With age comes wisdom, or so they say. Personally, I don’t buy it, at least not as a blanket statement. I’ve seen too many examples to the contrary. Rather, I would posit that with age comes perspective. Beyond a certain age, it is almost impossible not to reflect on the past when witnessing current events.
I would also propose that perspective goes beyond one’s lifetime. My parents were born in the second decade of the 20th century and my grandparents were born in the mid-1890s. Listening to them talk about their lives and times adds yet more perspective to one’s own. I didn’t experience what they did first-hand, but via one or two degrees of separation.
For example, my grandmother introduced me to the phrase, “sowing his wild oats.” This was in the late 60s when my cousin got engaged. She and her fiancé were both 19, and my grandmother objected that the young man hadn’t finished sowing his wild oats. In truth, she didn’t know if he had even started since she had never met him. The young man in question was Catholic so in my grandmother’s eyes that might have been an even bigger objection. You young “love is love” whippersnappers might find it hard to believe, but in those bad old days, a white Catholic marrying a white Protestant was considered a mixed marriage, and had a good chance of ending up a nixed marriage so far as the parents were concerned.
Well, I’m happy to report that the marriage proved to be one of those till-death-do-us-part matches, so the whole wild oats controversy was moot. The phrase, however, intrigued me, as I was in my wild oats years at the time, though I was hardly a hellion. In retrospect, I like to think I had gotten a head start on middle age.
Some sayings have short shelf lives, others much longer. It seems, however, that “sowing his wild oats” has disappeared from the collective consciousness. I can’t remember the last time I heard it. Yet it’s not as though the phrase is no longer relevant.
Traditionally, the phrase was applied to young men who were full of piss and vinegar, another phrase that’s fallen into disuse. In truth, it would be better applied to a woman douching with a full bladder.
In effect, sowing wild oats described a rebellious/adventurous phase of a man’s life. It included but was not restricted to sexual matters. Most men were expected to emerge on the other side of this phase and settle down (a phrase we still hear today). Settling down, of course, is almost always equated with getting married. Never mind that as men’s testosterone levels decline, they tend to settle down whether they get married or not. And there are a few testosterone-enhanced individuals who will transition from raw youth to rake to roué, sowing their wild oats till the grim reaper arrives at harvest time, when settling down is finally assured.
Of course, sowing wild oats, if taken literally, means to strew seed all over the place, so the sexual implications are obvious. A horny young buck will screw anything…but I never heard my grandmother put it that way.
The phrase was never intended to be applied to women. One never heard she is sowing her wild oats, always he. Of course, women can’t strew their seed sexually, so the term would not be apt.
This is not to say women are incapable of having colorful and versatile sex lives. The old wartime statistic of body count is now used in relation to such women. They aren’t sowing their wild oats but “riding the cock carousel.” Then they go on social media to share their experiences. Many boast of their sexual adventures, much as men were wont to do in ages past.
It seems to me that this is something truly new in the long thread of human history. Of course, we have had decadent eras, such as the Weimar Republic in Germany and the Roaring 20s in the USA when nice girls became scarce. Of course, the Great Depression ended the revelry as self-indulgence became a luxury.
And every era has had its whores, sluts, tramps, doxies, floozies, loose women, town pumps, or whatever you want to call them, but no one ever said their actions were empowering or they were just exploring their sexuality. Some of them tried to conceal their behavior, others flaunted it. Either way, they were not considered suitable role models for young women.
The typical young woman was not expected to be experienced sexually before marriage. Now, however, it has been normalized, and I think that is definitely something new under the sun. Today the bar has been lowered so a good girl need not be a virgin but one with a low body count. Of course, “low” is a subjective figure.
I don’t claim to be an expert on world history, but offhand I can’t think of any civilization that dismissed young women sleeping around as girls will be girls. Which makes one wonder if the normalization of such behavior marks a turning point in civilization, arguably a wrong turn.
Of course, the contemporary response would be that if men can do it, why not women? Old-timers would have told you why: pregnancy and venereal disease (as STDs/STIs used to be called), but perhaps overriding those was the matter of a young woman’s reputation, always important when attempting to marry off a daughter. Damaged goods can’t command the same price as pristine goods. A girl can’t sew her hymen back in after sowing her wild oats.
