[Robert Urbanek]

I can see paradise by the dashboard light — Meat Loaf

The mass production of cars in the early 20th century gave young people personal freedom, and a vehicle of portable privacy and seduction, a contributor to the sexual freedom of the Roaring Twenties, repeated in the culture of the 1950s and beyond.

But it didn’t start with the automobile. Just look back to the 18th century.

“Carriages are everywhere in Histoire. One of Casanova’s earliest sexual misdeeds, the conquest of the young bride near Venice, takes place in a carriage; in Rome, he seals the deal with Lucrezia during a carriage ride; in London, a lady offers him a lift to Whitehall and he promptly seduces her . . . No doubt carriages made sense as sites of seduction for Casanova because they were convenient and private, spaces for misbehavior cut off from the real world of obligations and husbands.” — Harper’s Magazine, November 2022

The automobile democratized the sexual liberties of the aristocrats.

Could environmental restrictions on the use and ownership of cars become a restraint on sexual freedom? Maybe we should look forward to an Amish paradise: If this buggy is rockin’, don’t come knockin.’