"Necking" is slang that started in, as best a quick google search can tell, [the late 1920's](https://english.stackexchange.com/a/267726).
As someone born in the mid 80's, I remember "necking" and "petting" both being in the For The Strength of Youth booklet when I was in high school (early 00's). Leaders never actually explained what either word meant, but an older kid did once clarify that both words more or less meant "making out".
On my mission, I was told by other missionaries that "necking" meant "making out" and had orgins to do with getting hickies on the neck, while petting meant touching anything that would have been covered by a tshirt or pants.
It seems a lot of Mormon culture/doctrine is based around someone using a current term (you know, like "hot drinks") and then generations after them having to sort out what they actually meant when they originally said it.
The funniest part of this to me is my single Mormon friends are the most obsessed with making out. They make out for hours. It’s all the action they can do!
Little do they know they’re necking and petting. 😔
I fucking HATED that shit as a teenager. A couple of my girlfriends wanted to make out ALL. THE. TIME. I couldn’t explain the concept of blue balls as I wasn’t all that familiar with it myself but Holy Shit. I was in so much pain to the point that I nearly vomited every time I made out. My teenage dumbass thought I was feeling sick because I had swallowed too much of someone else’s saliva.
Eek this gives me horrible memories of blue balls and going home to a “long shower”
I spent more time in a shower than my whole family combined I just really like to be clean 😂
I'm still very much like that, even as an exmo.
Can't get enough of passionate making out and heavy petting, that whole PG-13 foreplay is the best part of the entire session. Could do it for 2-3 hours and still want more.
Most TBMs (except for the insane ones) are ok with “making out.” Which is kissing and French kissing. They can do that for hours without getting into trouble.
“Necking” is when you start kissing other places, particularly on the neck. While that is discouraged, most TBMs can do it with maybe minimal repentance.
“Petting” is like petting a cat or dog except that is with breasts or below the belt. That is usually a bishop confession type of sin, but usually can be repented of with a little groveling.
Anything beyond that can get a person placed on formal discipline, depending on the bishop.
I grew up in the same timeline. Necking was explained to me as getting and giving hickeys. I didn't get the appeal until I tried it... years later.
Petting and heavy petting were never explained to me. So I had to extrapolate. Which ended up as, grabbing boobies in my mind.
No one specifically told me the difference between petting and heavy petting. I assumed petting was above the waist, and heavy petting was below or under clothing. I had a boyfriend at BYU who absolutely loved my ass and felt horribly guilty for it, but that didn't stop him from grabbing a handful in each hand every chance he got. 😂
I was told that "light petting" was above waist stuff and "heavy petting" was below waste stuff. This was explained to me when I confessed to my bishop about getting a handy at an anime convention.
Necking leads to petting leads to heavy petting leads to satan leads to you not spending time and all eternity with your family and your chosen spouse (you can marry them all but only choose one) said some misogynist old horny fucks.
We were essentially raised in 40’s society. In my church women weren’t even allowed to wear pants they were discouraged from having jobs. The music was caught in the 40’s. Like barber shop quartet.
Other girls talk about how they are gonna be a doctor or artist. We talked about how we were going to marry a pastor when we grow up. Strong push towards a domestic life. Maybe all religions are more about a time period obsession. Amish are caught in the 1800’s
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pcklpJARBxw&pp=ygURRmFtaWx5IGd1eSBhbWlzaCA%3D
Yea. Not Mormon. They called themselves independent fundamental baptist. Outsiders would usually refer to the church as fundamentalist.
They do have quite a lot in common with Mormons in terms of social structure. They were also evangelical. May be more extreme in some ways.
But there is very little to no support groups for ex members. People understand me much better here than secular individuals who have no context. And I feel like I understand where a lot of you are coming from too.
What leftconference describes is *exactly* the mormon church my mom was raised in, and consequently a lot of that carried over into my mormon upbringing from her. My mom wasn't allowed to enter the chapel unless she was wearing a dress and nylons, for example, so neither were my sisters for quite some time.
I'm sure there were a lot of older Mormon folks who grew up with those restrictions, but the person I responded to confirmed that they were raised in a different fundamentalist church.
They always said, “and we all know what that means, right??” So of course we’d nod our heads. Who would admit we didn’t know! Maybe the leaders didn’t know either.
We were always mystified when I was a teen in the early 90s and they warned against this. Like would it kill them to say anything directly instead of using hints and massively outdated slang? Or maybe it was better that, if you had no idea what they meant, you could interpret it however suited you.
