Girls & Sex

by Peggy Orenstein

  162An estimated 0.3 percent of Americans are thought to identify: Gary J. Gates, “How Many People Are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender?” April 2011, Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, UCLA School of Law, Los Angeles.

  162About 3.5 percent of adults identify as gay: Gates, “How Many People Are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender?” See also Gary J. Gates and Frank Newport, “Special Report: 3.4% of U.S. Adults Identify as LGBT,” poll, Gallup.com, October 8, 2012. 4.6 percent of men and 8.3 percent of women ages eighteen to twenty-nine identify as LGBT, the highest rate of any age group. The American public, when polled, believed that 23 percent of adults were gay: Frank Newport, “Americans Greatly Overestimate Percent Gay, Lesbian in U.S,” poll, Gallup.com, May 21, 2015.

  162The true number is hard to quantify: There is some dispute over whether “genderqueer” individuals are transgender, or vice versa. Gates, “How Many People Are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender?”

  162They fell in love in a support group for transgender teens: They have since broken up, and each plans to publish a memoir. Janine Radford Rubenstein, “Arin Andrews and Katie Hill, Transgender Former Couple, to Release Memoirs,” People, March 11, 2014.

  163They may replace he and she with: For a rundown of gender-neutral pronouns and their meanings, see “The Need for a Gender Neutral Pronoun,” Gender Neutral Pronoun Blog, January 24, 2010. See also Margot Adler, “Young People Push Back Against Gender Categories.”

  163her parents said their first inkling: Solomon P. Banda and Nicholas Riccardi, “Coy Mathis Case: Colorado Civil Rights Division Rules in Favor of Transgender 6-Year-Old in Bathroom Dispute,” Associated Press, June 24, 2013; Sabrina Rubin Erdely, “About a Girl: Coy Mathis’ Fight to Change Gender,” Rolling Stone, October 28, 2013.

  Chapter 6: Blurred Lines, Take Two

  168They were disdainful of girls and female teachers: For an outstanding account of the Glen Ridge rape and its impact, see Lefkowitz, Our Guys.

  169It wouldn’t be until 2015 that Tyson’s former manager: Nicholas Godden, “‘Mike Tyson Rape Case Was Inevitable, I’m Surprised More Girls Didn’t Make Claims Against Him,’” Mail Online, February 9, 2015.

  171“They would say, ‘Yes, I held’”: Kamenetz, “The History of Campus Sexual Assault.”

  172Other media outlets: The Date Rape Backlash Media and the Denial of Rape, Jhally, prod.

  172When Roiphe lost her novelty: Zoe Heller, “Shooting from the Hip,” Independent, January 17, 1993.

  172whose book Who Stole Feminism: Hoff Sommers, Who Stole Feminism.

  176Using the narrowest definition of rape: Raphael, Rape Is Rape.

  176Still, given that according to the Census Bureau: There was a total of more than 5.7 million female undergraduates at four-year institutions and more than 3.8 million at two-year institutions. U.S. Census Bureau, School Enrollment in the United States 2013, Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau, September 24, 2014.

  176The Association of American Universities’: Cantor, Fisher, Chibnall, et al., Report on the AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct.

  177and 25 percent reported at least one: Ford and England, “What Percent of College Women Are Sexually Assaulted in College?” A third survey, released in 2015 by United Educators, which provides liability insurance to schools, found that 30 percent of rapes reported at its 104 client schools between 2011 and 2013 were committed through force or threat of force and 33 percent were committed while the victim was incapacitated. In another 13 percent of cases, the perpetrator didn’t use force, but continued engaging in sexual contact after the victim hesitated or verbally refused. Eighteen percent of cases were labeled “failed consent”: the perpetrator used no force, threat of force, or coercion but “ignored or misinterpreted cues or inferred consent from silence or lack of resistance.” The remaining 7 percent of rapes involved the use of a knockout drug. Ninety-nine percent of perpetrators were male. Claire Gordon, “Study: College Athletes Are More Likely to Gang Rape,” Al Jazeera America, February 26, 2015.

  177that brings us back to one in four: Another 2015 study, of 483 students at an unnamed private university in upstate New York, found that 18.6 percent of freshman women were victims of rape or attempted rape. Carey, Durney, Shepardson, et al., “Incapacitated and Forcible Rape of College Women.”

  177it’s probably not surprising that by 2006: Kristen Lombardi, “Campus Sexual Assault Statistics Don’t Add Up,” Center for Public Integrity, December 2009. Between 2009 and 2014, over 40 percent of schools in a national sample had not conducted a single assault investigation. United States Senate, U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight, Sexual Violence on Campus.

