This is my book of anecdotes. This one isn’t in it but it could have been. It’ll be in the next one.
Eve, pregnancy, my mum and no Adam
Back in the sixties it was not quite how young people today might imagine. The prevailing mood was that of post-war drabness, fifties austerity and a very ‘stiff upper lip’ repressed culture. It was grey, drab and stuffed up its own arse.
The sixties rebellion was an attempt by a segment of the youth of the day to chuck all that out. They wanted colour, fun, freedom and liberalism.
Kerouac had pushed the door open. The Beatles and Stones had pushed it further and by the end of the decade Jimi Hendrix, Captain Beefheart, Bob Dylan and Roy Harper had blown it off its hinges with a ton and a half of dynamite.
Eve was a friend of mine from school. She was one of the group of girls I used to hang around with. Eve fell pregnant. I don’t know who the Adam was but pregnancy back then was a big thing. It was a social slur. People still talked of bastards. It carried a big social stigma. There was shame.
This was around 1966. I was about seventeen. Eve was probably sixteen.
Everyone thinks of the sixties as an age of sexual liberation and promiscuity. It was and it wasn’t. Contraception was still hard to get. You couldn’t buy condoms easily. There weren’t any machines or supermarket shelves stocked with varieties. There were no luminous strawberry flavoured ribbed nobblers that played Beatles songs while you made love. There was no internet shopping. There wasn’t even the idea of the internet. You had to go into a chemist and buy them across the counter. When the pill came in you had to go to the doctor and it was possible he would refuse.
That’s not quite the image put about. For young girls it was hard. Risks were taken.
When Eve fell pregnant her parents wanted her to have an abortion. There was pressure being exerted – failing that to put the baby up for adoption. Eve was very depressed.
My mum heard about it and felt that wasn’t right. She went round to see Eve and had a talk with her. I understand the gist of it was that being pregnant wasn’t the end of the world. Thousands of girls were in her position. She did not have to do what she was being pressured to do. She should do what she felt was right. If she wanted the baby then she should have it. She’d cope. If she wanted the abortion then that was OK too.
Eve felt that a weight had been lifted off her.
She decided to have the baby.
My mum started collecting baby clothes and toys. She did what she could.
I was recently talking to my friend Carol. She was extolling the virtues of my mum. She thought she was great – a one off. She told me I should write a book about her.
I suppose, in a way, I am.
I knew someone who fell pregnant in the sixties she was being forced to “get rid of the baby” but she wanted it, she was engaged but he did not want to know when he found out, shit. She had the baby and it was adopted by her parents – dreadful thing to do she for the rest of her life had to pretend the baby was her brother and not the child she wanted.
There were terrible things that happened. Girls take off into institutions, babies forcibly taken away. Horrible. I’m glad all that stigma and nastiness has gone. We do not need the desperation, suicides and back-street abortionists.
Trouble is now Opher even though there is the pill and everything else too many girls have 4/5/ children, different fathers assuming they even know who the fathers are, they get more benefit money as well. Those bad days are gone is this an improvement?
Well in general it’s an improvement but you always get the none too bright who can’t get it right, the ones abusing the system and the complete idiots. I don’t know what you do about those.
Opher, girls don’t fall pregnant! And neither did they ever need Kerouac or The Beatles in order to do so. We’re had condoms since the year jot, there’s no excuse and were available in every chemist and barber shop. OK, so your mother helped some silly girl out, but that doesn’t justify the whole wanton problem. Some people are just too stupid to even think about what they’re doing. I never once went near any girlfriends without precautions. Never. And considered any such “accidents” as total dumb-ass stuff. And I can tell you that also in the 70’s, no doctor was handing out the pill to 16 year old girls, so no change from the 60’s. I still had to walk into the barbers hoping nobody would see me buying a packet. I had no option. I couldn’t use the chemists because the women knew my mum!
