--- title: Love in the Time of Grease—Real Mating Habits of 1950s Teens description: 'Grease Live' airs on Jan. 31, 2016 canonical: https://time.com/4191136/grease-teenage-relationships-going-steady/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-29T17:00:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T14:22:52.474Z article:section: History og:title: Love in the Time of Grease—Real Mating Habits of 1950s Teens og:description: When 'going steady' was thought to be a sin og:url: https://time.com/4191136/grease-teenage-relationships-going-steady/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb009864ec1e89de2/69887a402dce01d67f9e779a/greasers.jpeg?branch=production&width=829&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 829 og:image:height: 466 og:image:alt: Two Teenagers og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Love in the Time of Grease—Real Mating Habits of 1950s Teens twitter:description: When 'going steady' was thought to be a sin twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb009864ec1e89de2/69887a402dce01d67f9e779a/greasers.jpeg?branch=production&width=829&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Real Sex Lives of _Grease_\-Era Teenagers > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jan 29, 2016 5:00 PM UTC  Two youths with ducktail hairdos hanging out with their motorcycle and car. San Francisco, c. 1954 Two youths with ducktail hairdos hanging out with their motorcycle and car. San Francisco, c. 1954 Underwood Archives / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jan 29, 2016 5:00 PM UTC It doesn’t take long to figure out that _Grease_ is, as TIME’s original review of the 1959-set musical [put it](http://time.com/vault/issue/1972-05-29/page/58/), a “boy-girl story.” Rival gangs and hot-rod racing may pop up here and there, but it’s essentially the story of Sandy and Danny and whether they’ll end up together. And, though much of what makes _Grease_ special is period-specific—even the title, which refers to the [subculture](http://time.com/vault/issue/1965-10-01/page/60/) named for the greased “ducktail” hairstyle worn by the boys—the drama of high-school boyfriends and girlfriends may seem to be an eternal one. That’s what FOX is betting in making a modern television event out of this Sunday’s _Grease: Live_ (starring Julianne Hough and Aaron Tveit as Sandy and Danny). But the 1950s were a transformative period of in the mating habits of American teenagers. At the time, the concept of “going steady” was relatively new —and, though it might seem [counter-intuitive today,](http://time.com/103867/why-the-hookup-generation-does-not-need-to-learn-how-to-date/) parents and moral leaders were concerned that high-schoolers weren’t dating around enough. Of course, the assumption was that the person who went out with a different classmate every weekend was keeping things Rated G. The edgy thing to do back then was to be part of a committed monogamous relationship. As TIME [reported](http://time.com/vault/issue/1957-03-11/page/64/) in 1957, “Instead of using their adolescent years to meet as many of the opposite sex as possible, to learn their ways and appraise their worth, teen-agers are tending more and more to ‘go steady.'” The trend had ramifications throughout teen culture: --- > “” --- The concern was that taking the emotional side of teen relationships to the next step would lead to the physical equivalent. An author in one of the Catholic magazines in question even suggested that the church might have to respond with drastic measures: by naming going steady “a specific mortal sin.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4191136/grease-teenage-relationships-going-steady/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4191136/grease-teenage-relationships-going-steady/"},"headline":"The Real Sex Lives of Grease-Era Teenagers","datePublished":"2016-01-29T17:00:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T14:22:52.474Z","description":"When 'going steady' was thought to be a sin","url":"https://time.com/4191136/grease-teenage-relationships-going-steady/","keywords":["society","Television","movies","relationships","Theater"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb009864ec1e89de2/69887a402dce01d67f9e779a/greasers.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb009864ec1e89de2/69887a402dce01d67f9e779a/greasers.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Two Teenagers","caption":"Two Teenagers","creditText":"Underwood Archives / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/society/","name":"society"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4191136/grease-teenage-relationships-going-steady/","name":"The Real Sex Lives of Grease-Era Teenagers"}}]}] ```