Uninhibited sex is a recurring idea. In Trout Fishing in America, the narrator travels through several states in the Northwest with his "woman" and her infant baby. The author apparently considers this grouping of so little significance that the parentage of the child, as well as his partner's name, are never mentioned. The reader is given, instread, an account of spontaneous love making between the two in a fetid stream, while the baby gets a bad sunburn on the banks of the creek. Matter-of-factly, the couple finish their sexual escapade and carry the baby with them on their hike until the child stops crying. The casual attitude of the hippy generation toward sex is reflected in the narrative of this novella as well as In Watermelon Sugar.