All that business of removal of babies and back-street abortion was unfortunately predominantly due to the mentality of the parents that were involved. They were a big part of the problem, that and all the rubbish religious nonsense that goes with it. But the stigma was in part society’s objections to what is a very stupid and selfish act that now requires many others to smooth it all over.
We had a few such girls at my school and I can honestly say that they must have gone out of their way to join the club, they were everybody’s and saw more pricks than a 2nd hand dartboard.
Sexual liberation has got nothing to do with an accidental pregnancy. I used to work with hundreds of girls/women aged 18-25. The gender and age group equate for 75% of hotel employees almost anywhere in the world. We always used to talk about sex, not like today where I’d be averse to even uttering that word at work. Everyone knew that you’d have to be a total tosser to ruin your life like just like that. Mind you, I was never particularly attracted to slags. There were taboo, a no-go area.
I think there’s still quite a bit of stigma with young unmarried mothers, especially those with multiple sprogs from several blokes. I’ve a neighbour who spends her entire working day trying to sort out their problems. She’s 56, and no beginner in the social work field and of the firm opinion that really their only problem is they have no self control yet very good at kicking up a fuss about what they’re entitled to etc.
I think the expression “Pram Face” is around for very good reason.
Andrew – I don’t think it was quite as simple as that. Condoms were available in barbers and chemists. But most lads didn’t visit barbers back then. It was quite daunting for young girls and boys to ask for condoms. It wasn’t that easy.
People took more risks because of the embarrassment. It was very frowned on by the stuffy older people running the chemists who put you through a lot of heavy grief. The sexual revolution was not popular with the older generation.
Eve wasn’t a silly girl. She took a calculated risk. She was unlucky. She wasn’t being utterly irresponsible. I think it was difficult.
The sixties changed attitudes and contraception became more available and much more socially acceptable. There wasn’t the same embarrassment factor.
We still have the silly girls who, now having free access, don’t use it.
I’m glad there was that liberalisation. Those times were terrible.
I take your points. But what about that new wave of television comedy writers and play writers like Harold Pinter that were seemingly never off the tv back in the day – the whole thing was about the sexual revolution. These writers were very much older people, 30+ at least. It went right across the broad spectrum of society and certainly not to just the teenage set. Even with my own parents, which I discovered much later via the type of books that were in the house that they must have bought back at the time.
I can’t believe that you living in London had any problem finding a hipster barbers. Colchester, maybe, but London?
I’m not buying it.
Oh I’m sure there were a number of older people, particularly in the arts, who were well into the sexual liberation.
I just know that it was hard in small towns with repressive attitudes. Things were not that easy on the contraception front.
Taking risks is a human trait. I used to take major risks with my life on my motorbike.
Cut their bloody benefits Opher – those benefits are meant for those people who really need them not those that work the system and that is still Labour in me talking.
I agree. We have to do drastic things to cut the birth rate and that is one of them. They shouldn’t earn a living by producing children.
Andrew you do seem to have a very low opinion of girls/women, I am not saying you are totally wrong but there were and are still decent girls/women out there. I was too terrified to have a boyfriend let alone sex not only because of the threat of the “Priest” but because I was told many times “you ever bring any trouble to us you are out the door” and my parents meant it. Hence I married 27, a virgin, a man 30 years older than me and was not really wanted – so you see we were not all slags looking for a prick – even though the offers were there.
Anna, please read again what I said. It’s self explanatory.
Your case does not reflect any general case. Suppressed and oppressed Ireland of the 50’s, 60’s or 70’s may as just as well have been 500 years ago. Their society was SO backward. Just dark ages stuff. I’m from middle-class suburbia Glasgow and my early life experiences will indeed be a whole world away from the doctrine inflicted on yours. For a start, my father blanket banned any religious conversation in our house, never mind the abhorrent thought of any such practices. As I’ve said before here, when I walked out of Sunday school aged 8, he was delighted for me.