While the slut was more liable to be mocked or given some variation of the scarlet letter treatment in more traditional times, today the virgin is more likely to be the object of derision. Given the relatively late (and getting later) age of first marriage for women, women have plenty of time to carve notches on their bedposts before they arrive at the marriage bed. Women no longer go directly from a bedroom in their parents’ house to the marriage bed. There is more opportunity for sexual exploration. Fornication used to be considered a crime, and like all other crimes, it is a crime of opportunity.
Of course, the usual suspects (feminism, abortion, the birth control pill) can be found front and center in the lineup when we search for culprits in this “crime wave.” The rise of singles culture has also played a big part. Of course, we have always had single people but nobody built blocks of apartment complexes and condos for them to live in. The single adult demographic was not big enough to be a marketing target. Singleness was a transitional phase, not a lifestyle choice. The young woman who failed to find a mate was a career girl at best or an old maid at worst. Upon reaching the ripe old age of 25, she would discover that all the girls in her circle had already tied the knot and wonder what they had that she didn’t have.
Several generations ago it was not unusual for high school sweethearts (is the term “going steady” still in use anywhere?) to get married after graduation. There was a little more leeway for college students, who were four years older when they graduated. For many women, one of the goals of attending college was snaring a husband. When men outnumbered women on college campuses it was a target-rich environment for women playing the mating game. Today’s coeds would roll their eyes at that concept even while they lament the lack of datable men on campus.
In fact, a few years ago, Susan Patton, a Princeton alumna, started a controversy when she wrote a letter to The Daily Princetonian, asserting that the pool of eligible men at Princeton was as good as it gets for a young woman who is planning on getting married. Given the hypergamous nature of women and that Princeton always appears near or at the top of elite universities, it’s difficult to argue with Patton’s assertion. But how dare anyone suggest that the modern bluestocking sully her precious college experience by stooping to mate-shopping.
Yet in days of old, many college women succeeded at the mating game, marrying soon after graduation, or in some cases even before. Today I think you would be hard-pressed to find a married undergraduate female. Given the increasing average age of marriage, even a married female grad student is likely a rare bird today.
I’m old enough to remember when it was not just socially acceptable for young women to admit they were in the market for a husband, it was taken for granted. Remember the cousin I mentioned in the third paragraph of this essay? Before she met her future husband, she would scribble future name changes pertaining to her then-boyfriends on scrap paper. So instead of her current name (call her Jane Doe), she would write down Jane Smith, or Mrs. Robert Smith, or Mr. and Mrs. Robert Smith, or best of all, Dr. and Mrs. Robert Smith. She was taking the names for a test ride to see how they looked on paper. Today, of course, you can’t assume a college-educated woman will change her name to reflect her married status.
Somewhere along the line the goal shifted from a husband to a relationship, an open-ended term that encompasses not just marriage but every conceivable sort of interaction between two people. In grandma’s day there was no shortage of how-to articles and books about getting married, just as today there is no scarcity of books and web sites offering advice for young women about relationships.
Throughout most off human history women were married off not long after they reached menarche. Today we may be horrified by the thought of a 14-year-old getting married unless it involves hillbilly humor. Even today we still have Sweet 16 parties (lowered to l5 in Hispanic cultures and known as quinceañeras). At the upper echelons of society, there are debutantes. It is a way of announcing to the world that one’s daughter is ready to mate and is available to entertain suitable suitors. She is an IPO (initial public offering) in the sexual marketplace.
Of course, now a 15 or 16-year-old girl is more likely to be sexually experienced but she may still appear virginal and have many years of fertility in her future, which would still make her more desirable than an older woman with a higher body count.
Back in 1968, Joanne Woodward starred in (and won a Best Actress Oscar for) Rachel, Rachel, the story of a 35-year-old teacher who finally loses her virginity to an old classmate. She was on a path towards old maidhood, which was not a desirable status and would invite derision at worst or pity at best. Now we have more old maids than ever – but don’t dare call them that. I wouldn’t call them spinsters either. And whatever you do, don’t pity them. Today the modern woman is celebrated because she don’t need no man. Her fertility window is all but nailed shut and her sexual marketplace value has dropped to bargain basement levels, yet she is offered up to younger women as a role model.
