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:
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(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.”
This is the best. Thanks.
After rubbing our necks together for several minutes, my wife and I gave up and decided it was just something kinky that old people did. Now I know.
I still prefer “sparking.” Which can be especially fun if you use wint-o-green lifesavers in a dark room, like, say, the former Little Theater in the BYU Wilkinson Center. The actual sparks from biting the life-savers is entertaining and it helps freshen breath for other activities. But I’ve only heard about this. . . .
1. Love the picture.
2. Thanks for the summary. I understand your skepticism that people mocking the terms don’t really know what they mean. But the various quotes you throw out use terms like “spooning” and “wooing” that I thought I understood–and I would never have used either term as a synonym for petting. In my mind, spooning is a very specific positioning that makes kissing rather difficult and wooing need not involve any physical contact at all. And when I was a teenager, I Was totally baffled by petting. I could not imagine that it meant doing to a girl anything but what I would do to a kitten.
3. The 1986 Benson quote is a very close German translation of your lead-off quote from the Miracle of Forgiveness. Both contain the curious assertion that pregnancy is an ugly sin. Assuming the reference is specifically to unwed pregnancy, the implication is that it is worse to commit fornication and get pregnant than to commit fornication and not get pregnant. (I don’t think the orthodoxy of the corollary–that it is worse to get pregnant and have an abortion than to get pregnant and not have an abortion–is even controversial.) Anyway, I doubt that those listing these “ugly sins” had thought through the implications with regard to the use of birth control by unmarried couples (although some have disagreed with me when I’ve raised this before.)
Thanks for clearing this up. I’m a grandmother, yet I admit I’m still confused about the birds and the bees, too. They both fly, some bird eat some bees…but beyond that, I have no clue. We do use some silly phrases!
I prefer the term used by John Green, “scoodlypooping”. Though I think that goes beyond sparking, necking, or even petting.
My father was one to not waste words. He defined necking as “what you do with your mouth” and petting as “what you do with your hands.” He then explained the pre-marriage boundaries for both and what he would do if he discovered us trespassing those boundaries (or allowing someone to trespass those boundaries on our person.) He also explained that Heavenly Father did not need a porch light or a flash light to see what we were doing.
Count me among the ranks of innocent Mormon teenagers who was totally confused by the terms necking and petting. I was back from my mission before I finally figured it out. I remember being disappointed when Pres. Hinckley said he had been asked about the topic, only to say “you know exactly what it means” when I’m confident than many of us really didn’t.
On a related tangent, the Church’s teaching on sexuality needs a top-to-bottom re-write. Not to throw out the Law of Chastity, but how it’s taught. In the past few years, we’ve finally gotten rid of the chewed gum analogy. Can we now at least recognize that sex (and the things leading up to it) are pleasurable and alluring for normal people, rather than constantly characterize them as ugly, dirty, disgusting things? (While we’re at it, we can address Last Lemming’s comment that some teaching include pregnancy as a sin.)
I get that today’s youth may be confused about these terms, but I was not in the least confused about them as a teenager in the 1960s. I was always pretty good at vocabulary. My confusion had to do with being pretty socially inept when it came to girls in high school, period, which limited any practical experience.
“Necking and petting” were commonly advised against when I was in the youth program in the ’90s. Petting is descriptive enough, but “necking” was enough of an anachronism to be mysterious. Looking it up on the internet was less of an option in those days, and I suspect that people in my generation may have “made out” with their sweethearts without thinking they were crossing the line to “necking,” as long as their activities took place above the neck.
These days, the complaint itself is fairly anachronistic. I have wondered if translation difficulties were one reason for being more plain-spoken in FTSOY, rather than just updating the euphemism. I can’t find anything particularly recent about “necking” on lds.org, either. I was amused to discover that without putting the term in quotes, I got all kinds of results involving the word “neck” including “He ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him.” Naturally that one is about the parable of the Prodigal son, not about things that happen in lovers’ lanes.
I shouldn’t have so glibly dismissed those who didn’t understand these terms.