We had no such any “low opinion” of girls/women in my house. My house was run in entirety by a woman. And funnily enough, all my girl friends, whether just friends or indeed “friends” were women too. My whole social life involved women. None of my girl friends would have anything to do with the sorts of girls that prevailed with risky behaviour. Education is a wonderful thing and never has anybody ever accused me of being misogynist. Cruel but fair, yes, but never a misogynist.
Aaah. But the use of language is misogynistic. If you use terms like slut and slag they are judgemental and derogatory. They were used to put women down.
Now I know that there were a few girls who behaved in a cavalier fashion but they were a minority and usually had reasons.
The fact that girls enjoyed sex and chose to have a number of partners doesn’t make them wrong or their actions wrong. They shouldn’t be saddled with derogatory language.
It lads indulge in similar actions they are called studs. There are no similar derogatory terms.
Female sexuality is stronger than males. (Orgasms 30 x stronger, capacity much greater) Language has been used by males to control and contain female sexuality. I think there is a fear that if women were set free males would not be able to keep the pace up. It also seems that this is proving the case. In this modern day it is often the girls who are setting the pace. Who’s to say they are wrong?
They should not be described as sluts.
Andrew I am sorry if you thought for one moment I was calling you a misogynist indeed I was not, I guess I am over sensitive and I do get on my “high horse” at times, my apologies if I offended you. I was actually born in England but my home was like Ireland and yes I was held back, I did in the early days try and fight my way “out” but it was no good my mother was determined. I got out when I could and looking back now made even a bigger mistake – I wanted to be wanted and to be loved, s..t that never happened. I did envy those girls who had boyfriends and relationships, I had enough offers but always said “No. There you go Andrew I am prattling on again, sorry. Sincere apologies for offending you.
Yes, I do know that the term “slag” is derogatory. It was applied to a certain type as opposed to the entire gender.
Perhaps I was imagining seeing them get steaming drunk at parties and hoping from bloke to bloke. In future I’ll remember to put that down to their enjoyment of sex and that multiple partners is perfectly fine.
Or the queues behind the bushes behind the swimming pool at school during lunchtime where the 14 & 15 year old girls got bonked rotten by 6th form. Yup, all good clean fun. Just normal teenage hormonal activity having 3 blokes shag you over a lunchtime. A1 normal.
At what point do you ever say to anybody “get a grip of yourself” as opposed to “there, there dear”? Do you calculate everything on the biological conclusion that a person cannot help themselves because they’re more hot-wired than another? So with that logic, if would therefore be acceptable if a young guy with a serious anger issue batters the shit out of someone because his testosterone level is running rampant?
That’s piss poor excuse and doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
That ideology would never ever stand up in an adult work place. Not ever.
But the fact there’s a perception of derogatory terminology used overrides the human basic desire not to wantonly procreate with utter abandon.
These people piss me off and I really could not give a continental if they were indeed offended. We see it generation after generation with them, same family, same values. All up the duff at sweet 16.
Alas, my level of respect for these people was flushed down the toilet.
No Opher, you could not be more wrong. It is the social services and benefits system that sets the pace these days.
Your ever depleting pension fund is paying for it.
Anna, both my own mother and ex-wife quite readily used put terms aimed at other females whose behaviour offended them. Certainly not to anyone’s face, and only within our own private conversations and when they considered it warranted.
Neither of them gave a hoot for the political correctness that a lot of people are now dying from, and were both strong enough to say boo to a ghost.
Andrew, thank you I appreciate your comments. I’m going off now so I’ll say Goodnight, “Sleep Warm”.
Still talking at cross purposes. These terms are not applied to appropreiate targets. There are undoubtedly a number of girls who deserve to be addressed in that way. But many do not. That is the basis for me.
I’m for equality, liberation and that means equal treatment. I’m not condoning the stupid girls who behave in that way.
Opher, it saw the end of that dreadful term for an innocent child “Bastard”. Rod McKuen was born a bastard as they said and when the snobbish Poets reminded him of that fact he would say “I am proud to have been born a bastard, it takes years for you to become one” – my mother/sister called my Sons bastards when they were young and old come to that – good catholics!!