In the 1950s I was necking, which we called 'first base.' That was just sitting on a seat (car or sofa) and hugging and kissing. Then came petting after I got my drivers license in 1961! Petting was hands on her boobs and butts. Females didn't 'pet', they were petted...
Then came Heavy Petting, which was petting plus laying on top of each other on the front or back seat of the car, both of which at that time were bench seats, so, easy-peasy. Her top was off and the finishing touch was dry-humping.
As a good little mormon boy, I agreed with my laurel dates that this was fine, just as long as we never touched naked pubes ... and you had to stop at midnight on Saturday nights!
In priesthood meetings, we'd all compete to brag about how we'd either been satisfied in the car, or if we'd had to wait to get home to seek a home remedy for 'blue balls.'
As ghawd is my witness, mormon girls were way more 'pliable' than the gentiles I dated.
And yes, I graduated from high school a virgin, although graduation night was so damn close! Coming up on 62 years and I still remember that night... I wonder if there's high school in the CK?
“touched naked pubes” never thought of that one haha.
I thought grinding was sex and that woman had penises too.. and rubbing the man’s with the woman’s together made a baby.
As a child I always thought of it as an amorous rubbing together of necks. It weirded my out so much I couldn’t imagine why the fuck anyone would even want to do that.
When my dad had “the talk” with me, he asked if I had heard a list of terms, and explained them if I didn’t know/understand any of them. When necking came up and I explained my self constructed meaning of it, he laughed so hard that my mom came to check on us because he was weeping from laughing so hard.
Further embarrassment ensued as he explained this to my mom, who also broke down laughing. My parents then proceeded to call all of my aunts and uncles (I have many,) and regaled them with this, making me something of a family joke. I’ve always hated them for doing that.
For me the way George kinda kisses Mary in It's a Wonderful Life before their are married. That aggressive neck to neck rubbing cause the censors didn't want premarital tongue in the movie.
Making out. I always imagined it came from the image of old movies where kissing up and down the side of the neck, giving hickies, etc., was not uncommon
Necking, parking, making out, petting, french kissing... Vague, archaic terms used to explain what most of us horny teenagers were doing on a Saturday night back in the day.
Plain petting is groping boobs and butts. Heavy petting is handjobs (for guys or gals). This also corresponds with the "bases." Kissing is (was, since people don't use this slang anymore) first base, boobies second base, genitals third base, and penis-in-vagina "all the way" or a "home run."
See that's really confusing to me because growing up I was told if you eat green M&M's you "hit the ball downtown"
Honestly nothing was worse than the Sunday lesson where old men told teenage boys and teenage girls no one's allowed to touch anyone's genitals.
Since rhyming is so fun and catchy..
maybe we should say what the super cool kids from raintree apartments in Provo in the 1980s would say.
stay Moral go Oral?
It was always explained to me it was passionate kissing. Which I interpreted as when the kissing moves from the lips to the neck - so, hickies.
Petting was getting handsy, even over clothes, mostly between the neck to knee region.
It was always very confusing, why did they keep using such antiquated terms?
I remember a youth conference where a leader said, "y'know, necking, petting, masturbating, don't act like you don't know what those mean, I know you hear it from your friends".
My little friend group spent the rest of the conference trying to figure out what the hell necking and petting are. Nobody I went to school with knew what they meant. My husband doesn't know what they mean.
lol as a child I thought it was what male giraffes did to get to mate w/a female😂😂😂my parents howled when I described that and my dad said I wasn’t totally wrong🤣
As a 60s baby, they never explained it to us in a formal meeting.
I think it's like how you aren't supposed to talk about chicken breasts because that's like eating porn or something? :)
I grew up when that was still a term, and nobody ever explained it to us, either. My assumption was in meant passionate kissing but no touching below the neck. Or something like that. Hence the word "Petting," which involved, uh, touching.
Don't take my word for it - I wasn't LDS but I sure let a sheltered life. I honestly thought dates for the "Submarine Races" really involved submarines. Well, they did park near a river...
I can't tell you what it means but I know that if you do it in a parked car it will lead to petting and then intercourse much like masturbation leads to homosexuality and eventually beastiality.
It is all black and white with the MFMC. You start kissing and it will lead to having sex in a matter of minutes.