There seems to be little doubt that many of those who railed against necking had in mind even what nearly all of us would consider a normal good-night kiss at the front door. When the term “necking” came into vogue, the “normal” kiss, if given at all, would have been a childlike kiss on the cheek, truly no different than might have been exchanged between brothers and sisters when one of them was going away from home for school or mission.
But that kind of kiss isn’t even on the radar for anybody today, other than, maybe, thanking Grandpa for the Christmas candy or saying goodnight to Grandma. I think nobody would imagine giving a date that kind of kiss.
So the goalposts had moved. If yesterday’s necking includes today’s acceptable good-night kiss, then where are today’s youth supposed to draw the line between acceptable kissing and what we’re now calling, I guess, “passionate kissing”?
I take back my skepticism that young people didn’t know. I think most probably recognize(d) when a line is crossed, but certainly the old terms are of no use in helping to find that line.
If I were to be brutally honest in this “Me Too” age, the vagueness of “necking and petting” in my teenage years meant that there was no clear goalpost to weigh in against sexual abuse… if my boyfriend and I were doing (probably necking, by this definition) less than my MP-bearing stepfather was doing to me (by this definition it was necking and heavy petting) and he kept insisting it was ok…
I am really grateful for the current clearer statement in For The Strength of Youth.
Now if we would only have a first-Sunday council on Abuse…
I think the terms (particularly petting) were mostly out of use 40 years ago, except in the context of teenagers being lectured to by their elders. The problem I see with these terms is that they are neither sufficiently precise or general enough to do the job they were called on to do.
Even if the meaning were precisely understood, “Don’t engage in necking and petting” doesn’t do a good job of stating the general principle.
Something like “avoid physical activities that are strongly arousing or passionate” is not precise or specific, but it does state the general principle and gives some guidance for those who might “govern themselves.” It also covers a multitude of activities that might not be covered by “N&P” or any other list of specific prohibitions.
The general principle and guidance for setting boundaries are important, but some clarity and specificity are also required, and the terms N&P don’t do the job there, either. For a number of reasons, I think it’s problematic to just stick a name on certain activities and then ban whatever is covered under that term. After giving the general principle, you then need to provide examples of some specific things you have in mind without using euphemisms. “Keep your hands and face off body parts X, Y, and Z, and keep your genitals to yourself.” (Okay, we might need to reword that a bit to get it in a church handbook, but bluntness and clarity are to be desired.) And I would add, “Strictly respect the other person’s boundaries and don’t be afraid to enforce your own.”
I agree with Ardis that the terms in question, though archaic, are reasonably understandable as referencing some kind of strongly amorous behavior. It’s okay to have terms that are a little fuzzy around the edges. But for specific boundaries, N&P probably cover different semantic territory to different people in different generations.
Petting can reasonably be understood in context as some form of amorous touching or caressing. But what touching and caressing is supposed to be covered? Holding hands at a movie? Caressing your date’s hand or shoulder? Touching the back while dancing? The term “petting” doesn’t seem really useful if it might cover everything from a brief caress of the hand to […].
During my youth, the term necking was a little more in vogue than petting, but I always found it more baffling. Some sort of passionate kissing, apparently. But what exactly? And what’s the big thing about the neck? Is it just kissing the neck? Giving a hickey? Bending the neck around for passionate kissing? Hugging around the neck while kissing? Maybe nothing necessarily to do with the neck? Perhaps any of the above.
Again, it’s okay to have words that might not have universally understood precise meanings, but we were calling on N&P to serve as a boundary for teenagers, when the terms might include anything from an innocent caress to (essentially) sex. It’s probably okay for the boundary to be a little fuzzy, too. But the terms needed to be dropped; they were much fuzzier than the boundary they were supposed to describe.
