In the early 90's, I worked with a woman from Oklahoma. Nicest person

[MosheFeingold]

28. In seriousness

I think wolf whistles in my day (and mind you I am closing in on a century) were more widespread because more people walked and also more in the nature of good-natured flirting. All part of the complex dating ritual of humans.

In the 30s we would whistle and the girl would generally be someone we knew/kind of knew from the neighborhood, and would walk over and talk smack back.

As people objected (for various reasons) and people started moving about more in cars, only the creepy guys (cf. guys from neighborhood/school to whom a girl might normally be interested in and was not afraid of) whistled and it became much more of a creepy thing

So, long way of saying, I think it has degenerated from what used to be normal flirting to creepy.