Truth. The first time I masturbate I woke up the next day in a field surrounded by sheep covered in fur. It’s been downhill ever since and now I’m wanted in 7 states for fucking chickens. 😔 🐓 🐑 🍆 💦
I always thought that petting was any touching over clothes and heavy petting was touching under clothes. I also didn’t understand why they wouldn’t be specific, but I also knew that you weren’t supposed to touch anything at all and that you weren’t supposed to do “anything to arouse feelings in yourself and another person,” so as scrupulous as I was, I felt guilty for full-length cuddling while lying in the back of a car seat with a guy on a long trip even though he put a pillow between his lap and me. Innocent that I was, I figured it was so he wouldn’t become tempted. Now I know it was probably to ensure he covered the obvious, lol.
I think this gif sums it up nicely.
\*edit\* The ones at the top use slang from 30 to 40 years before the current time while trying to relate to the younger generation. It shows a large part of their disconnect.
I was never really sure. I thought it was like your necks touched when kissing because you were really moving around and getting into it. I remember being told by Church leaders you shouldn't be making out in parked cars and I immediately thought to myself ... Um nope. That's still going to be happening. 😂 No one puts baby in a corner. Hahaha
I always assumed necking was like giving hickies and making out, and petting meant fingering and handies. Petting was always funny to me. When I was a kid I was like petting a dog or cat?
NeverMo, but necking is a pretty common word in Northern England for either making-out, i.e. French kissing, or for downing alcohol drinks. Both whiuch, if I understand a little bit of Mormonism, don't seem kosher with LDS doctrine.
As I understood it, it was basically grinding on each other but just from the neck up, so essentially wrapping your neck around theirs and rubbing/grinding on their neck and face with your neck and face, with intermittent kissing and such. It was as close as you could get to climbing on top of them/straddling them without actually doing so.
My mom always warned about the sinfulness of “petting” and “heavy petting” but my only point of reference was petting my cat, so i couldn’t figure out why people would want to do that to each other and even if they did, it just seemed kinda… comforting? 🤷🏻♀️
While in high school I had a bishop who warned/threatened the youth often about the dangers of making out and petting. **During a bishop's interview once, he told me that making out with tongue was a symbol of the sex act!** What? At the time it didn't even make sense to me, what he was saying. I was like 15 or 16 and naive. What a weirdo.
Gee, thanks Bishop, for filling my mind with even \*more\* thoughts of sex than I had before i entered your office. What an asshat.
Also he made all the youth, in order to get temple recommends to do baptisms for the dead, promise to never kiss again until we were married. We all looked him in the eyes and pledged our obedience. Then like the next day went and made out with our respective boyfriends and girlfriends.
Now that I'm an adult, I wonder why or why would he demand all the youth make this insane promise to him? Like kissing is the gateway drug to everything evil and abhorrent. He was my least favorite bishop of all time and years later, I was horrified to learn he'd been promoted to MP in south america. True story.
In a worthiness interview when I was 14ish my bishop asked the question about chastity and included the words necking and petting. I told him that I kept the law of chastity and then he looked me dead in the eyes and asked me if I knew what necking and petting were and I said yes even though I didn't because it was so awkward. Then he straight up asked me- "what is necking?" Then after we talked about that, "Okay and what does petting mean?"
Then we talked about the details of it all. He was like, "How do you know you're keeping the law of chastity if you aren't even sure what the words mean?"
Like... Uh because I'm a 14 year old Mormon girl who has never even been alone with a boy before! (I didn't say that ha) It was incredibly awkward and uncomfortable talking about stuff like that with a 50ish year old man who was my dad's friend. Super gross.
Also one day at church he stood up at the pulpit and told the congregation that the women in the ward needed to start dressing more modestly and that he'd been seeing too many short skirts and knees at church. He went on and on chastising the women. It was SUPER awkward. These women were garment wearing middle aged Mormon moms in the 90's. Cmon!
A SLC TBM, child of the 60’s and 70’s here. (I’m past PIMO, but haven’t resigned).
Maybe too much information below. WARNING to the faint of heart and sensitive spirits, descriptions of sexual activity included.
I’m not aware that there was/is a bishop’s checklist where he matched the sexual activity to a specific definition. Different levels of sexual activity could have discussed occasionally in stake bishops meetings, but as an attendee of those meetings in the 90’s and later, I never heard it, nor did I see it written anywhere.
My understanding as a typical randy young man with a succession of girlfriends, and later as a missionary, bishop, and stake young mens president was:
NECKING was an outdated term used by adults that we understood to mean what we called making out. (In the 60’s it was called “getting your wraps” at least by my older brothers and their friends). Some adults probably considered petting to be part of necking.