The power has gone out of it now. Times have changed. It used to be a terrible term. I’m glad its gone.
So am I
It was all part of that misogynistic sexual suppression of women. It should never have happened.
I am sorry Opher but to me they are slags some of these girls, the way they behave there is no other word for them judgemental or not. Colchester Town of a Friday and Saturday night has become well known for the way that girls who hang out there behave – sex with total strangers while both are drunk falling all over the place, taking their breasts out to show to anyone and to do what they want with them you cannot honestly think they are NICE, sorry some may find that funny but they are slags my friend who does my hair moved from Colchester because of the way it now is, the Paras are based there so you can imagine. The Police go out and turn a blind eye to probably what goes on – ambulances are in the town for those nights – I totally resent NHS money being wasted like this, while sick people have to wait. You know how some young Brits behave abroad men and women and this country has a reputation for the this. Even this small has it’s filth Jonathan no longer goes out there for what goes on. If you think a girl who is so drunk has sex with a drunken lout up against someone’s garden wall is not a slut then I lost for words, that is far too liberal for me. Sorry if you are offended Opher
Anna, exactly.
I’ll have to get Opher a Saturday night on Sauchiehall Street.
I’ll keep him straight with all the gender confusion, too. All the trans this and trans that’s, the pre-op’s this and that’s. We can’t have the wrong term applied to the wrong gender. We might even see a common or garden good old fashioned prostitute. Fancy!
Alright. Alright. I’m confused enough as it is. I’ve led a sheltered life.
I think you are probably right. There is behaviour that is sluttish. Some of the girls out around town do behave in a sluttish, drunken manner. But that is not what I was referring to. In my opinion women should be as free as men to engage in sexual relationships with men. That is not to condone outrageous drunken behaviour on the streets. Those are two different things.
There are numerous put-down terms to describe women who enjoy sex and they are often applied to females who are not behaving outrageously in the streets. There’s a double standard.
Watch the film “The Acid House” based on life forms found on the salubrious housing estate, Granton, Edinburgh. There is no shortage of such women. Not that I personally know any…
There’s no shortage of vulgar, violent yobs either. It’s a chav culture. But I still contend that that is a separate thing. In one form or another that has always gone on. I just think it has become exaggerated by the social situation.
You’ve lost me – I thought this was about unwanted and unplanned pregnancy and the reason for the vast majority as outlined above.
I can’t imagine what put-downs could be applied to normal interaction. I’m certainly not using any.
Well we have gone round the houses. My original post was about my friend Eve who became pregnant and attitudes around that. Eve was a really nice girl who by no means could be described in any derogatory manner, yet girls like her were. It then went off into describing that group of girls who behave deplorably. There’s always been a bunch like that. It just seems to have grown and become more obvious. I doubt if there’s a town centre without its share of drunken yobs and tarty girls.
My contention is that the language used to describe those is used on other girls for reasons of control or superiority.
That’s the nature of language – that’s why we have a plethora of descriptive words that give us clear understanding of levels of severity etc. This case being popular opinion – or otherwise as the case may be. As for superiority, that’s most subjective. I was beginning to think it was a case of toleration of a single opinion only. That’s how it goes I guess, hence the expression “nowt as queer as folk”!
But seriously speaking and don’t take it personally because it’s certainly not and just my general observation – but with other blogs I engage with others on – topics are on more of an open question basis, as opposed to a personal statement that asks for commentary but too often seems unhappy with counter opinion as total agreement is seemingly far more agreeable and the required status quo. You need to take the reigns off a bit Opher, because the reality is we all have different life experiences that funnily enough are key factors that lead an individual towards holding any opinion.
That’s all I’ve got to say on that matter.
Where were we?….
I’ll do my best.
Opher and Andrew, I am signing off but before I do Opher lets agree to disagree because it is not worth falling out over. I will say goodnight to you both, “Sleep Warm”.
Night Anna.