Necking and Petting: A How-to Guide Just in time for Valentine’s Day, too. Let any Latter-day Saint on social media bring up anything remotely related to chastity, and someone else is sure to bring up “necking and petting,” laughing that they never understood – still don’t understand – what necking and petting are. Well, Keepa is your source for all things Mormon history … and the terms “necking” and “petting” certainly qualify. A search of the use of these terms in Mormon documents tells us that necking and petting are bad. Very. Very. Bad. Mostly, apparently, because they lie at the top of a very slippery slope. Among the most common sexual sins our young people commit are necking and petting. Not only do these improper relations often lead to fornication, pregnancy, and abortions—all ugly sins—but in and of themselves they are pernicious evils, and it is often difficult for youth to distinguish where one ends and another begins. … Too often, young people dismiss their petting with a shrug of their shoulders as a little indiscretion, while admitting that fornication is a base transgression. Too many of them are shocked, or feign to be, when told that what they have done in the name of petting was in reality fornication.” (Miracle of Forgiveness (1969), pp. 65–66.) Avoid necking and petting like a plague, for necking and petting is the concession which precedes the complete loss of virtue. (Ezra Taft Benson, October Conference, 1964) Steady dating is the source of much evil. The casual relationship grows rapidly into intimacies, develops heavy temptations, and stirs passions far beyond the ability of most young people to cope with. Nearly forty percent of our unwed mothers are between fifteen and nineteen years of age. Even our finest young people will find difficulty in withstanding for a long period the temptations of the intimate, frequent association. And the best young men and women may be overwhelmed and led down the path of the sins of necking, petting, fornication, and other detestable and loathsome perversions and practices. (Spencer W. Kimball, “Save the Youth of Zion,” Improvement Era, September 1965, 762) The Very Badness of necking didn’t prevent the editor of Cumorah’s Southern Messenger (the magazine of the South African Mission) from making it the point of a joke on that magazine’s joke page in March 1943: A Disturbing Element. He: “I can’t say I enjoy dancing – it’s nothing but necking set to music.” She: “What’s wrong with that?” He: “The music’s so distracting.” It leads to loathsome diseases, we are told. According to Dr. Welby W. Bigelow, director of the Division of Venereal Disease Control, Utah State Department of Health, “If a person conducts himself properly, there is only one chance in 10,000,000 of ever becoming infected.” The person who engages in kissing, “necking,” or “petting,” or is promiscuous, greatly reduces that protection. The germ needs only one chance. (“The War We Haven’t Won,” Improvement Era, March 1946, 146) We know where necking and petting take place: For any man to attempt to change the moral law is like trying to change the Deity himself. It is to ask the Almighty to condone the petting, the necking, the wicked intimacies and perversions which go on in the back seats of automobiles, in motel and hotel rooms, and on park lawns and beaches. (Mark E. Petersen, April Conference, 1965) We Mormons aren’t the only ones who used those terms. Here’s Holden Caulfield (Catcher in the Rye, 1951): So what I did was, I went over and made her move over on the glider so that I could sit down next to her – I practically sat down in her lap, as a matter of fact. Then she really started to cry, and the next thing I knew, I was kissing her all over—anywhere—her eyes, her nose, her forehead, her eyebrows and all, her ears—her whole face except her mouth and all. She sort of wouldn’t let me get to her mouth. Anyway, it was the closest we ever got to necking. Groucho Marx used it: “Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.” We can even tell when the words were most in vogue, through this Google N-gram: .



. (Many of the uses of “necking” have to do with mechanical devices that have neck-like parts, and no doubt some of the uses of “petting” refer to little girls stroking kittens, but the two words track each other so closely that I think most uses have to do with amorous behavior.) But knowing when the terms were used doesn’t really help in understanding what they mean, does it? Even when the terms were most used, we resorted to “defining” them by references to even more archaic terms: There are a great many other young couples who waste the valuable hours, when they should be becoming thoroughly acquainted with each other, in the frivolous pastime of “necking.’ The word has evolved through the stages of “spooning” and “petting” to “necking,” but the process of “necking” seems to be very similar to “spooning” except that “necking” is usually done in an automobile while “spooning” was performed on the back seat of a buggy. (Venice Farnsworth Anderson, Improvement Era, 1928, 200) To get back to the expression, “smooching.” I don’t like that word. And yet I could see that you thought it very gay and amusing — or am I doing some of the “interpreting” which I promised not to do? Through the years the words have varied — “spooning,” “necking,” “wooing,” “smooching” — I remember all those. Before you read this, someone may have “dreamed up” another. (“Let’s Talk It Over,” Improvement Era, January 1947, 20) Boys like girls who love to dance, and participate in sports and outdoor things. But did you know that fellows in general are a little embarrassed and a little uneasy when girls seem to expect that they wander off in couples and resort to some of the commoner pastimes, which are known as petting and bundling? (“Joy in Boy Friends,” Improvement Era, February 