The Kiss Debate

Abstract

In 1943 American anthropologist Margaret Mead was in Britain on an important wartime mission: her task was to study the interactions between American servicemen and the local residents. In the monograph she published describing the experience Mead uncovered an important cultural difference between the two societies, a source of continual misunderstanding and conflict: English girls didn’t know how to date. When it came to dating, a practice that Mead argued American boys and girls began “in the early teens, long before they are emotionally mature enough to be interested in each other for anything really connected with sex,”¹ young English people didn’t have a clue. Why was this? Mead concluded that British society was more sex-segregated than the US society. In fact, she opined, British boys didn’t really enjoy the company of girls and “if they just want to spend a pleasant evening, more often they spend it with other boys.”² Apparently, British people couldn’t see the point of a date unless it was a prelude to marriage. That young men and women might want to spend time dancing, going to the movies, or just hanging out struck many British people as odd and not a little suspicious. Surely the Yanks had other things on their minds than chit-chat?