# Unexpected Different Attitudes In Older Works **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 7, 2019, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178 "2019-06-07T19:16:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/81 "2019-06-12T17:59:37Z")
In the TV movie adaptation of \*The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything \* there’s a scene where they get even with the female villain by throwing her naked into a van full of sailors. The next scene shows her walking onto a ship wearing a sailor’s uniform. I doubt they’d do that now. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/82 "2019-06-12T18:19:20Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > 1. I have known women who appreciated cat calls. > > 2. I have known women who had rape fantasies (and I have read writing by others) I know of two girls who like to eat shit out of a cup. However, if I were writing a book or movie script and I wanted to best represent the emotions, attitudes, and desires of the average woman, I think I’d avoid giving her fantasies of rape or a positive reception toward sexual harassment. But that’s just me. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/83 "2019-06-12T18:56:26Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > I know of two girls who like to eat shit out of a cup. However, if I were writing a book or movie script and I wanted to best represent the emotions, attitudes, and desires of the average woman, I think I’d avoid giving her fantasies of rape or a positive reception toward sexual harassment. But that’s just me. Not just you… I think that’s a pretty reasonable assessment. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/84 "2019-06-12T19:02:56Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > Which is a good segue into another one I thought of. Years ago I was reading an anthology of sci-fi/fantasy short stories that someone had given me, I think published in the 1970s. I don’t remember the title of the story and I most likely gave the book to Goodwill by now so I can’t go and check, but here’s the basic plot. The two heros were in some sort of plane crash in some sort of pseudo Middle Eastern setting (or a romanticized Western version of the Middle East, really). They wander into a village, and the village elders, I guess as a show of friendship or hospitality or whatever, offers up a nubile young woman for them to have sex with. The twist was that she turned out to have some sort of weapon hidden in her elaborate hairdo, so even though she was naked she could pull out a weapon and attack them. > > Just the idea of a culture where it’s apparently the norm to show hospitality by offering strangers a young woman for their sexual pleasure reads more like some male nerd’s fantasy than any sort of plausible society. There actually have been societies like that. Slave women, particularly, were lent out in past societies but there are examples of “free” women being “loaned” to visiting men as a sign of hospitality, prostitues of one stripe or another being offered/available, and probably a lot of examples of foreign men misinterpreting situations and essentially raping women they thought were available. As one example, Matthew Henson was an arctic explorer who had a “country wife” or concubine among the Inuit, who had a son by him and his only descendants are Inuit. I don’t think there was any coercion in that case, but it can be hard to say at such a remove in time. Really, this ties into things like prostitution and concubinage. > [@Melbourne](#): > > 1)2) I have known women who had rape fantasies (and I have read writing by others) I am willing to bet that many women in to rape _fantasy_ would not want to experience _actual rape_. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/85 "2019-06-12T19:06:13Z")
> [@Tzigone](#): > > For me, all the racism talk sort of veers from the original topic of the post - I don’t find racism (or sexism) in older works _unexpected_. Whereas the first time I heard about the total disregard for littering in older days, I was surprised. Right. Also there’s so much of it and it’s such a big topic that it could easily dominate the thread, when it’s really the quirky little things that are more interesting. > [@Chronos](#): > > That’s [card readers] a change in technology, though, not one of attitudes. I suppose it’d have been to Smith’s credit if he had been able to predict electronic databases, but one can hardly hold it against him that he didn’t. Most science fiction writers don’t fare any better, and even the few who do, it’s mostly just by fluke. In the GURPS Lensman game supplement, they retconned that the lack of electronic computers was because of the Arisians were trying to guide the younger races to great mental feats. If electronic computers were available, people would use them instead of using their own brains and they’d never develop the psychic powers the Arisians wanted, so the Arisians made sure the transistor was never discovered. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/86 "2019-06-12T19:12:50Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Social change is very hard to predict. I remember reading a sci-fi book (I can’t remember the title, but I’m pretty sure it was written in the 70s or late 60s) set a few centuries were drug use was as common as alcohol and free love was the norm, but only for heterosexuals. Homosexuals were explicitly mentioned as one of the groups that leaving Earth for extrasolar colonies. Larry Niven has a story (written in the 60s or 70s, I think) where there was a long term expedition to Mars that was all or mostly male, and people were shocked that some of the crew members had resorted to homosexuality. What surprised me was not that there was disapproval of people being gay, which was still common when the book was written, but that people found the idea that dudes stuck in a tin can with just dudes might at least fool around together to be a complete surprise. As shortly after that as the 80s I would expect people talking about the mission to joke around about how the guys stuck in there would get friendly with each other, even if the actual fooling around would be a scandal. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/87 "2019-06-12T20:08:41Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The Haight-Ashbury scene was destroyed by hard drugs by 1967. (The “Death of Hippie” parade took place in October.) Hard drugs spread though the rock world before 1970 and to their audiences by 1975. In the same way, hard drugs, cocaine primarily, became the drug of choice for partiers in the 1970s. That decade was also the decade for speed, with amphetamine abuse skyrocketing. Speed was abused by truck drivers to a frightening degree. > > Remember the War of Drugs? Nixon started it in 1971. He wasn’t just going after pot. > > I’m glad you had good experiences. I’m not sure that you can say they were typical. I don’t think Nixon was going after the drugs in the larger scheme of things. The people who used them were his political enemies and they were the targets. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/88 "2019-06-12T20:38:32Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Larry Niven has a story (written in the 60s or 70s, I think) where there was a long term expedition to Mars that was all or mostly male, and people were shocked that some of the crew members had resorted to homosexuality. What surprised me was not that there was disapproval of people being gay, which was still common when the book was written, but that people found the idea that dudes stuck in a tin can with just dudes might at least fool around together to be a complete surprise. As shortly after that as the 80s I would expect people talking about the mission to joke around about how the guys stuck in there would get friendly with each other, even if the actual fooling around would be a scandal. Speaking of Martian sexytime, even if she is the last woman on the planet, [the rule is still No Fat Chicks](https://marswillsendnomore.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/ec-comics-ray-bradbury-the-silent-towns/). ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/89 "2019-06-12T21:38:00Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > Just the idea of a culture where it’s apparently the norm to show hospitality by offering strangers a young woman for their sexual pleasure reads more like some male nerd’s fantasy than any sort of plausible society. I recall that Marco Polo’s writings included at least one description of a society with something along these lines–pretty much any woman of the village, whether partnered or not, would happily exchange sex for things of value, and their male partners were just fine with it. I don’t know whether his writings are considered completely reliable. ---
**Author:** ![sitchensis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sitchensis/32/4892_2.png) [@sitchensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sitchensis)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/90 "2019-06-12T21:43:39Z")
Robert B. Parker basically wrote the same Spenser book 40 times over a 40 year period. Taken as a whole it’s like one bizarre work of art with the characters and stories basically staying the same and a fun house mirror version of current events changing around them. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/91 "2019-06-12T21:58:41Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > In the “real life, not fiction” section - a couple of years ago my daughter’s school play was based around the story of a 9-year-old kid called [Lennie Gwyther](https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-nineyearold-who-rode-a-pony-1000km-to-sydney-20150121-12v3kq.html) who rode to Sydney to see the opening of the Harbour Bridge in 1932. From 1000km away. By himself. It was a reward for having done all the plowing that season, when his dad was laid up with a broken leg. > > People were tougher, back when. Though the fact that he got famous for it is an indication that, even for the 30s, that feat was pretty out there. When I was about six years old or so, my parents put me on a plane, by myself, to visit my grandmother in North Carolina. Mom handed me off to a stewardess - this is long enough ago that they were still called “stewardesses” - and she kept an eye on me during the flight. Brought