Ah, yes. The “You know what I mean,” line that was thrown at the youth too often. I don’t think it was ever said to me directly, because I would have been much too shy and embarrassed to even ask the question. But there were times when the adults said sternly, “You know what I mean,” when in fact, I didn’t even have the slightest clue what was being discussed. Once all of the youth were dragged in for a very serious but obscure and oblique lecture. To this day I don’t even know what happened to prompt it. Not only was I not involved, but no one ever mentioned it to me. But the whole thing was unnerving and frightening as somehow my immortal soul was on the line. Sometimes the kids asking the questions really don’t know what the adults are talking about because they’re too far from the boundary to even see it with binoculars, much less cross it.
I can say one definitive thing about petting. Stoke in the direction the fur/hair grows if you don’t want to risk getting scratched, bitten, or stomped.
In the mid- to late 1960s, when I first heard the term “petting” (this during a church meeting), I had absolutely no idea was it meant, but I could tell, from context (again in church meetings), that it was something bad and to avoid. Funny, now that I think about it, that my introduction to more than a few sexual terms occurred in church meetings.
Me, too, Gary. I wonder if that is still true for teens? If so, all the more reason for YM/YW leaders to get it right!
A reply to #11’s comment: “Now if we would only have a first-Sunday council on Abuse…” . . . I absolutely agree! It needs to be boldly spoken about. It needs to be addressed openly. In one ward in which I was a Primary teacher, the 11-year-olds asked why I wouldn’t come into the classroom until my co-teacher arrived, and I explained that it was to protect them AND to protect me. This turned into a very delicate few moments, and after class one of the children whispered to me that he needed a co-teacher at home and why. I went right to the bishop, pulling him out of a meeting, and, bless him, he listened and believed. From there I will just say that the story has a happy ending. So yes – I am one of those who believes that things need to be openly talked about between adults in these new council meetings! Necking, petting, keeping our hands of the children — let’s talk openly and with VERY specific Gospel-guided standards and instructions!
Aye, Gary, there’s the rub. Too much explicit discussion of sexual terms simply introduces the young to ideas they might not yet have thought of.
Here’s Oxford English Dictionary for necking. Apparently I did a lot of it.
2. The act of embracing, caressing, or kissing a person.
1825 A. Crawford Tales of my Grandmother I. 138 Let’s see nae mair o’ Peter Wallett’s neckin’ an’ touslin’ here.
1922 Dial. Notes 5 148 Necking, dancing with cheeks together, also known as ‘parking’.
1928 Daily Tel. 4 Sept. 7/5 High school children..whose favourite pastime is ‘necking’ in motor-cars in dark roads with the lights turned off.
1938 E. Bowen Death of Heart ii. vi. 278 A spot of necking with Daphne.
1958 Times Lit. Suppl. 15 Aug. p. x/3 For the active young non-reader, sport, cars, dancing and necking are the prime immediacies.
1974 S. King Carrie (1975) 128 They..had had some pretty hot necking sessions.
1989 T. Kidder Among Schoolchildren iii. i. 68 Chris wasn’t ready for necking in the bushes. She was always a very good girl.
1996 Just Seventeen 14 Aug. 26/3 Neckin’. The word used by your olds to mean a-kissing and a-cuddling. Strangely, though, it doesn’t involve your neck at all.
My parents used the term necking for what I would call making out, so I was moderately clear on that one.
“Petting,” on the other hand, I knew solely from FSOY, and it didn’t even occur to me to wonder what it was until I was at a chorus sleepover in junior high, and I ended up quoting FSOY to them. But when they asked what petting was, I realized I had no idea– I was definitely one of the ones who wouldn’t have been able to see that boundary with binoculars.
I wasn’t the sort to worry about it– or, again, to have to worry about it– so I didn’t fret too much. But years later, when RG Scott said something in a conference talk with similar wording to today’s FSOY, a lightbulb finally went off. Even more helpfully, I had an older sister who was quite frank, and who shared with me what one of her friend’s parents said: if whatever you’re doing is turning you on, you stop. That seemed like a weirdly restrictive standard when I first heard it, but the older I get, the more I think it makes a lot of sense, at least for kids who are too young to be steady dating anyway.