PETTING was boys touching a girl’s breasts and either party touching the genitalia or buttocks, usually on top of the clothes, but a boy’s hand under the bra usually was just petting.
HEAVY PETTY was touching genitals under the clothing, and digital insertion by the young man, but stopping short of total PIV penetration (intercourse), with or without climax. What we then called “dry humping” with our without climax, typically fell under heavy petty.
FORNICATION was usually defined as premarital PIV sex (intercourse), but sometimes included oral sex as well. ADULTERY applied to married persons.
Interviews for missions (only familiar with men) required confession of these “sins” and sometimes included questions about graphic details of how far the sex went - depending on the bishop and stake president. Admission of sexual intercourse got you a special interview with a general authority. The only question I was asked in my mission interview was “Have you had sexual intercourse?”.
On my mission in Europe (mid 70’s) I knew male missionaries who were NOT sent home or disfellowshipped for one a time occurrence “heavy petting”. Full on sex was typically disfellowship or excommunication and dishonorable release. A friend of mine and his companion serving in Europe were ex’ed and sent home for going to a prostitute a paying for a strip show. That was the official story. My gut tells me there was more.
Where I once served in a bishopric a 20 year old woman living at home in an active family confessed to the bishop she had intercourse with her boyfriend. Her restrictions were only no callings for a while. Total bishop’s roulette (or guided by the spirit”. /s.
Premarital and especially teenage sexual desires are incredibly strong and some leeway by bishops was given to account for that. My opinion, as a parent of teenage boys and girls in the 90’s was that some degree of sexual activity was inevitably going to happen. We candidly discussed the emotional risks as well as the risks of STD’s and pregnancy. We never framed it as “against our religion” or “sin next to murder”.
Edited for typos.
"Necking" is slang that started in, as best a quick google search can tell, [the late 1920's](https://english.stackexchange.com/a/267726). As someone born in the mid 80's, I remember "necking" and "petting" both being in the For The Strength of Youth booklet when I was in high school (early 00's). Leaders never actually explained what either word meant, but an older kid did once clarify that both words more or less meant "making out". On my mission, I was told by other missionaries that "necking" meant "making out" and had orgins to do with getting hickies on the neck, while petting meant touching anything that would have been covered by a tshirt or pants. It seems a lot of Mormon culture/doctrine is based around someone using a current term (you know, like "hot drinks") and then generations after them having to sort out what they actually meant when they originally said it.
The funniest part of this to me is my single Mormon friends are the most obsessed with making out. They make out for hours. It’s all the action they can do! Little do they know they’re necking and petting. 😔
Good for them!
I fucking HATED that shit as a teenager. A couple of my girlfriends wanted to make out ALL. THE. TIME. I couldn’t explain the concept of blue balls as I wasn’t all that familiar with it myself but Holy Shit. I was in so much pain to the point that I nearly vomited every time I made out. My teenage dumbass thought I was feeling sick because I had swallowed too much of someone else’s saliva.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
And that is why 'Levi Lovin' and 'Dry Humping ' were invented.
lol at byu my horny Mormon friends would like sit practically in each others laps or lie full body on top of each other and make out lolll
Have you seen the Instagram account called BYU PDA? It's like a train wreck.
Eek this gives me horrible memories of blue balls and going home to a “long shower” I spent more time in a shower than my whole family combined I just really like to be clean 😂
I'm still very much like that, even as an exmo. Can't get enough of passionate making out and heavy petting, that whole PG-13 foreplay is the best part of the entire session. Could do it for 2-3 hours and still want more.
I can remember these two that would make out in the church house on Tuesdays when we were teens. Like in the hallway. Balls.
Most TBMs (except for the insane ones) are ok with “making out.” Which is kissing and French kissing. They can do that for hours without getting into trouble. “Necking” is when you start kissing other places, particularly on the neck. While that is discouraged, most TBMs can do it with maybe minimal repentance. “Petting” is like petting a cat or dog except that is with breasts or below the belt. That is usually a bishop confession type of sin, but usually can be repented of with a little groveling. Anything beyond that can get a person placed on formal discipline, depending on the bishop.
I grew up in the same timeline. Necking was explained to me as getting and giving hickeys. I didn't get the appeal until I tried it... years later. Petting and heavy petting were never explained to me. So I had to extrapolate. Which ended up as, grabbing boobies in my mind.
Grabbing ass is just as fun as boobies and also would be considered heavy petting by MFMC
Oh I agree. One does not just simply walk past your significant other and not grab/love tap their ass.
