Girls & Sex

by Peggy Orenstein

  At the same time, she offered this to an eleventh-grader whose friend was having sex with many different people. “Your response doesn’t have to be ‘That’s gross’ or ‘That’s good’ or ‘That’s bad.’ You can ask, ‘How did that feel to you? What does it bring you? How does it serve you?’ Approached in the right way, that can be a great conversation. Then, if you really care about that person, your job is to be their human shield from shame.”

  There were times, listening to Denison answer those anonymous questions, that I felt a little uncertain. Like when someone in an eleventh-grade class asked how to have intercourse in a way that wouldn’t hurt his partner. She talked about easing the penis in and out of the vagina gradually, rather than doing the porn-inspired jack hammer thrust, allowing a girl’s body time to acclimate. She suggested a boy could shift his weight so he wasn’t always bashing into the same spot, and could “empower” a female partner to grab his hips to control the depth of the penetration. There was no denying it: she was explaining how to have sex. It was the worst nightmare of conservative policy makers realized. Yet this is exactly the kind of discussion that, if Holland is any indication, is needed to combat the pop porn culture, reduce regret, and improve teens’ satisfaction when they do choose to have sex (whenever that may be). So what about it makes me cringe? Surely, I’d rather have a daughter in bed with a boy who had a question like this asked and answered than one whose only point of reference was what he’d seen on the Internet. “I am not telling them what to do,” Denison would explain to me later. “I am responding to a direct question—one that I get ninety-nine percent of the time, by the way—that rises from a student’s respect and sense of accountability to both himself and his partner. If I didn’t answer specifically, I’d be a fake, just another adult testing their trust.” To the class, she concluded with “It’s all about communication.” And of course she was right.

  At the end of each session, Denison pulled several handfuls of condoms from a silver tackle box she carried everywhere with her, sort of like Mary Poppins’s carpet bag: it also held the vulva puppet, a model of a penis (nicknamed Richard) for demonstrating proper condom use, individual capsules of personal lubricant, and other tools of her trade. “Keep talking, keep asking questions,” she would say. “Knowledge is power.” True, I saw a group of boys make a show of scooping up the condoms and tossing them in the air. “Children, be free!” one of them said, laughing. But more often students, both boys and girls, approached respectfully. Some took the condoms casually; others sidled up, pretended to pick up an errant index card or pen, and then subtly slipped one or two condoms into their pockets.

  A few kids always hung around as the room emptied, hoping for a private moment with Denison. One girl wanted clarification on the definition of statutory rape. Another wanted to know about Denison’s career path so she could emulate it. One afternoon, the last student to approach her was a boy with dark curly hair and wide brown eyes. He ground the toe of his sneaker into the floor as he confided that his girlfriend was pushing to have intercourse, but he wasn’t ready. “You’d be surprised at how often boys tell me that,” Denison told him. “It must be hard and feel lonely.” The boy nodded, his eyes welling up. Denison talked to him for a while, in a voice too low for me to hear. Then she gave him her phone number and e-mail address and told him to feel free to contact her. He nodded and walked away, a little less alone.

  THIS BOOK IS about girls, about the ongoing obstacles to their full, healthy sexual expression and the costs of that to their well-being. But I want to leave Denison there, with a boy, because making change has to include them as well. It’s no longer enough simply to caution young men against “getting a girl pregnant,” or, more likely in the current climate, to warn about the shifting definition of rape. Parents need to discuss the spectrum of pressure, coercion, and consent with their sons, the forces urging them to see girls’ limits as a challenge to overcome. Boys need to understand how they, too, are harmed by sexualized media and porn. They need to see models of masculine sexuality that are not grounded in aggression against women, in denigration or conquest. They need to know about shared pleasure, mutuality, reciprocity—to transform from baseball players to pizza eaters. That may not be as hard to do as one might think.

