Epilogue Summary and Analysis

From the Front Porch to the Back Seat was published in 1988. Bailey notes that it had been twenty-five years since the dating system lost its coherence and dominance. Courtship has been replaced by sex. Sex now is the currency of contemporary courtship and can be traced to the sexual revolution. The sexual revolution was not an overwhelmingly sudden event. In fact, the groundwork had been laid for it long before. In an age of abundance in postwar America, it was not clear why anything needed to be conserved including sex.

The sexual revolution was primarily a revolution in meaning. Intercourse replaced petting as the youth convention. Woman's value was once linked to her sexual morality. The sexual revolution was about the right of the unmarried to express love sexually and the rejection of the tie between a woman's value with her...