Today we are casting our minds back to that benighted age, ending sometime in the 20th century, in which your options for hooking up and sneaking away for some fast nookie were much more limited than today. It’s possible that people these days have been spoiled by the easy ability to use an online dating app or sex hookup site to make fast and easy sexual connections. And, too, nowadays it’s so very much easier to find space and privacy for a quick tryst. You need quite a bit of historical perspective (or to be even older than me) to remember that once upon a time, you couldn’t even rent a motel room without persuading the front desk clerk you were honestly and thoroughly married to your companion of the hour. You were better off looking for a pleasant meadow with an apple tree in it, or a secluded sand dune at the beach.
That’s why the automobile (and before it, the horse and carriage) were such liberatory sexual technologies in their day. It’s not easy to explain to the youth of today that once upon a time, the humble picnic was a notorious and successful technology of seduction. Pack a picnic basket, repair with your would-be lover to a pleasant and private rural scene, enjoy some bottles of wine and nice sandwiches, tickle somebody with a wildflower, another bottle of wine, perhaps a bit of “sunbathing” or a quick dip in the brook… That shit worked. And it was popular with just about everybody, too. Maybe it took more planning and logistics than a hookup app, and possibly even a horse or two. But it was what they had to work with, so they did it, with enthusiasm, gusto, and panache.
So notorious was “taking your date on a picnic” that popular culture abounds with salacious and comic references. Everybody understood that a picnic for two was likely to be for sex. And thus sex-adjacent jokes abounded. This being also the era of the comic postcard, it’s not at all hard to find postcards joking naughtily about sex picnics. There are hundreds of them!
I honestly think this is one of the reasons why people consider sexual puns and double-entendre such a low form of humor. These jokes are just so easy to make! For every man with a fishing pole, a pretty girl, and a fishing basket, there’s guaranteed to be a wise-ass kid in the bushes asking if he’s getting lucky:
I have no data, but I think the popularity of seduction-picnics has declined in recent decades. It’s not so easy these days to find picnic locations that are secluded and private enough for picnic-blanket nookie. But if and when you find yourself in a suitable spot, I highly recommend giving it a try!
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