# In olden days, how common was it for people to enter marriage with literally no clue what sex was? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 26, 2023, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395 "2023-02-26T13:22:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2023, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/61 "2023-02-26T23:44:50Z")
HSV-1 is happy to live not just in the mouth, but also on the genitals. So couples who’ve never had sex with ANYONE except each other can still give each other genital herpes via oral sex. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/62 "2023-02-27T06:00:18Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I remember reading that a Regency historian who was a consultant to some Jane Austen movie adaptation (maybe Ang Lee’s _Sense and Sensibility_?) told the cast that it was quite possible a woman of that era would have no idea what to expect on her wedding night. > [@snowthx](#): > > Not directed to you, but generally, would a man know what to expect on his wedding night? More than a woman? Dave Berg in Mad Magazine had those “look at life” bits… one was to note that any kid with a pet dog did not need sex education. Dogs are legendary for this. I suppose that the Victorian and chivalrous tendencies tried to shelter young ladies, especially upper class, from the crudeness of life - so those who had no contact with the animal kingdom, lived in manor houses with private bedrooms instead of on farms tending to the animals, probably could get to marriage age without knowing the facts of life. It depends how reticent the adults were to talk about sex in their presence. Men, OTOH, are more willing to share and less sensitive to sharing facts with boys over a certain age I suppose. The details percolate down through the age groups. A woman describing in a CBC documentary how her child was taken from her after a 1960’s teen pregnancy, said: “I asked one of my aunts why she had never had children, and she said ‘I chose not to’. From this I assumed that the girl had to choose to get pregnant.” She (or rather, I presume, her boyfriend) had no difficulty with “insert tab A into slot B” but was lacking on further details, There was a bit from a history book once about a young lady from an upper class New Orleans family, who on her wedding night ran to her mother’s bedroom complaining _“Il veut me lever la chemise!”_ (He’s trying to lift my nightshirt!). Obviously, clueless on the Slot B issue. My inclination, with the OP’s question, is that the facts of life were well know long long ago. The details are known in the bible, which implies 3,000 years ago (or 2600, if we think it was written after the Babylonian exile) the details were known, and I assume the “one big room” hypothesis also applies to tents. As to cause and effect, as I’ve said on earlier threads, humans are not stupid. In general, only one thing goes in, and babies come out. In the days before Tiktok and notebooks, humans had remarkably good attention spans and memories. They could stare at the skies and recognize which stars moved and when they disappeared and came back. they could predict seasonal events to the day. Don’t think they didn’t notice that only women having sex had babies; just, not every time, not guaranteed. Plus, the menstrual change was a clue too, and that only required counting back a few weeks. Whether sex is instinctive - I suppose in some way it is - but unlike the birds and the bees, who have innate memories how to build nests or build honeycombs - humans have developed learning by observing and trying to a fine art. As a result, our instinctive behaviours have badly atrophied, because we don’t necessarily need them. Even if we only have a rough guess as to what to do, we figure it out - at which point the positive feedback loop takes over. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/63 "2023-02-27T06:07:44Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I would have thought that anyone growing up around domestic animals would kinda know where babies come from. Sure, but many people even in ancient times might not have been near animals, and Rose Wilder herself grew up in an agrarian environment yet had to ask her mother. ---
**Author:** ![Nyvaak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Nyvaak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nyvaak)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/64 "2023-02-27T07:22:44Z")
Just an anecdote, but I have a friend, about my age, who swears (and doesn’t have any real motivation to lie to me) that she first learned where babies come from when she was in nursing school. She too was a farm girl, but just never thought of connecting what the livestock did with the human situation. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/65 "2023-02-27T07:54:21Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > In one of the Laura Ingalls books, Laura’s daughter, Rose Wilder, asked her (Laura) how babies are made. And Laura stammered and got flustered, before eventually saying, “You’ll find out when you get married.” Bear in mind this may well have been more of a fob off than an accurate answer. By which I mean that Laura may not literally have expected Rose to “find out when you get married” but rather just gave an answer that put Rose off. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/66 "2023-02-27T08:02:03Z")