  Charis Denison taught mostly high school, so one afternoon I sat in on a week-long coeducational puberty class for fourth- and fifth-graders taught by a pink-haired woman aptly named Jennifer Devine, who was a Unitarian minister as well as a certified sex educator. She spent the first session talking about how, with a few notable differences, puberty was basically the same for what she referred to as “people with vulvas and people with penises”: everyone gets taller, everyone gets zits, everyone grows hair in new places, everyone’s genitals mature, everyone gets “tingly feelings,” everyone becomes capable of making a baby. She also spent a session each on the intricacies of male and female anatomy. After those lessons, she asked students to label drawings of men’s and women’s reproductive systems, both internal and external, which were rendered with clinical precision. That meant both boys and girls had to name the vulva, the outer and inner labia, the vaginal and urethral openings, the anus. I sat behind two boys, Terrell and Gabe, who were doing fine until suddenly Terrell drew a blank. “Hey, Gabe,” he said, pointing to his booklet. “What’s this again?” Gabe glanced over. “Oh, that’s the clitoris,” he replied. “That’s for making good feelings.”

  It’s a start.

  Parents could learn a thing or two from Gabe. I recently suggested to a friend of mine, a woman who, like me, is a feminist, politically progressive mom of a preteen girl, that it was not enough to teach our daughters about the mechanics of reproduction, not enough to encourage resistance to unwanted sexual pressure, or to tell them that rape is not their fault. It was not even enough to equip them with birth control pills and condoms when the time came. We needed to talk to them about good sex, starting with how their own bodies worked, with masturbation and orgasm. She balked. “They don’t want to hear about that kind of thing from us,” she said. No? From where will they hear it, then? They deserve something better than the distorted, false voices that blare at them from TVs, computers, iPhones, tablets, and movie screens. They deserve our guidance rather than our fear and denial in their sexual development. They deserve our help in understanding the dangers that lurk, but also in embracing their desire with respect and responsibility, in understanding the complexities and nuances of sexuality.

  After studying the Dutch, Amy Schalet whipped up a four-part “ABCD” model for raising sexually healthy kids. First off, we want them to be autonomous (that’s A), to understand desire and pleasure, to be able to assert sexual wishes and set limits, and to prepare responsibly for sexual encounters. Moving slowly, with awareness of desire and comfort, is the best way to gain those skills. Who, after all, is truly more sexually “experienced,” a person who has intercourse while drunk to divest herself of virginity or the one who spends three hours kissing a partner, learning about erotic tension, mutual pleasure, intentionality? Frankly, if American parents didn’t get any further than A, we’d be ahead of the game.

  Nonetheless, there are three more letters. B, for building egalitarian, supportive relationships that value shared interest, respect, care, and trust; C for maintaining and nurturing connection with your child; and D for recognizing the diversity and range of sexual orientation, cultural beliefs, and development among their peers. As for that sleepover? I don’t know whether I could get there myself, but I’m not saying never—the argument is awfully compelling. Regardless of how we navigate the details, though, we still can, and must, be more open with our daughters and our sons—and encourage them to be more open with us. My friend is actually wrong: Kids do want to hear that from their parents. They really do. In a 2012 survey of over four thousand young people, most said they wish they’d had more information, especially from Mom or Dad, before their first sexual experiences. They particularly wanted to know
more from us about relationships and the emotional side of sex. So, think about it: Would you like your teenager to explore and understand her own body thoroughly before plunging ahead with partnered sex? Would you like her notion of what constitutes intimacy to extend beyond intercourse? Would you like her to have fewer partners, and consistently protect herself against disease and pregnancy? How about enjoying her sexual encounters? Transcending gender stereotypes? Would you hope she’ll find caring, reciprocal, egalitarian relationships in which she can express her needs and limits? If she does pursue sexual pleasure outside relationships, do you want those experiences, too, to be safe, mutual, and respectful? I know I would. All the more reason to take a deep breath and forge ahead with discussions (that’s multiple discussions) that include ideas about healthy relationships, communication, satisfaction, joy, mutuality, ethics, and, yes, toe-curling bliss.

  After talking to so many girls, I now know what to hope for—for my own daughter and for them. I want sexuality to be a source of self-knowledge and creativity and communication despite its potential risks. I want them to revel in their bodies’ sensuality without being reduced to it. I want them to be able to ask for what they want in bed, and to get it. I want them to be safe from disease, unwanted pregnancy, cruelty, dehumanization, and violence. If they are assaulted, I want them to have recourse from their school administrators, employers, the courts. It’s a lot to ask for, but it’s not too much. We’ve raised a generation of girls to have a voice, to expect egalitarian treatment in the home, in the classroom, in the workplace. Now it’s time to demand that “intimate justice” in their personal lives as well.