  178lower burden of proof: Michael Dorf, “‘Yes Means Yes’ and Preponderance of the Evidence,” Dorf on Law (blog), October 29, 2014.

  179Among them were the most prestigious in the country: Edwin Rios, “The Feds Are Investigating 106 Colleges for Mishandling Sexual Assault. Is Yours One of Them?” Mother Jones, April 8, 2015.

  180appears to reflect a new willingness: “New Education Department Data Shows Increase in Title IX Sexual Violence Complaints on College Campuses,” Press release, May 5, 2015, Office of Barbara Boxer, U.S. Senator, California.

  180Afterward, though, they sink back: Yung, “Concealing Campus Sexual Assault.”

  180Twenty-eight percent of female college freshmen in a 2015: Unlike some other surveys, this one limited itself to the legal definition of rape; it did not include forced fondling or forced kissing. Carey et al., “Incapacitated and Forcible Rape of Women.” The U.S. Justice Department has found that nearly one in five girls ages fourteen to seventeen had been the victims of attempted or completed assault. Finkelhor, Turner, and Ormrod, “Children’s Exposure to Violence.”

  183“You don’t think you ruined my life forever?”: Jason Riley and Andrew Wolfson, “Louisville Boys Sexually Assaulted Savannah Dietrich ’Cause We Thought It Would Be Funny,’” Courier Journal, August 30, 2012.

  185often both victim and assailant: Krebs, Lindquist, and Warner, The Campus Sexual Assault (CSA) Study Final Report.

  185Yet in 2013, when Emily Yoffe wrote on Slate DoubleX: Emily Yoffe, “College Women: Stop Getting Drunk,” Slate DoubleX, October 15, 2013.

  186Women metabolize liquor differently from men, too: Centers for Disease Control, “Binge Drinking: A Serious Under-Recognized Problem Among Women and Girls.”

  186If you really want to reduce assault, they said, wouldn’t it be equally: Gordon, “Study: College Athletes Are More Likely to Gang Rape”; Abbey, “Alcohol’s Role in Sexual Violence Perpetration”; Davis, “The Influence of Alcohol Expectancies and Intoxication on Men’s Aggressive Unprotected Sexual Intentions”; Foubert, Newberry, and Tatum, “Behavior Differences Seven Months Later”; Carr and VanDeusen, “Risk Factors for Male Sexual Aggression on College Campuses”; Abbey, Clinton-Sherrod, McAuslan, et al., “The Relationship Between the Quantity of Alcohol Consumed and Severity of Sexual Assaults Committed by College Men”; Norris, Davis, George, et al., “Alcohol’s Direct and Indirect Effects on Men’s Self-Reported Sexual Aggression Likelihood”; Abbey et al., “Alcohol and Sexual Assault”; Norris et al., “Alcohol and Hypermasculinity as Determinants of Men’s Empathic Responses to Violent Pornography.”

  186It lowers their inhibition; it allows them to disregard: Abbey, “Alcohol’s Role in Sexual Violence Perpetration”; Davis, “The Influence of Alcohol Expectancies and Intoxication on Men’s Aggressive Unprotected Sexual Intentions”; Abbey et al., “Alcohol and Sexual Assault.”

  186By contrast, sober guys not only are less sexually coercive: Abbey, “Alcohol’s Role in Sexual Violence Perpetration”; Orchowski, Berkowitz, Boggis, et al., “Bystander Intervention Among College Men.”

  187Six hundred thousand students ages eighteen to twenty-four: Nicole Kosanake and Jeffrey Foote, “Binge Thinking: How to Stop College Kids from Majoring in Intoxication,”
Observer, January 21, 2015.

  187In that same two-month period: Dan Noyes, “Binge Drinking at UC Berkeley Strains EMS System,” Eyewitness News, ABC, November 7, 2013; Emilie Raguso, “Student Drinking at Cal Taxes Berkeley Paramedics,” Berkeleyside.com, November 12, 2013; Nico Correia, “UCPD Responds to 8 Cases of Alcohol-Related Illness Monday Morning,” Daily Californian, August 26, 2013. In 2012, twelve students were transported to the hospital during the first two weeks of school at UC Berkeley; in 2011 there were eleven incidents in the month of August alone. In 2014, however, the number of incidents during the first weekend of school dropped by half. Daily Californian, “Drinking Is a Responsibility,” August 26, 2014.

  187And yet when binge drinking rises, so does sexual assault: Mohler-Kuo, Dowdall, Koss, et al., “Correlates of Rape While Intoxicated in a National Sample of College Women.” This is not, again, to say alcohol causes rape, but that rapists use alcohol in a variety of ways to abet their crimes.