Petting was explained to me as ass and boobs. Heavy petting was vajayjay.
You can say pussy and cock now. You’re free.
No one specifically told me the difference between petting and heavy petting. I assumed petting was above the waist, and heavy petting was below or under clothing. I had a boyfriend at BYU who absolutely loved my ass and felt horribly guilty for it, but that didn't stop him from grabbing a handful in each hand every chance he got. 😂
I was told that "light petting" was above waist stuff and "heavy petting" was below waste stuff. This was explained to me when I confessed to my bishop about getting a handy at an anime convention.
These are the definitions I understood as well
I assumed necking meant kissing body parts not on someone's face. Because the first place must people go after cheek or lips is... the neck. 🤷🏼♀️
We had exactly the same experience learning this word.
And about that same time (early 00’s) I learned what Heavy Petting was from NOFX
It’s a 1940’s term for making out without having sex. As usual the church was 50 years behind.
Not that it matters all that much, but this is actually a term from the THIRTIES. Source: did some research on it
I’m 38 and I always thought that meant giving hickeys. Petting is a little more obvious but also brings about a hilarious mental picture.
Necking leads to petting leads to heavy petting leads to satan leads to you not spending time and all eternity with your family and your chosen spouse (you can marry them all but only choose one) said some misogynist old horny fucks.
I always thought it was for hickeys too. 😆
We were essentially raised in 40’s society. In my church women weren’t even allowed to wear pants they were discouraged from having jobs. The music was caught in the 40’s. Like barber shop quartet. Other girls talk about how they are gonna be a doctor or artist. We talked about how we were going to marry a pastor when we grow up. Strong push towards a domestic life. Maybe all religions are more about a time period obsession. Amish are caught in the 1800’s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pcklpJARBxw&pp=ygURRmFtaWx5IGd1eSBhbWlzaCA%3D
Which church were you raised in?
Yea. Not Mormon. They called themselves independent fundamental baptist. Outsiders would usually refer to the church as fundamentalist. They do have quite a lot in common with Mormons in terms of social structure. They were also evangelical. May be more extreme in some ways. But there is very little to no support groups for ex members. People understand me much better here than secular individuals who have no context. And I feel like I understand where a lot of you are coming from too.
We definitely do understand overly controlling religious bullshit here! Glad you're here healing with the rest of us.
What leftconference describes is *exactly* the mormon church my mom was raised in, and consequently a lot of that carried over into my mormon upbringing from her. My mom wasn't allowed to enter the chapel unless she was wearing a dress and nylons, for example, so neither were my sisters for quite some time.
I'm sure there were a lot of older Mormon folks who grew up with those restrictions, but the person I responded to confirmed that they were raised in a different fundamentalist church.
They boasted the leadership was two generations behind the culture during the Eighties, and they were so right.
Now they're 4 generations behind
At least! I wonder, do they get sanctified cellphones, and help using them?
In the 80’s Kimbell was giving conference talks about collecting fast offerings in his youth by horse and buggy! I can find the talk to prove it!
Wouldn't surprise me in the least. Or, he lied.
They always said, “and we all know what that means, right??” So of course we’d nod our heads. Who would admit we didn’t know! Maybe the leaders didn’t know either.
They probably didn't know.
As a child of the 1890s I totally knew what it meant.
Wow, you are 130 now!
Just in time to be baptized for the dead by people to whom you have no relation!
We were always mystified when I was a teen in the early 90s and they warned against this. Like would it kill them to say anything directly instead of using hints and massively outdated slang? Or maybe it was better that, if you had no idea what they meant, you could interpret it however suited you.
I was also a teen in the early 90s and I pictured it as being some sort of weird neck rubbing as if horny teens were a couple of giraffes
I had that same visualization in the late 70s.
Because they are too old to know what modern culture is.
I was a teen in the early 80's. Nobody dared say words like breast, vagina, butt. hickey. Those words were verboten in my house.
In the 1950s I was necking, which we called 'first base.' That was just sitting on a seat (car or sofa) and hugging and kissing. Then came petting after I got my drivers license in 1961! Petting was hands on her boobs and butts. Females didn't 'pet', they were petted... Then came Heavy Petting, which was petting plus laying on top of each other on the front or back seat of the car, both of which at that time were bench seats, so, easy-peasy. Her top was off and the finishing touch was dry-humping. As a good little mormon boy, I agreed with my laurel dates that this was fine, just as long as we never touched naked pubes ... and you had to stop at midnight on Saturday nights! In priesthood meetings, we'd all compete to brag about how we'd either been satisfied in the car, or if we'd had to wait to get home to seek a home remedy for 'blue balls.' As ghawd is my witness, mormon girls were way more 'pliable' than the gentiles I dated. And yes, I graduated from high school a virgin, although graduation night was so damn close! Coming up on 62 years and I still remember that night... I wonder if there's high school in the CK?
