Life, 1925-08-13 · page 19 of 36
Life — August 13, 1925 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page presents reader responses to a Life magazine debate about whether young women should engage in "necking" (kissing/physical affection), framed around the anxieties of the 1920s "Jazz Age." The illustration depicts a wild party scene with flippers dancing and socializing—representing the modern younger generation that concerned traditionalists. The letters reveal generational conflict: conservative readers (Joseph L. Rinse, Blue Eyes) advocate for old-fashioned girls who cook, sew, and avoid physical intimacy. They moralize that "nice" girls don't neck. Other readers mock this prudishness—the Buckwheats Club ironically reports their anti-necking pledge is "working out something terrible," while the final letter sarcastically claims to oppose necking while admitting personal experience. The satire critiques both sides: moralistic elders clinging to outdated courtship norms, and hypocritical letter-writers claiming virtue while actually engaging in the very behavior they condemn. The cartoon emphasizes how Jazz Age youth were rejecting Victorian sexual restraint.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
| | LIFE a Our Readers Tell iewsion the Big 1 Problem: “Is a Menace or “Fust Lot of Fun?” ration by ; Goldberg jat is the Jazz-Mad Younger Generation Coming To ? man could not expect her to change after mar- riage, and that is no kind of a way for a person's wife to act. What I say is, fellows, stick to the old-fashioned girl, who can cook and sew and make her own shoes, and keep away from these “jazz”-crazed “flappers” who would just as soon stay up till all hours of the night. My advice is marry a girl like Grandma. I married one so much like my own dear Grandmother that Grandpa can't tell them apart, and we are so happy that all our friends have to laugh whenever they think of us. Joseru L. Rinse. ELLO, there, Mr. Editor-Man! I am a girl of nineteen, and many of my friends consider me pretty, goodness knows why. I am a regular bookworm over your magazine, and it just seems as if I could hardly wait for it to come out every week, so I usually don't. I always turn first to the page about “Should a Girl Neck?” because I have very strong ideas on that subject. No, Mr. Editor-Man, a big, round no! No man would want to marry a girl who necks, except maybe some of these millionaires’ sons and Girl Who “Necks’’? foreign counts. I always feel sorry for those poor girls who don’t know any better than to let men “take liberties” with them, because I have tried it, and I would rather be at home with a good book any time. Bive Eves. DITOR or Neckinc Contest: We are six girls employed by the Daddy's Darling Ballbearings Company, and we have formed a club for the purpose of not necking for one year, and here it is Tuesday. We believe that no really nice man would have any wish to marry a girl who takes part in goings-on, and our idea is working out something terrible. Mempers or THE Buckwueats Crus. I HAVE written you several hundred letters en- closing photographs, for your necking competi- tion, taking sometimes one side, usually the other, and you have not printed any of them. What kind of management is this? The whole thing is framed, and I wouldn't marry a girl who necks for anything, and neither would my husband. I dare you to print this. INDIGNANT. comicbooks.com