  188“Who knows what their intentions were?”: Noyes, “Binge Drinking at UC Berkeley Strains EMS System.”

  188nearly 60 percent are unsure: “Poll: One in 5 Women Say They Have Been Sexually Assaulted in College,” Washington Post, June 12, 2015.

  193“‘we need to stick together and prevent shit like this’”: André Rouillard, “The Girl Who Ratted,” Vanderbilt Hustler, April 16, 2014.

  194Although, oddly, as criminologist Jan Jordan has pointed out: Raphael, Rape Is Rape.

  194“Rape recantations could be the result of the complainants’”: Additionally, victims were urged to take a polygraph test, a practice that has since been abandoned as adversely affecting their willingness to come forward. Rape victims asked to take a polygraph test believe they are being doubted from the get-go. Kanin, “False Rape Allegations.”

  194They place false claim rates at between 2 and 8 percent: Raphael, Rape Is Rape; Lisak, Gardinier, Nicksa, et al., “False Allegations of Sexual Assault: An Analysis of Ten Years of Reported Cases.”

  194Certainly it is important to bear in mind the potential for false claims: Sinozich and Langton, Special Report: Rape and Sexual Assault Victimization Among College-Age Females, 1995–2013; Tyler Kingkade, “Fewer Than One-Third of Campus Sexual Assault Cases Result in Expulsion,” Huffington Post, September 29, 2014; Nick Anderson, “Colleges Often Reluctant to Expel for Sexual Violence,” Washington Post, December 15, 2014.

  195Emily Yoffe, who also raises the specter: Emily Yoffe, “The College Rape Overcorrection,” Slate DoubleX, December 7, 2014.

  195“we are also teaching a generation of young women”: Emily Yoffe, “How The Hunting Ground Blurs the Truth,” Slate DoubleX, February 27, 2015.

  195Young women, as I’ve said, remain: See Tolman, Davis, and Bowman, “That’s Just How It Is.”

  197Another risk-reduction program: Senn, Eliasziw, Barata, et al., “Efficacy of a Sexual Assault Resistance Program for University Women.” This is particularly important because rapists target freshman women. The resistance program involved four three-hour units in which skills were taught and practiced. The goal was for young women to be able to assess risk from acquaintances, overcome emotional barriers in acknowledging danger, and engage in effective verbal and physical self-defense.

  198“I wanted to not cause a conflict”: Bidgood, “In Girl’s Account, Rite at St. Paul’s Boarding School Turned into Rape.”

  198though that percentage dropped to 13.6 percent: Edwards et al., “Denying Rape but Endorsing Forceful Intercourse.”

  198it also maintains sexual availability as: Katha Pollitt, “Why Is ‘Yes Means Yes’ So Misunderstood?” Nation, October 8, 2014.

  203“Good girlfriends” say yes: Laina Y. Bay-Cheng and Rebecca Eliseo-Arras, “The Making of Unwanted Sex: Gendered and Neoliberal Norms in College Women’s Unwanted Sexual Experiences,” Journal of Sex Research 45, no. 4 (2008): 386–97.

  203What, these young people wondered: For some college women, complying with unwanted sex may be a reaction to having refused in the past and then been coerced by their partner. In a study of undergraduates, a woman was seven times more likely to have engaged in sexual compliance if her partner had previously coerced or assaulted her. Katz and Tirone, “Going Along with It.”

  204fraternity brothers and athletes are disproportionately: In 2015, United Educators, which offers liability insurance to schools, released an analysis of 305 sexual assault reports from 104 client colleges made between 2011 and 2013. Although 10 percent of accused perpetrators were fraternity brothers (proportionate to their presence on campus), they made up 24 percent of repeat offenders; 15 percent of accused assailants were athletes, also proportionate to their presence on campus, yet they made up 20 percent of repeat offenders. Athletes were also three times more likely than other students to be involved in gang assaults, committing 40 percent of multiple perpetrator attacks reported to schools. Gordon, “Study: College Athletes Are More Likely to Gang Rape.”

  Chapter 7: What If We Told Them the Truth?

  207and a good-faith effort to satisfy everyone involved: Abraham, “Teaching Good Sex.”

  208Unmarried women could not legally procure contraception: Luker, When Sex Goes to School.

  208Although, even then, over half of women: Schalet, Not Under My Roof. As late as 1969, two thirds of Americans thought it was wrong to have sexual relations before marriage. Lydia Saad, “Majority Considers Sex Before Marriage Morally Okay,” Gallup News Service, May 24, 2001.