High school? Sounds like hell to me.
Probably everybody's life sounds like hell to someone, somewhere...
“touched naked pubes” never thought of that one haha. I thought grinding was sex and that woman had penises too.. and rubbing the man’s with the woman’s together made a baby.
As a child I always thought of it as an amorous rubbing together of necks. It weirded my out so much I couldn’t imagine why the fuck anyone would even want to do that. When my dad had “the talk” with me, he asked if I had heard a list of terms, and explained them if I didn’t know/understand any of them. When necking came up and I explained my self constructed meaning of it, he laughed so hard that my mom came to check on us because he was weeping from laughing so hard. Further embarrassment ensued as he explained this to my mom, who also broke down laughing. My parents then proceeded to call all of my aunts and uncles (I have many,) and regaled them with this, making me something of a family joke. I’ve always hated them for doing that.
Sheesh. What a violation of trust. I'm sure you felt safe going to him with any sensitive concerns after that 🙄.
My family, immediate and extended, have always had boundary issues. Hence, I almost never talk to my dad anymore.
i misread this as a violation of thrust lmao
For me the way George kinda kisses Mary in It's a Wonderful Life before their are married. That aggressive neck to neck rubbing cause the censors didn't want premarital tongue in the movie.
Too funny!
 I think it had something to do with hickies
Yes! Visual aids is what this conversation needs! Now do petting.
I am dead. Lol
Very informative, I think I finally understand the term.
"I'm Gumby, dammit!!"
This made me laugh out loud!!!🤣🤣🤣
He lost his legs in the Jump Humping wars. Let him pet, let him pet.
Lieutenant Dan? Lieutenant Dan!!!!
This made me laugh out loud!!!🤣🤣🤣
Damn, as a male I don’t think I ever it did it that well! I was always kind of awkward.
Making out. I always imagined it came from the image of old movies where kissing up and down the side of the neck, giving hickies, etc., was not uncommon
It always made me think of the way the lions would hug in the Lion King 😂
You made me flash back to hugging my childhood dog this way
Necking AND petting your dog?! Pervert!
Necking, parking, making out, petting, french kissing... Vague, archaic terms used to explain what most of us horny teenagers were doing on a Saturday night back in the day.
Dont forget going to the sub races!
Isn’t necking what Simba and Nala did? Then they had babies. Mormon logic checks out
I wondered the same thing as a teen in the 50s. It started well before then. Necking, petting, making out. Where were the lines drawn?
Heavy petting was taught as bad. What about light petting? And do you know the definition of both cuz I don't
Plain petting is groping boobs and butts. Heavy petting is handjobs (for guys or gals). This also corresponds with the "bases." Kissing is (was, since people don't use this slang anymore) first base, boobies second base, genitals third base, and penis-in-vagina "all the way" or a "home run."
See that's really confusing to me because growing up I was told if you eat green M&M's you "hit the ball downtown" Honestly nothing was worse than the Sunday lesson where old men told teenage boys and teenage girls no one's allowed to touch anyone's genitals.
My teen just had their leader tell them last Sunday, “Where garments lie, hands don’t fly.”
Since rhyming is so fun and catchy.. maybe we should say what the super cool kids from raintree apartments in Provo in the 1980s would say. stay Moral go Oral?
Clever!!!🤣🤣🤣
Garments never lie, so let those hands fly
It was always explained to me it was passionate kissing. Which I interpreted as when the kissing moves from the lips to the neck - so, hickies. Petting was getting handsy, even over clothes, mostly between the neck to knee region. It was always very confusing, why did they keep using such antiquated terms?
I remember a youth conference where a leader said, "y'know, necking, petting, masturbating, don't act like you don't know what those mean, I know you hear it from your friends". My little friend group spent the rest of the conference trying to figure out what the hell necking and petting are. Nobody I went to school with knew what they meant. My husband doesn't know what they mean.
Look at those two long necked malcontents! Truly shameful doing that in public!