when one of my cousins found out I was molested years after the fact she made the remark " wow atleasy you didn’t get pregnant " well since I was 3-8 when it was happening and male … i didn’t say a word and changed the topic of convo ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/67 "2023-02-27T08:58:54Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > And if there was any such education, how did the teaching of the birds-and-bees differ from era to era There were sex manuals [Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_manual). And porn. A lot of porn. [Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_erotic_depictions). And prostitution was very common in various eras and cultures, at least for male clientele. Much more often than periods or places where it wasn’t, I’d say. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/68 "2023-02-27T13:47:43Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > when one of my cousins found out I was molested years after the fact she made the remark " wow atleasy you didn’t get pregnant " well since I was 3-8 when it was happening and male … i didn’t say a word and changed the topic of convo Ugh. I’m so sorry. Probably she felt awkward and just said something stupid to fill the space. But ouch. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/69 "2023-02-27T13:59:02Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Bear in mind this may well have been more of a fob off than an accurate answer. By which I mean that Laura may not literally have expected Rose to “find out when you get married” but rather just gave an answer that put Rose off. Also that Laura and Rose Wilder both worked their material with a child audience in mind, and were products of their times—even when writing for an adult audience, how reliable is their testimony? Rose may well have exaggerated her own innocence, even subconsciously, as part of her self-image. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/70 "2023-02-27T14:16:00Z")
My wife is in this world because her parents thought a woman, after giving birth, couldn’t get pregnant again until she’d had her period. (Not ignorance of sex → babies, but a scary degree of ignorance just the same. Not that I’m complaining. 😀) ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/71 "2023-02-27T15:27:56Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > Almost certainly apocryphal, but there’s more than one joke going around about a couple trying and failing to get pregnant, and then after some digging by the doctor that results in comic explanations, it turns out that the couple was doing it in the butt. ::rimshot:: There’s a scene in the novel “Catch-22” where Doc Daneeka is talking about a couple of newlyweds who came to see him at his practice, and it turned out to be something very similar to that. He never explicitly says what the problem was, but they were definitely not getting Tab A into Slot B. (Or maybe that _was_ the problem. Shouldn’t the tab and slot letters match up?) ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/72 "2023-02-27T15:39:18Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > There’s a scene in the novel “Catch-22” where Doc Daneeka is talking about a couple of newlyweds who came to see him at his practice, and it turned out to be something very similar to that. He never explicitly says what the problem was, but they were definitely not getting Tab A into Slot B. (Or maybe that _was_ the problem. Shouldn’t the tab and slot letters match up?) - Just be thankful Ikea doesn’t write sex manuals. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/73 "2023-02-27T15:44:03Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Just be thankful Ikea doesn’t write sex manuals. _Ah, I see the problem here: this section was mis-translated_. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/74 "2023-02-27T16:03:09Z")
Even though sometimes people know the basics they’re still fuzzy on the details. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/MlgI0jTqyIU/maxresdefault.jpg "Is the shovel killer the biological father? | Friends") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlgI0jTqyIU) ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/75 "2023-02-27T16:23:58Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Just be thankful Ikea doesn’t write sex manuals. Wonder how they would use the little hex wrench… ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/76 "2023-02-27T16:33:44Z")
_tighten firmly but do not use excessive torque_ ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/77 "2023-02-27T16:41:37Z")
_Finger tighten only._ ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/78 "2023-02-27T18:51:10Z")
> **[IKEA Erotica - TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/Main/IKEAErotica)** > > IKEA Erotica is the tendency of badly written sex scenes to be very mechanical descriptions of who sticks what into where. It's named after the Swedish big-box store, which is famous for selling furniture that requires assembly with instructions … ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/79 "2023-02-27T20:44:08Z")
I’ve seen a dog hump a human leg or their favorite (plushie) toy so the act of pelvic thrusting alone isn’t what causes pregnancy. Given there is some period of weeks/months between when one witnesses the act of two animals going at it & when the female is visibly pregnant or gives birth to puppies/lamb/calf/etc. I could see someone, even on a farm, not making the connection between the two acts. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2023, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395/80 "2023-02-28T00:33:52Z")
And we have no [really clear answer to the point of that story](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catch-22-doc-daneeka-and-the-newlyweds/330023) Quite funny to me that all I did was google “Doc Daneeka newlyweds” and not only was the top search result the SDMB, but it was a thread I started (and I’d forgotten I’d done so). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-olden-days-how-common-was-it-for-people-to-enter-marriage-with-literally-no-clue-what-sex-was/980395.md?page=5)