"Usually Tight" — Barnard Girls Go Wild in the Gilded Age!

While cleaning out my desk this past week, I discovered a wonderful "sex shock" news clipping that a friend in Boston found for me in her collection of early 20th century newspapers.

There is no annual date on the story. I'd guess it's from the late 20s, given the use of flapper language like "getting tight" and "tipplers."

If you recognize the newspaper or can pin down the year, let me know!

The culprit in this tabloid shockeroo was The Jester, a campus humor magazine, founded in 1901. But that the student editors published this survey at all, given the era, was quite scandalous:

Girls Answer Quiz on Purity

Barnard Students Admit Necking and "Soul Kissing"

New York, Oct.22— Answers to an amazingly frank "purity test" taken by girl students at Barnard College were published in the Columbia Jester at the university today. Shocked professors immediately ordered the magazine suppressed.

Within 45 minutes, however, the ban was lifted by Dean Herbert E. Hawkes. He made no explanation.

The test went to the ultimate of candor— and in publishing it, the authors of the Jester article inferred that some of the questions were too hot to print. 

They reported that: 51% of the 70 girls considered "one or more propositions to be contrary to their honor; that more than 50% indulge in necking; that 34% practice the "soul kiss"; that 49% had kissed ten different men; than 29% have gone out with other women's husbands, and that no one would answer the question: "Have you ever swum nude in mixed company?"

Of the group, the authors reported that 80% were smokers and 66% tipplers. Answering the question: "Have you ever been tight?" 38 wrote "no," 32 wrote "yes." Of those answering in the affirmative, 14 said they had been tight once, 14 said they had been tight often, and four said that they were "usually tight."

Comments

[Trish Lewis]

HERBERT E. HAWKES, DEAN OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE, 1918-1943

That's the time frame from within this had to have happened...

[Jackson West]

Looks like the font from the old Times, though it reads like something from Hearst's Post.

[Chelsea]

Soul kiss = french kiss
Tippler = someone who drinks
Tight = being drunk

Those wild and crazy girls.

[Tracy Ball]

I had to look it up - a soul kiss is the same thing as a French kiss. I was hoping for something racier like giving a girl head.

[P.J.]

With some highly-targeted googling, here's some ideas:

In the Nevada State Journal of 23 Oct 1935 there's a reference (some of which I can't get because the newspaperarchive.com subscription price is ridiculous) to a controversial article printed elsewhere "based on answers by Barnard college girls to a questionnaire on morals."

The Barnard Bulletin of 8 Nov 1935 (also on newspaperarchive.com) features what may be either an op-ed or letter defending Barnard students' purity in light of the article's reception.

Sorry I still can't find the source article, but nothing comes up in the NYT archive search.

[C.S. Lewiston]

The 1920's - wow! Those kids were of my grandparents' generation! The statistics, assuming that they're accurate, appear to belie the notion that America was a more "moral" (read: sexless and joyless) society back in those days. Heck, it was a lot more like the 1960's in at least one way.

"Getting tight" during Prohibition meant making clandestine connections to get "stuff", risking arrest and risking social and business-world ostracism if one was found out. Unless of course, your boss, your friends or your wife bought stuff from the same connection!

[Craig J. Sorensen]

Flappers gone wild.

[moistened bink]

I research genealogy and I would say you are dead on that the font/print looks like the 20's.
I love to read the old papers - there really is nothing new, it's all happened before, we just hear about it faster and more often now.

[susie Bright]

PJ has nailed the year; what excellent research. I salute you... and let me know if I can send you a free copy of BAE 2008! Now if anyone can definitively show what newspaper it's published in, they get another crackerjack prize!

[m]

The canard that the "greatest generation" was sexless is about as realistic as the belief that genitalia were secretly affixed in the rectory just before the wedding during those times.

WWII induction and enlistment examination records show that during that period, a positive syphilis serology was responsible for the annual rejection of 5-8% of examinees. Of course syphilis was a great scourge then. The cure rates were minimal, often involving heavy metal treatments or the induction of malaria to cause severe fevers. I always get a big kick out of that generation whining about the moral degeneration demonstrated by HIV infection rates.