Every revolution pushes the pendulum, expecting their choices to stand forever, only to get smacked in the psyche when that pendulum comes back at them as they age and gather a little perspective. There's always a counter-revolution brewing in the secret places of the hearts of the young finding their own places in the world. You can see the New Vics pushing strollers in Park Slope in Brooklyn, where families have moved because Manhattan real estate is so expensive. But not just in Manhattan, which only thinks it commissions the trend toward the latest new thing. In my urban neighborhood of Adams Morgan in Washington, I see the twentysomethings on the lawns of their late Victorian townhouses, teaching a girl to ride a bicycle or throwing a ball to a boy with a new catcher's mitt. It almost feels like the '50s, deja vu all over again.
It's early to say this is actually a trend, but there are signs all over the place. Websites for "modest clothing" are expanding, and Wendy Shalit, who earlier wrote about "A Return to Modesty," has a new book called "Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It's Not Bad to Be Good." She illustrates the point with an interview with the daughter of Erica Jong, whose book "Fear of Flying" practically launched the sexual revolution. Jong glamorized promiscuity as random guilt-free sex with strangers.
"When you're 12," says Molly Jong Fast, "there's nothing funny about your mother's fourth wedding." Molly describes her own promiscuity as a mistake. "I was sold a bad bill of goods." Molly is married and signs her e-mails "mother of Max," making sure you understand that she's first a mother. So do a lot of other young moms.
Shalit tells how teenage girls suffer from sexual revolution fatigue and "hook-up depression." Raised as children with seductive dolls like the Bratz Babyz "Nite Out" doll, decked out in fishnet stockings and hot pink microminis, they were left with nothing to rebel against except the cheap and easy sex that was supposed to make everyone free. She has tapped a nerve, and receives hundreds of e-mails from young women who thought they had to hide yearnings for marriage and children behind a veneer of super-sexed sophistication. They grew weary of having to get drunk to "hook-up."
Many women of the New Vics tell of cheering twice watching the movie "The African Queen." When Humphrey Bogart tells Katharine Hepburn that they should enjoy carnal pleasure as only natural, she replies: "Nature is what we were put on earth to rise above." That's the first cheer. They cheer again when a ship's captain marries them just before he intends to execute them. You might call the change in attitude a sea change.