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The place which is available for the petting may largely determine the time and the techniques that are utilized. A goodnight kiss on a street corner, on the steps of a girl’s home, in the shrubbery outside of a dormitory, or in some out-of-the-way place adjacent to a dance hall, may develop into a short but distinctly erotic relationship. Most petting probably occurs in the girl’s home, or in the rooming house or dormitory where she stays, or wherever else she may entertain her boy friends. A large part of the petting occurs in parked or moving automobiles, just as it used to occur in horse-drawn buggies among older generations. Much of the petting occurs out-of-doors on porches, in gardens, in parks, on swimming beaches, along unfrequented paths, in boats, or in the woods and the fields of more open country. Much petting occurs more or less openly within public view at dances, cocktail parties, or smaller social gatherings. Foreign travelers are sometimes amazed at the open display of such obviously erotic activity, and wrongly conclude that it indicates that most young persons in this country are having a great deal of pre-marital coitus. They fail to understand that petting often serves as a substitute for the pre-marital coitus which seems to be more prevalent in Europe. “Blanket parties” in secluded spots out-of-doors are modern versions of the ancient and widespread custom of “bundling.” Moving picture theatres regularly provide opportunities for petting. There is an increasing amount of petting which is carried on in such public conveyances as buses, trains, and airplanes. The other passengers have learned to ignore such activities if they are pursued with some discretion. Orgasm is sometimes achieved in the petting which goes on in such public places.

There is a general impression that pre-marital coitus is of necessity had under inadequate and often distinctly inadequate conditions which must make the experience unsatisfactory or even traumatic in its effect on subsequent marital adjustments; but this impression is not supported by any accumulation of data in the literature. It has, therefore, seemed significant to analyze the specific data on the experience of the females in our sample.


Table 78f. Places of pre-marital coitus
Location Total
Sample		 Decade of Birth Age of Marriage
Bf. 1900 1900-1909 1910-1919 16-20 21-25 26-30 31-35
In female’s home 58 52 58 60 55 57 65 62
In male’s home 48 40 43 53 43 50 49 44
In friend’s home 9 6 7 9 9 10 6 8
In automobiles 41 18 38 44 47 40 38 35
In hotel or rented room 40 35 42 44 29 39 51 60
Out-of-doors 36 40 39 36 34 37 37 35
Other places 15 29 13 17 14 14 18 17
Number of cases 983 65 228 402 235 490 179 52

In this sample more than half (58 per cent) of the females who had any pre-marital experience in coitus had had at least a portion of it within their own homes (Table 78f). In terms of frequencies our less specifically tabulated data indicate that the female’s parental home or other residence was the place in which a high proportion of all the contacts had occurred. For instance, the data indicate that girls living away from home while attending college have a smaller proportion of their pre-marital coitus in the college town, and a larger proportion of it while they are at home, during vacations. This is no new development, for it seems to have been equally true of all generations for the past forty years, including the generation born before 1900.

Some 48 per cent of the females had had a portion of their coitus in the male’s home (Table 78f). This, again, was more or less equally true of all the generations represented in the sample. The record indicates, however, that the frequencies of contacts in such places were considerably lower than the frequencies of contacts in the girl’s home.

Some 40 per cent of the females reported that some of their premarital coitus had occurred in hotel rooms or in some other type of rented room (Table 78f). In spite of the increased amount of traveling which the present generation does, and the increasing use of facilities like tourist camps, the number of girls who had coitus in rented facilities had, in terms of percentages, remained more or less constant for all of the generations included in the sample.

Within recent decades, the automobile parked on some side road out of town, or moving along a highway, has provided an opportunity for pre-marital coitus. Some 41 per cent of the females in the sample had had such experience (Table 78f). The data indicate that the importance of the car had more than doubled in the thirty years covered by the sample. In earlier generations in both European and American history, the buggy or other horse-drawn conveyance appears to have served the function which the automobile now serves in connection with pre-marital coitus.

A variety of other places had been utilized by some of the females (Table 78f). The diverse nature of such places has been the source of the general opinion that pre-marital coitus is usually had under unfavorable circumstances; but it may be noted again that half to three-quarters of all the coitus had by the females in the sample seems to have occurred in the home of the female or male.
Only a few studies have included data on the places where pre-marital coitus occurs, but see: Welander 1908:20 (for 628 European males with venereal disease). Schbankov acc. Weissenberg 1924a:13 (European). Hoyer 1929: 53-59. Dickinson and Beam 1934:170. Banning 1937:6 ("‘Being clandestine, it is rarely either well housed or comfortable”). Clark 1952:31.

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