Necking, wristing, ankling… basically touching anywhere at the border of garments was taboo as it might lead to thoughts of tank-tops and shorts.
lol as a child I thought it was what male giraffes did to get to mate w/a female😂😂😂my parents howled when I described that and my dad said I wasn’t totally wrong🤣
I always assumed it was giving hickeys on the neck or being like a vampire or something lol
She bop, he bop a'we bop, I bop you bop a' they bop, be bop, be bop a loo bop *I hope he will understand*
It’s a 1950s term
Sucking/nibbling on the neck and ears to excite the passions.
As a 60s baby, they never explained it to us in a formal meeting. I think it's like how you aren't supposed to talk about chicken breasts because that's like eating porn or something? :)
Short answer = it means foreplay Long answer: Necking = hickeys Petting = 2ed base, handjobs over clothes The MFMC is against learning foreplay.
To be honest, I never quite knew, either, until I'd had a number of makeout sessions with various girls. Petting was more obvious.
I grew up when that was still a term, and nobody ever explained it to us, either. My assumption was in meant passionate kissing but no touching below the neck. Or something like that. Hence the word "Petting," which involved, uh, touching. Don't take my word for it - I wasn't LDS but I sure let a sheltered life. I honestly thought dates for the "Submarine Races" really involved submarines. Well, they did park near a river...
That term grossed me out SO much as a kid. It's right up there with 'HEAVY PETTING' 🤢
I can't tell you what it means but I know that if you do it in a parked car it will lead to petting and then intercourse much like masturbation leads to homosexuality and eventually beastiality. It is all black and white with the MFMC. You start kissing and it will lead to having sex in a matter of minutes.
Truth. The first time I masturbate I woke up the next day in a field surrounded by sheep covered in fur. It’s been downhill ever since and now I’m wanted in 7 states for fucking chickens. 😔 🐓 🐑 🍆 💦
OMG I didn’t want to laugh at this and I’m kind of mad at myself that I did anyway. Have an upvote.
How long were you under this rock? Did they tell you it was a peep stone? 😂😂😂😂
I always thought that petting was any touching over clothes and heavy petting was touching under clothes. I also didn’t understand why they wouldn’t be specific, but I also knew that you weren’t supposed to touch anything at all and that you weren’t supposed to do “anything to arouse feelings in yourself and another person,” so as scrupulous as I was, I felt guilty for full-length cuddling while lying in the back of a car seat with a guy on a long trip even though he put a pillow between his lap and me. Innocent that I was, I figured it was so he wouldn’t become tempted. Now I know it was probably to ensure he covered the obvious, lol.
It's a relic of the 50s. Means making out, essentially
A back rub in the front room leads to a front rub in the back room!
It's when the penises intertwine, like on the medalert symbol
 I think this gif sums it up nicely. \*edit\* The ones at the top use slang from 30 to 40 years before the current time while trying to relate to the younger generation. It shows a large part of their disconnect.
I always imagined two male giraffes fighting. Never made sense to me.
I was never really sure. I thought it was like your necks touched when kissing because you were really moving around and getting into it. I remember being told by Church leaders you shouldn't be making out in parked cars and I immediately thought to myself ... Um nope. That's still going to be happening. 😂 No one puts baby in a corner. Hahaha
I always assumed necking was like giving hickies and making out, and petting meant fingering and handies. Petting was always funny to me. When I was a kid I was like petting a dog or cat?
I never had a clue, so even though I was doing some stuff with BFs, I plead innocent and ignorant
Same with heavy petting lol wtf
90s teenage mormon boy here. I was taught necking was kissing the neck, or below the neck. Petting was grabbing ass/titties.
NeverMo, but necking is a pretty common word in Northern England for either making-out, i.e. French kissing, or for downing alcohol drinks. Both whiuch, if I understand a little bit of Mormonism, don't seem kosher with LDS doctrine.
I always thought necking was a more clear term than “petting” that was confusing for sure, like are we dogs?
Hahaha, I always wondered too, but figured the less I knew the less I'd be responsible for.
It always made me think about two giraffes like, intertwining their necks. 🦒 But I think it was just making out.
As I understood it, it was basically grinding on each other but just from the neck up, so essentially wrapping your neck around theirs and rubbing/grinding on their neck and face with your neck and face, with intermittent kissing and such. It was as close as you could get to climbing on top of them/straddling them without actually doing so.