  Acknowledgments

  Usually at this point I write about how while authorship is a solitary pursuit, there were many who supported me in it, blah, blah, blah. But that’s such a civilized, sanitized way of putting it. What I really mean is this: I am difficult to live with, difficult to be around, difficult to know or interact with in any way while I am engrossed in book writing. The work consumes me. It makes me anxious, obsessive, flaky, and self-absorbed. It makes me grouchy. It makes me emotionally and often physically distant. Sometimes I don’t know how those who love me—my friends, my family—can stand it. And yet they do, and that is, for me, the definition of grace.

  So let me put it out there for real. For living through this with me yet again, for chewing over the issues, for challenging me, cajoling me, housing me, and enduring me, I would like to thank: Barbara Swaiman, Peggy Kalb, Ruth Halpern, Eva Eilenberg, Ayelet Waldman, Michael Chabon, Sylvia Brownrigg, Natalie Compagni Portis, Ann Packer, Rachel Silvers, Youseef Elias, Stevie Kaplan, Joan Semling Bostian, Mitch Bostian, Judith Belzer, Michael Pollan, Simone Marean, Rachel Simmons, Julia Sweeney Blum, Michael Blum, Danny Sager, Brian McCarthy, Diane Espaldon, Dan Wilson, Teresa Tauchi, Courtney Martin, Moira Kenney, Neal Karlen, ReCheng Tsang Jaffe, Sara Corbett, and Ilena Silverman.

  For their assistance with research, I would like to thank Kaela Elias, Sara Birnel-Henderson, Pearl Xu, Evelyn Wang, Henry Bergman, and Sarah Caduto. For acting as sounding boards (and sometimes contending with some very personal questions), thanks to my nieces and nephews, especially Julie Ann Orenstein, Lucy Orenstein, Arielle Orenstein, Harry Orenstein, Matthew Orenstein, and Shirley Kawafuchi. For their guidance, I thank my agent, Suzanne Gluck, my ever-patient editor, Jennifer Barth, as well as Debby Herbenick, Leslie Bell, Patti Wolter, Lucia O’Sullivan, Lisa Wade, Jack Halberstam, Jackie Krasas, Paul Wright, and Bryant Paul. For the luxury of space and time to write uninterrupted, I am profoundly grateful to Peter Barnes and the Mesa Refuge, as well as to the Cindy-licious Ucross Foundation.

  Greg Knowles deserves a special place in heaven for rescuing my manuscript when it disappeared into the technological ether. And while looks aren’t everything, I sure appreciate what Michael Todd did with mine. Thanks, too, to the staff of The California Sunday Magazine and especially Doug McGray for your support and understanding. Special thanks to Charis Denison for all that my reporting put her through.

  Most of all, thank you to the generous young women who participated in my interviews and the adults who helped me find them. To protect their privacy, I can’t name them here, but you know who you are. It was a pleasure to get to know each and every one of you, and there is no way I could have written this book without you.

  Finally, thank you to my family, both extended and immediate. To my husband, Steven Okazaki, so much more love than I could ever express; and to my beloved daughter, Daisy, I hope I haven’t embarrassed you too much. I love you boundlessly and wish you the gift of ever and always being fully yourself.

  Notes

  The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was made. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature on your e-book reader.

  Introduction: Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Girls and Sex (but Really Need to Ask)

  3The average American has first intercourse: Finer and Philbin, “Sexual Initiation, Contraceptive Use, and Pregnancy Among Young Adolescents.”

  5Teen intimacy, it said, ought to be: Haffner, ed., Facing Facts: Sexual Health for America’s Adolescents .

  5Sara McClelland, a professor of psychology: McClelland, “Intimate Justice.”

  Chapter 1: Matilda Oh Is Not an Object—Except When She Wants to Be

  12“If they aren’t,” Moran wrote, “chances are”: Moran, How to Be a Woman, p. 283.

