sox, but also shoes and sandals that may or not be combined with nylons - I can't really tell, but skirts/dresses were virtually mandatory. College women didn't look like that thirty years later. (The building in the background later became Finley Hall, which is often a setting for my stories.)

New York girls in the 1970s:

https://www.amerika.org/wp-content/uploads/onset_of_degradation-800x625.jpg

Obviously going to a Catholic school. Public school girls were almost always, with a few exceptions, in blue jeans. I had one girl in my school who did wear white knee socks and she caught my attention.

The girl in the middle has no qualms about showing off her crotch.

The girls of the 70s link is down and a script replacing it. (at least for me)

Late 60's. School board hires a guy straight out of the military for a high school principal.

His first official act was to dictate that all girls were to wear skirts, year-round. No pants!

His second official act was to reverse that later in the day when the entire school walked out over it.

 

[gunhilltrain]

The girls of the 70s link is down and a script replacing it. (at least for me)

Late 60's. School board hires a guy straight out of the military for a high school principal.

His first official act was to dictate that all girls were to wear skirts, year-round. No pants!

His second official act was to reverse that later in the day when the entire school walked out over it.

Okay, he's the link to the page itself. It's this rather strange right-wing site run by one guy - but hey, that's what it is. 1965 refers to the year the immigration laws were changed; I have no idea what the photo has to do with that. He tends to use random images each time he posts. It's obvious from the graffiti that the photo was taken in the 1970s.

https://www.amerika.org/politics/1965/

Is that story about the high school real, or is it apocryphal - unverified, an urban legend?

 

[gordo12]

Okay, he's the link to the page itself. It's this rather strange right-wing site run by one guy - but hey, that's what it is. 1965 refers to the year the immigration laws were changed; I have no idea what the photo has to do with that. He tends to use random images each time he posts. It's obvious from the graffiti that the photo was taken in the 1970s.

https://www.amerika.org/politics/1965/

Is that story about the high school real, or is it apocryphal - unverified, an urban legend?

It was my high school. Gr 12. I was one of the ones out on the street protesting. But hell, it would be cool if we reached urban legend status

I still remember the asshole's name and it's been over 50 years.

 

[PennameWombat]

It was my high school. Gr 12. I was one of the ones out on the street protesting. But hell, it would be cool if we reached urban legend status

I still remember the asshole's name and it's been over 50 years.

There were two vice-principals at my public high school (1970s) and both were ex-military. Neither was a massive a-hole, surprisingly.

I don't actually recall any sort of explicit dress code, but at that time really short skirts had fallen out of fashion, so even if any of my female classmates wore a skirt or dress, it wasn't going land above the knees (other than the cheerleaders, but they were oddly asexual at my school.) But it was vanishingly rare to happen at all, other than at prom or such, and that was always long gowns around us.

But the 'pants not skirts' battle had already been won around us, when I was in elementary (primary, grades K-6 for us) school. I don't recall any area battles as extreme as described, although we'd heard of such happening (but never actually WHERE), it seemed to simply be in the aether and accepted.

 

[KeithD]

Culottes. They were banned at my high school for some reason. I can always remember the embarrassed look on my junior class English teacher's face--she was a sweet little Southern girl--the day the principal announced over the intercom that any girl having worn culottes to school that day was to go home immediately and change into a respectable skirt hemmed below the knees. The English teacher had to stand behind her desk the rest of the day to hide that she was wearing culottes.

 

[gunhilltrain]

It was my high school. Gr 12. I was one of the ones out on the street protesting. But hell, it would be cool if we reached urban legend status

I still remember the asshole's name and it's been over 50 years.

So I assume you guys won the battle?

There are some charter schools in New York that have dress codes, but I think they allow girls to wear pants. (Charter schools are sort of public/private hybrids.) Charters usually go up to the eighth grade, not high school level.

Catholic schools definitely have dress codes, but they vary. Some allow girls to wear pants (all of the same color!) and some require skirts.

When I attended a public high school, girls got away with wearing halter tops, but hey, it was the '70s. I remember sitting behind one of them and getting a good view of the side of one her tits.

Of course, I still remember her name.

 

[gordo12]

So I assume you guys won the battle?

That day, yes. Although I recall there being a further kerfuffle over jeans vs pants. But the big picture today. It seems like every time I turn around there is some overbearing asshole trying to dictate hairstyles, blouses or skirts. The issue has never really gone away.

Let's face it. It's mostly the girls that get shit on over this issue.