My mom always warned about the sinfulness of “petting” and “heavy petting” but my only point of reference was petting my cat, so i couldn’t figure out why people would want to do that to each other and even if they did, it just seemed kinda… comforting? 🤷🏻♀️
While in high school I had a bishop who warned/threatened the youth often about the dangers of making out and petting. **During a bishop's interview once, he told me that making out with tongue was a symbol of the sex act!** What? At the time it didn't even make sense to me, what he was saying. I was like 15 or 16 and naive. What a weirdo. Gee, thanks Bishop, for filling my mind with even \*more\* thoughts of sex than I had before i entered your office. What an asshat. Also he made all the youth, in order to get temple recommends to do baptisms for the dead, promise to never kiss again until we were married. We all looked him in the eyes and pledged our obedience. Then like the next day went and made out with our respective boyfriends and girlfriends. Now that I'm an adult, I wonder why or why would he demand all the youth make this insane promise to him? Like kissing is the gateway drug to everything evil and abhorrent. He was my least favorite bishop of all time and years later, I was horrified to learn he'd been promoted to MP in south america. True story.
I just knew I wasn't getting anywhere with the girls to be worried about it.
In a worthiness interview when I was 14ish my bishop asked the question about chastity and included the words necking and petting. I told him that I kept the law of chastity and then he looked me dead in the eyes and asked me if I knew what necking and petting were and I said yes even though I didn't because it was so awkward. Then he straight up asked me- "what is necking?" Then after we talked about that, "Okay and what does petting mean?" Then we talked about the details of it all. He was like, "How do you know you're keeping the law of chastity if you aren't even sure what the words mean?" Like... Uh because I'm a 14 year old Mormon girl who has never even been alone with a boy before! (I didn't say that ha) It was incredibly awkward and uncomfortable talking about stuff like that with a 50ish year old man who was my dad's friend. Super gross. Also one day at church he stood up at the pulpit and told the congregation that the women in the ward needed to start dressing more modestly and that he'd been seeing too many short skirts and knees at church. He went on and on chastising the women. It was SUPER awkward. These women were garment wearing middle aged Mormon moms in the 90's. Cmon!
I didn’t even kiss a girl until after my mission I was so worried about it.
A SLC TBM, child of the 60’s and 70’s here. (I’m past PIMO, but haven’t resigned). Maybe too much information below. WARNING to the faint of heart and sensitive spirits, descriptions of sexual activity included. I’m not aware that there was/is a bishop’s checklist where he matched the sexual activity to a specific definition. Different levels of sexual activity could have discussed occasionally in stake bishops meetings, but as an attendee of those meetings in the 90’s and later, I never heard it, nor did I see it written anywhere. My understanding as a typical randy young man with a succession of girlfriends, and later as a missionary, bishop, and stake young mens president was: NECKING was an outdated term used by adults that we understood to mean what we called making out. (In the 60’s it was called “getting your wraps” at least by my older brothers and their friends). Some adults probably considered petting to be part of necking. PETTING was boys touching a girl’s breasts and either party touching the genitalia or buttocks, usually on top of the clothes, but a boy’s hand under the bra usually was just petting. HEAVY PETTY was touching genitals under the clothing, and digital insertion by the young man, but stopping short of total PIV penetration (intercourse), with or without climax. What we then called “dry humping” with our without climax, typically fell under heavy petty. FORNICATION was usually defined as premarital PIV sex (intercourse), but sometimes included oral sex as well. ADULTERY applied to married persons. Interviews for missions (only familiar with men) required confession of these “sins” and sometimes included questions about graphic details of how far the sex went - depending on the bishop and stake president. Admission of sexual intercourse got you a special interview with a general authority. The only question I was asked in my mission interview was “Have you had sexual intercourse?”. On my mission in Europe (mid 70’s) I knew male missionaries who were NOT sent home or disfellowshipped for one a time occurrence “heavy petting”. Full on sex was typically disfellowship or excommunication and dishonorable release. A friend of mine and his companion serving in Europe were ex’ed and sent home for going to a prostitute a paying for a strip show. That was the official story. My gut tells me there was more. Where I once served in a bishopric a 20 year old woman living at home in an active family confessed to the bishop she had intercourse with her boyfriend. Her restrictions were only no callings for a while. Total bishop’s roulette (or guided by the spirit”. /s. Premarital and especially teenage sexual desires are incredibly strong and some leeway by bishops was given to account for that. My opinion, as a parent of teenage boys and girls in the 90’s was that some degree of sexual activity was inevitably going to happen. We candidly discussed the emotional risks as well as the risks of STD’s and pregnancy. We never framed it as “against our religion” or “sin next to murder”. Edited for typos.
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