  12Preschoolers worship Disney princesses: Glenn Boozan, “11 Disney Princesses Whose Eyes Are Literally Bigger Than Their Stomachs,” Above Average, June 22, 2015.

  12Self-objectification: American Psychological Association, Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. The groundbreaking report defines sexualization as comprising any one or any combination of the following: “a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics; a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness (narrowly defined) with being sexy; a person is sexually objectified—that is, made into a thing for others’ sexual use, rather than seen as a person with the capacity for independent action and decision making; and/or sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person.” See also Madeline Fisher, “Sweeping Analysis of Research Reinforces Media Influence on Women’s Body Image,” University of Wisconsin–Madison News, May 8, 2008.

  12In one study of eighth-graders: Tolman and Impett, “Looking Good, Sounding Good.” See also Impett, Schooler, and Tolman, “To Be Seen and Not Heard.”

  12Another study linked girls’ focus on appearance: Slater and Tiggeman, “A Test of Objectification Theory in Adolescent Girls.”

  13A study of twelfth-graders connected self-objectification: Hirschman et al., “Dis/Embodied Voices.”

  13Self-objectification has also been correlated: Caroline Heldman, “The Beast of Beauty Culture: An Analysis of the Political Effects of Self-Objectification,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association, Las Vegas, NV, March 8, 2007. See also Calogero, “Objects Don’t Object”; Miss Representation, dir. Jennifer Siebel Newsom and Kimberlee Acquaro, San Francisco: Representation Project, 2011.

  13Or, as one alumna put it: Steering Committee on Undergraduate Women’s Leadership at Princeton University, Report of the Steering Committee on Undergraduate Women’s Leadership, 2011; Evan Thomas, “Princeton’s Woman Problem,” Daily Beast, March 21, 2011.

  13“the pressure to look or dress”: Liz Dennerlein, “Study: Females Lose Self-Confidence Throughout College,” USA Today, September 26, 2013.

  13“effortless perfection”: Sara Rimer, “Social Expectations Pressuring Women at Duke, Study Finds,” New York Times, September 24, 2003.

  13It is a commercialized, one-dimensional, infinitely replicated: Levy, Female Chauvinist Pigs.

  16rejecting the torture device commonly known as: Haley Phelan, “Young Women Say No to Thongs,” New York Times, May 27, 2015.

 
17“I will lose weight, get new lenses”: Brumberg, The Body Project.

  18Comments on girls’ pages, too: Steyer, Talking Back to Facebook; Fardouly, Diedrichs, Vartanian, et al., “Social Comparisons on Social Media.” See also Shari Roan, “Women Who Post Lots of Photos of Themselves on Facebook Value Appearance, Need Attention, Study Finds,” Los Angeles Times, March 10, 2011; Lizette Borrel, “Facebook Use Linked to Negative Body Image in Teen Girls: How Publicly Sharing Photos Can Lead to Eating Disorders,” Medical Daily, December 3, 2013; Jess Weiner, “The Impact of Social Media and Body Image: Does Social Networking Actually Trigger Body Obsession in Today’s Teenage Girls?” Dove Self Esteem Project (blog), June 26, 2013.

  19Their “friends” become an audience: Author’s interview with Adriana Manago, Department of Psychology and Children’s Digital Media Center, UCLA, May 7, 2010. See also Manago, Graham, Greenfield, et al., “Self-Presentation and Gender on MySpace.”

  19Also, especially on photo-sharing sites such as Instagram: Lenhart, “Teens, Social Media and Technology Overview 2015.”

  19This despite the fact that 1,499 of the profiles: Bailey, Steeves, Burkell, et al., “Negotiating with Gender Stereotypes on Social Networking Sites.”

  20selfie was named the “international word of the year”: The first recorded use of the word selfie was in 2002, in an online chat room by a drunken Australian. It became the word of the year after Oxford’s researchers established that its use had spiked 17 percent since the same time in 2012. Ben Brumfield, “Selfie Named Word of the Year in 2013,” CNN.com, November 20, 2013.

  20Anyone with a Facebook or Instagram account: Mehrdad Yazdani, “Gender, Age, and Ambiguity of Selfies on Instagram,” Software Studies Initiative (blog), February 28, 2014.