Beyond a certain age, female virginity comes with a stigma. It just isn’t cool. A much larger stigma, however, is borne by the male virgin. Consider the plight of the incel, which is phonetically and connotatively close to insult. In truth, it is hard to account for the incel. Are there no massage parlors? Are there no escort services? Are there no streetwalkers? Are there no brothels?
While the incel is considered a loser at best and a potential terrorist at worst (you never know when he might show up with an AR-15 at a women’s college or a beauty salon). Of course, it wasn’t that long ago (2005 to be exact) that audiences roared at Steve Carell in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, No. 18 in the year’s box office receipts with $109,449,237). The protagonist was a fully functioning member of society but laughable simply because he had never done the deed.
In these (theoretically) egalitarian days, it is difficult to justify double standards in matters of sexual behavior, even by pointing out the obvious physiological differences. Two sexes, two standards would seem to be a reasonable policy, but it goes against the official story. Intrasexually, however, egalitarianism is nonexistent. Babes and studs are still in demand while wallflowers and nerds huddle in their blankets of quiet desperation.
For females, sowing one’s wild oats is more than just body count. These days it probably includes bisexuality, lesbianism, or polyamorism. Filling the coffers of tattoo artists appears to be part of the program and nose rings are more prized than engagement rings. Gone are the days when one could leaf through National Geographic and snicker self-righteously at self-mutilating tribes living in remote jungles.
The concept of girls sowing their wild oats wasn’t a thing in olden days because women had neither the time nor resources to do so. They were not expected to do so and they did not expect to do so. Domesticity was the norm, not dating apps or vacations in Santorini or hot rock massages in Sedona.
So where is it all going? Well, we know that bodily fluids are still being exchanged but the transactions are not resulting in more procreation. Birth rates are at or below replacement levels in every developed country. What motivation is there to return to old ways? Appeals to posterity have had little effect.
Can we save civilization from collapse by turning back the clock and once again shaming women for sowing their wild oats? Well, Eve couldn’t regurgitate that apple and Pandora couldn’t re-shut that box.
Now we have not only the curious prospect of women sowing their wild oats, but men declining to do so. People who keep track of such things inform us that men aren’t getting laid as much as their fathers and grandfathers were. First buying a house was out of reach, then buying a car, and now this!
Of course, the potential for disaster in relationships with females has been exhaustively delineated on this web site. All it takes is one social media posting from a disgruntled sex partner and your career could be over, or your income source drastically reduced. It’s enough to make a guy go full Onan. Better to spill one’s seed and risk incurring God’s wrath than to plant a seed in the swampy crotch-maw of some social media diva.
Once sex robots are on the market at popular prices, there’ll be no turning back. The demand is already there just waiting for the supply to catch up. If the prices are low enough, a man could have a harem of robot females – ensuring a lifetime of sowing one’s wild oats!
The sex robot is perhaps the ultimate expression of the human binary as the buyer can dictate his opposite sex turn-ons down to the slightest detail. No need to settle! The workplace robot, however, is the ultimate denial of the sexual binary: it is neither male nor female, it cares not for traditional male jobs or traditional female jobs. It is just a fungible work unit. Like sex robots, however, workplace robots require maintenance and sometimes replacement. The workplace robot will never take a day off for PMS, and the sex robot will never have a headache.
As we ponder where we are going, is it possible girls will continue to sow their wild oats – or do so with even more vigor – while men will continue to stow their mild oats – or lapse into an even deeper apathy so far as sex goes? Experience has taught us that when you think things have gone as far as they can go, you are almost always wrong.
As marriage rates approach zero, then the time frame of sowing one’s wild oats will expand to encompass one’s entire adult life. There will be no settling down. If a woman has no interest in and little chance of marriage, then body count will be irrelevant. There will be no stigma for slutty behavior because there will be no potential husbands.
Of course, that’s assuming we don’t have some sort of global game-changer. What could that be? Well, if things go sideways in the Middle East, a nuclear war would qualify. Afterwards, if there are a few female survivors capable of reproducing, they will face tremendous peer pressure to do so. Forget all that science fiction blather about artificial wombs. There will be no scientists to develop them, nor any money to do so, and a young woman who insists that sowing her wild oats is a basic human right will be decried as a human race traitor!
Going against the grain, wild oats will be domesticated till they are as tame as Quaker Oats. The meek will indeed inherit the earth!