1935, 116) Lots and lots and lots of “social hygiene” texts and morality manuals for religions far from Mormonism, used the terms throughout the 20th century – and until the latter years of the century, these non-Mormon authors, many of them professional psychologists and counselors, have a hard time describing the behaviors in understandable terms. From Building a Successful Marriage, 1949: A universal problem of the courtship period is how far to go in petting. With the greater freedom now existing in the association between the sexes, petting becomes a problem from the first date until young people marry. In grandfather’s day they called it “spooning” or “sparking.” In dad’s day they called it “necking.” In son’s day they make a distinction between “necking” and “petting.” The first term refers to an acceptable type of caressing; the second refers to extremes. From Every Woman’s Standard Medical Guide, 1948: Very shortly after boys and girls commence to go out together socially, the question of necking and petting is forced on most of the girls. They are under the social pressure of having to allow a certain amount of necking and petting— otherwise the boys will turn to other girls for their dates. They are under the home pressure of having necking and petting frowned on. From Human Sexual Behavior, 1971: Among most high school and college students, petting may be accepted because of the social prestige which it carries and because of the dancing, drinking, auto rides, and other social activities which may precede or accompany it. The term petting is properly confined to physical contacts which involve a deliberate attempt to effect erotic arousal. Maybe, you wonder, we could find help in seeing how our talks and articles about necking and petting are translated into other languages? Here is Ezra Taft Benson’s April 1986 talk, in German: Die häufigsten sexuellen Sünden unserer jungen Leute sind Necking und Petting. Diese unzüchtigen Handlungen führen nicht nur zur eigentlichen Unzucht und so-gar zu Abtreibung wegen unerwünschter Schwangerschaft – all das sind greuliche Sünden -, sondern sie stellen selbst auch schon, für sich genommen, verderbliche Sünden dar. Außerdem kann der junge Mensch oft nur schwer unterscheiden, wo das eine aufhört und das andere anfängt. (emphasis added) Well, that’s wasn’t much help — apparently there is no easy equivalent for these words in German. Maybe the same talk in Dutch: Daar verkering het voorspel van het huwelijk is en nauwe contacten aanmoedigt, hebben velen zichzelf wijsgemaakt dat intimiteiten toegestaan zijn – als deel van de verkering. (In het Engels wordt hartstochtelijk zoenen ,,necking” en het betasten van intieme lichaamsdelen ,,petting” genoemd. Het Engels gebruikt hier vaste termen voor seksueel contact buiten het huwelijk. In onze taal moeten wij termen gebruiken die verwarring kunnen scheppen. In deze tekst worden genoemde handelingen buiten het huwelijk veroordeeld. Vertaler.) Ah, ha! Dutch apparently has no word for “necking” known to the LDS translators, which leads to this explanation: As courtship is the forerunner of marriage and encourages close contact, many have made themselves believe that intimacies are allowed as part of courtship. (In English passionately kissing, necking, and touching intimate parts of the body is called “petting.” Here English uses fixed terms for sexual contact outside of marriage. In our language we have to use terms that can create confusion. In this context said actions are condemned out of wedlock. – Translator.) We snicker at the terms, but they really aren’t all that hard to define, especially with the help of all the explicit hygiene manuals from throughout the 20th century, available online: “Necking” is kissing that goes beyond a peck on the cheek or even the lips. It’s when a girl hangs her arms around a guy’s neck, with his arms around her waist. It’s any kind of kissing you can’t do without bodily contact – kissing necks and shoulders and throats and anywhere else that you wouldn’t kiss your mother. “Petting” is the use of hands on the body, whether under or over clothing: fondling. It’s what you do in a lovers’ lane, in a car, in the movies you see where couples are all wrapped around each other, in a make-out party where people pair off for the purpose of making out in dark corners or private rooms. It’s what BYU kids call? called? NCMO – “non-committal make-out.” It’s “anything but.” It’s groping. It’s getting to third base. It’s – it’s whatever every new generation invents its own words for. And I’m not convinced that many of the Mormons who snicker at the terms “necking” and “petting” really don’t know what activity is being referred to. Or, rather, make that was being referred to. It’s been a while since For the Strength of Youth used those terms. In its current form (latest revision 2010 – that’s a whole generation in YM/YW years), the booklet doesn’t use the words “necking” and “petting.” The booklet is a little more frank these days, still describing the same behaviors: Never do anything that could lead to sexual transgression. Treat others with respect, not as objects used to satisfy lustful and selfish desires. Before marriage, do not participate in passionate kissing, lie on top of another person, or touch the private, sacred parts of another person’s body, with or without clothing. Do not do anything else that arouses sexual feelings. Do not arouse those emotions in your own body. Pay attention to the promptings of the Spirit so that you can be clean and virtuous. The Spirit of the Lord will withdraw from one who is in sexual transgression. – For the Strength of Youth (2010), p. 36. Farewell, necking and petting; hello to debates on what constitutes “passionate kissing.” Comments (19) RSS feed for comments on this post.

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