me a set of wings, and took me up to the cockpit to meet the pilots. At the airport, an airline hostess met me at the gate and escorted me to my grandmother. This was in the early 70’s; I can’t imagine that happening today. > [@furryman](#): > > In the TV movie adaptation of \*The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything \* there’s a scene where they get even with the female villain by throwing her naked into a van full of sailors. The next scene shows her walking onto a ship wearing a sailor’s uniform. I doubt they’d do that now. Good lord, I remember that TV movie. There was a scene where the hero stopped time - the power of the eponymous gold watch - and untied a woman’s bikini top while she was playing beach volleyball. Sexual assault was just a funny little prank, then. > [@Acsenray](#): > > I recall that Marco Polo’s writings included at least one description of a society with something along these lines–pretty much any woman of the village, whether partnered or not, would happily exchange sex for things of value, and their male partners were just fine with it. I don’t know whether his writings are considered completely reliable. Sounds like the mutineers from the _Bounty_, who claimed that Tahitian girls preferred them to the native men, finding them more vigorous and satisfying lovers. Sure they did, buddy. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/92 "2019-06-12T22:09:26Z")
> [@furryman](#): > > In the TV movie adaptation of \*The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything \* there’s a scene where they get even with the female villain by throwing her naked into a van full of sailors. The next scene shows her walking onto a ship wearing a sailor’s uniform. I doubt they’d do that now. That’s from the book. > [@Pantastic](#): > > Larry Niven has a story (written in the 60s or 70s, I think) where there was a long term expedition to Mars that was all or mostly male, and people were shocked that some of the crew members had resorted to homosexuality. What surprised me was not that there was disapproval of people being gay, which was still common when the book was written, but that people found the idea that dudes stuck in a tin can with just dudes might at least fool around together to be a complete surprise. As shortly after that as the 80s I would expect people talking about the mission to joke around about how the guys stuck in there would get friendly with each other, even if the actual fooling around would be a scandal. This is “How the Heroes Die” [Variety SF: Larry Niven's "How the Heroes Die": Troubles of an all-male expedition to Mars](https://variety-sf.blogspot.com/2007/11/larry-niven-how-heros-die-troubles-of.html) \*\* ---------------------------\*\* In Gregory McDonald’s Flynn , from the late 1970s, Inspector Flynn is looking into a killing - he sends his 15-year old twin sons to investigate a couple of groups that might be involved. One spends the time following a homeless preacher, while the other gets involved in a hippie sex ring. When they get home it’s just a dose of penicillin for one of them and back to parochial school for both. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/93 "2019-06-12T22:26:51Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > took me up to the cockpit to meet the pilots That reminds me–would a movie use the ''gladiator movies" joke today? ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/94 "2019-06-12T22:32:42Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > When I was about six years old or so, my parents put me on a plane, by myself, to visit my grandmother in North Carolina. Mom handed me off to a stewardess - this is long enough ago that they were still called “stewardesses” - and she kept an eye on me during the flight. Brought me a set of wings, and took me up to the cockpit to meet the pilots. At the airport, an airline hostess met me at the gate and escorted me to my grandmother. This was in the early 70’s; I can’t imagine that happening today. . . . It’s been more than a decade, but I’m pretty sure that unaccompanied minors can still fly - Googling - - [Delta has a program for 5 to 14](https://www.delta.com/us/en/children-infant-travel/unaccompanied-minor-program). So does United. Looks like most airlines will accept unaccompanied minors, but that the details vary. The younger the child (and no children under 5), the more likely they can only fly on a nonstop flight. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/95 "2019-06-12T23:26:08Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > I know of two girls who like to eat shit out of a cup. However, if I were writing a book or movie script and I wanted to best represent the emotions, attitudes, and desires of the average woman, I think I’d avoid giving her fantasies of rape or a positive reception toward sexual harassment. But that’s just me. On the other hand, if you wanted to understand why women have rape fantasies, you’d ask the women who have rape fantasies, rather than going with your own opinion. And if you wanted to sell books to women, you’d sell books that women wanted to buy, rather than books that represented the average woman. Look: I don’t have much contact with women, as a group, anymore. I have no particular idea what women want now. I dropped in to respond to the question of how, 50 years ago, authors had got the idea that women liked cat calls. My response? They got that idea because women told them so. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2019, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/96 "2019-06-13T01:28:00Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > It’s been more than a decade, but I’m pretty sure that unaccompanied minors can still fly - > > Googling - - [Delta has a program for 5 to 14](https://www.delta.com/us/en/children-infant-travel/unaccompanied-minor-program). So does United. > > Looks like most airlines will accept unaccompanied minors, but that the details vary. The younger the child (and no children under 5), the more likely they can only fly on a nonstop flight. Huh. Would not have expected that. I wonder how many parents avail themselves of such a service? > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > That reminds me–would a movie use the ''gladiator movies" joke today? Or the “I speak jive” joke, or the gag where the singing nun knocks the IV out of the sick little girl’s arm, and she goes into a seizure. Of course, those jokes were supposed to be transgressive at the time, as well. The sight gag with the queue of people lined up, with weapons, to “slap some sense” into the woman having hysterics, though, was I think solely about subverting a trope. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2019, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/97 "2019-06-13T01:37:20Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > When I was about six years old or so, my parents put me on a plane, by myself, to visit my grandmother in North Carolina. Mom handed me off to a stewardess - this is long enough ago that they were still called “stewardesses” - and she kept an eye on me during the flight. Brought me a set of wings, and took me up to the cockpit to meet the pilots. At the airport, an airline hostess met me at the gate and escorted me to my grandmother. This was in the early 70’s; I can’t imagine that happening today… I had the exact same experience in the mid 90s when I was 10 years old and flew to Hawai’i by myself to meet my older brother and his new wife. I even had a layover at LAX that I spend in an airline daycare type room with other unaccompanied minors. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2019, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/98 "2019-06-13T01:48:12Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > It’s been more than a decade, but I’m pretty sure that unaccompanied minors can still fly Coincidentally, it has been more than a decade since [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unaccompanied_Minors) [movie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN3PAO2oxDs). ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2019, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/99 "2019-06-13T01:52:50Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Larry Niven has a story (written in the 60s or 70s, I think) where there was a long term expedition to Mars that was all or mostly male, and people were shocked that some of the crew members had resorted to homosexuality. What surprised me was not that there was disapproval of people being gay, which was still common when the book was written, but that people found the idea that dudes stuck in a tin can with just dudes might at least fool around together to be a complete surprise. As shortly after that as the 80s I would expect people talking about the mission to joke around about how the guys stuck in there would get friendly with each other, even if the actual fooling around would be a scandal. Robert Silverberg wrote a story in the 50s, “Eve and the 23 Adams,” where every spaceship had a “crew girl” – basically, a ship’s prostitute – because if men went without sex they grew tense and make mistakes. Bad enough, but in the story, the girl isn’t a hooker, but rather the fiancee of the son of the narrator, who signed on without knowing what the job actually was. She refuses (after takeoff, of course), so they end up drugging her and raping her in her sleep so she doesn’t know what happens. She meets up with her fiance thinking that nothing has happened, though the narrator, at least shows some remorse by drinking himself in a stupor the entire flight. This was during Silverberg’s hack phase, before he became a major writer. I notice it hasn’t been reprinted in the US since 1969, so I would think he had second thoughts. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2019, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/100 "2019-06-13T02:21:43Z")
Back on to the ‘small but unexpected differences’ line - I’m just reading _Prince Caspian_ this week with my son, and I’m amused to note that among the differences between the Good Dwarf (Trumpkin) who stays loyal to Caspian and the Bad Dwarf (Nikabrik) who ultimately turns evil and throws in his lot with werewolves and witches is that … Nikabrik is _Not A Smoker_. Clearly a wrong 'un! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178.md?page=6)