Kids are naturally into rebellion. I let the small things go with mine and saved my rants for the really dumb things.

There were two vice-principals at my public high school (1970s) and both were ex-military. Neither was a massive a-hole, surprisingly.

I don't actually recall any sort of explicit dress code, but at that time really short skirts had fallen out of fashion, so even if any of my female classmates wore a skirt or dress, it wasn't going land above the knees (other than the cheerleaders, but they were oddly asexual at my school.) But it was vanishingly rare to happen at all, other than at prom or such, and that was always long gowns around us.

But the 'pants not skirts' battle had already been won around us, when I was in elementary (primary, grades K-6 for us) school. I don't recall any area battles as extreme as described, although we'd heard of such happening (but never actually WHERE), it seemed to simply be in the aether and accepted.

I grew up in a rural area. Not so much for social issues. I assume there was plenty of blowback from the parents. The winters got cold (around 20F, -7 C) and in those days you walked to school. Two miles each way daily. I couldn't imagine wearing a skirt in that.

 

[DCO_65]

Let's face it. It's mostly the girls that get shit on over this issue.

Mostly? I obviously haven't heard everything, but when has a high school boy ever been accused of dressing like a "John?"

 

[gordo12]

Mostly? I obviously haven't heard everything, but when has a high school boy ever been accused of dressing like a "John?"

When the pants were allowed to sag halfway down the butt with the underwear showing. I called them worse than THAT! Moron seems to come to mind.

 

[ElectricBlue]

When the pants were allowed to sag halfway down the butt with the underwear showing. I called them worse than THAT! Moron seems to come to mind.

Yep. I often wondered why kids in that decade didn't know about belts. That, and hipsters with no socks and short strides. A bit odd, in winter .

 

[NotWise]

Mostly? I obviously haven't heard everything, but when has a high school boy ever been accused of dressing like a "John?"

How would a John dress?

Having raised three girls, I'd say they tend to push acceptable norms in order to get boys' attention, and the dress codes are there (and mostly for girls) to tone that down.

I served on the governing council of my youngest daughter's charter high school. They didn't have a strict dress code. One day while I was teaching her to drive, she took me to work and drove herself to school, which was about a mile away.

About a half-hour later I got a call from the Principal, who I knew well since we worked together frequently. She told me that my daughter showed up at school in pajamas, and they gave her other clothes to wear. There wasn't a dress code against wearing pajamas, it just triggered the Principal's sense of safe dress.

I knew she was wearing pajamas and didn't think about it. It was fashionable at the time and she had underwear on under the pajamas.

 

[MillieDynamite]

When the pants were allowed to sag halfway down the butt with the underwear showing. I called them worse than THAT! Moron seems to come to mind.

Boys in the hood couldn't keep their pants on if they didn't have at least a nubbin of a dick to hold them up, LOL. That's not really a joke, and still going on some, but not so much anymore.

 

[gordo12]

Mostly? I obviously haven't heard everything, but when has a high school boy ever been accused of dressing like a "John?"

Forgot about my generation. Good old flower power, Woodstock and hippies.

Did I mention free love?

The length of our (male) hair was a continuous issue.

 

[NotWise]

Forgot about my generation. Good old flower power, Woodstock and hippies.

Did I mention free love?

The length of our (male) hair was a continuous issue.

For me, hair length was an issue only if you wanted to play sports. Even the sports restriction went away pretty quickly after 1970.

Edit: We've drifted way off the original topic, haven't we? And for the record, my hair has grown pretty damn long since the start of the pandemic. I don't want someone breathing down my neck to cut my hair. It's nothing new. My hair was over my shoulders through most of my twenties, and it's over my shoulders now.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

We have a lot more school uniforms in the UK, not to mention for jobs such as bus drivers.

It's become a joke that every September there will be news stories where a parent and child will do a sadface photo for a local newspaper as young Tiphaneigh-Mae is sent home for too tights trousers/too short skirt/too shaved hair etc, then there will be the girls protesting they aren't allowed to wear trousers (only at all-girl schools and very few of them now), then come summer, regular as clockwork, will be the boys and men complaining they aren't allowed to wear shorts and wearing skirts in protest. Extra points and national news coverage if they claim they are trans for a few weeks.

In between it's back to your usual diet of royalty/why Brexit is great/why Brexit is an almighty cock-up, depending on which paper you read.

I pride myself on causing the school rule to be changed from 'one small pair of stud earrings is allowed' to 'one small stud earring per ear is allowed'...