  208As sex became untethered: By the early 1970s the disapproval rate for premarital sex had dropped to 47 percent. By 1985, more than half of Americans agreed that premarital sex was “morally okay.” Saad, “Majority Considers Sex Before Marriage Morally Okay.” In 2014, 66 percent of Americans felt sex between an unmarried man and woman was “largely acceptable.” Rebecca Riffkin, “New Record Highs in Moral Acceptability,” poll, Gallup.com, May 2014.

  209They argued that the “epidemic” of teen motherhood: Moran, Teaching Sex.

  209“To reassure them that infidelity is widespread?”: Moran, Teaching Sex.

  210“the social, psychological and health gains”: Ibid.

  210by 1999, 40 percent of those supposedly teaching comprehensive sex ed: Ibid.

  210By 2003, 30 percent of public school sex: U.S. House of Representatives, The Content of Federally Funded Abstinence-Only Education Programs.

  211that money might just as well have been set on fire: Nicole Cushman and Debra Hauser, “We’ve Been Here Before: Congress Quietly Increases Funding for Abstinence-Only Programs,” RH Reality Check, April 23, 2015.

  211Studies stretching back over a decade have found: U.S. House of Representatives, The Content of Federally Funded Abstinence-Only Education Programs; Hauser, “Five Years of Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Education: Assessing the Impact,” 2004, Advocates for Youth, Washington, DC; Kirby, “Sex and HIV Programs”; Trenholm, Devaney, Fortson, et al., “Impacts of Four Title V, Section 510 Abstinence Education Programs.”

  211They are, however, a lot more likely to become: Kohler, Manhart, and Lafferty, “Abstinence-Only and Comprehensive Sex Education and the Initiation of Sexual Activity and Teen Pregnancy.”

  211otherwise they would have given it up long ago for: Amanda Peterson Beadle, “Teen Pregnancies Highest in States with Abstinence-Only Policies,” ThinkProgress, April 10, 2012; Rebecca Wind, “Sex Education Linked to Delay in First Sex,” Media Center, Guttmacher Institute, March 8, 2012; Advocates for Youth, “Comprehensive Sex Education”; and “What Research Says About Comprehensive Sex Education.”

  211$185 million earmarked for research and programs that: This discretionary funding stream includes $110 million for the president’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative (TPPI), which is under the jurisdiction of the Office of Adolescent Health, and $75 million for the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), which was part of the Affordable Care Act. See “A Brief History of Federal Funding for Sex Education and Related Programs.”

>   212Meanwhile, $75 million in abstinence-only funds: “Senate Passes Compromise Bill Increasing Federal Funding for Abstinence-Only Sex Education,” Feminist Majority Foundation: Feminist Newswire (blog), April 17, 2015.

  212What this means for parents is that you never know: For information on individual state requirements as of 2015, see Guttmacher Institute, “Sex and HIV Education.”

  212a judge ruled for the first time against: Bob Egeiko, “Abstinence-Only Curriculum Not Sex Education, Judge Rules,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 14, 2015. A 2011 study conducted by UC San Francisco found uneven compliance with California state laws on sex education. In a sampling of California school districts, more than 40 percent failed to teach about condoms and other contraceptive methods in middle school; and in high school, 16 percent of students were taught that condoms were ineffective, and 70 percent of districts failed to comply with provisions of the law that require age-appropriate materials about sexual orientation. Sarah Combellick and Claire Brindis, Uneven Progress: Sex Education in California Public Schools, November 2011, San Francisco: University of California–San Francisco Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health.

  213“TAKE CARE & HAVE FUN”: Alice Dreger, “I Sat In on My Son’s Sex-Ed Class, and I Was Shocked by What I Heard,” The Stranger, April 15, 2015; Sarah Kaplan, “What Happened When a Medical Professor Live-Tweeted Her Son’s Sex-Ed Class on Abstinence,” Washington Post, April 17, 2015.

  219Consider a study comparing the early sexual experiences: Brugman, Caron, and Rademakers, “Emerging Adolescent Sexuality.”

  220“My friend’s mother also asked me how it was”: Ibid.

  220they consciously embraced it as natural: Schalet, Not Under My Roof. See also Saad, “Majority Considers Sex Before Marriage Morally Okay.” Gallup did not measure Americans’ attitudes toward teen sex in particular until 2013, when it found a significant age discrepancy in beliefs. Only 22 percent of adults over fifty-five agreed that sex between teenagers was “morally acceptable,” whereas 30 percent of adults thirty-five to fifty-four and 48 percent of those eighteen to thirty-four agreed it was. Joy Wilke and Lydia Saad, “Older Americans’ Moral Attitudes Changing,” poll, Gallup.com, May 2013.