Girls & Sex

by Peggy Orenstein

  20“If you write off the endless stream”: Rachel Simmons, “Selfies Are Good for Girls,” Slate DoubleX, December 1, 2013.

  21But about half also said: Melissa Dahl, “Selfie-Esteem: Teens Say Selfies Give a Confidence Boost,” Today.com, February 26, 2014.

  21Body dissatisfaction seems less driven by: Meier and Gray, “Facebook Photo Activity Associated with Body Image Disturbance in Adolescent Girls.”

  21the more they look at others’ pictures: Fadouly and Vartanian, “Negative Comparisons About One’s Appearance Mediate the Relationship Between Facebook Usage and Body Image Concerns.” See also Kendyl M. Klein, “Why Don’t I Look Like Her? The Impact of Social Media on Female Body Image,” CMC Senior Theses, Paper 720, 2013.

  21In 2011 there was a 71 percent increase: Sara Gates, “Teen Chin Implants: More Teenagers Are Seeking Plastic Surgery Before Prom,” Huffington Post, April 30, 2013.

  21One of every three members: American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, “Selfie Trend Increases Demand for Facial Plastic Surgery,” Press release, March 11, 2014. Alexandria, VA: American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

  22In truth, it’s hard to know: Ringrose, Gill, Livingstone, et al., A Qualitative Study of Children, Young People, and “Sexting.” See also Lounsbury, Mitchell, Finkelhor, et al., “The True Prevalence of ‘Sexting.’”

  22one large-scale survey: Englander, “Low Risk Associated with Most Teen Sexting.”

  22That’s particularly disturbing: Caitlin Dewey, “The Sexting Scandal No One Sees,” Washington Post, April 28, 2015. This survey of 480 undergraduates found that, for both women and men, being coerced into sexting was more traumatic than being coerced into physical sex.

  23Management consultants use: Roger Schwarz, “Moving from Either/Or to Both/And Thinking,” Schwarzassociates.com. If you find you can’t make this trick work, try doing it backward, starting with your finger at your waist tracing a counterclockwise circle and moving it up.

  23Deborah Tolman has suggested: Personal conversation, September 20, 2011.

  25Between 2012 and 2013 the number of “Brazilian butt lifts”: American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 2013 Plastic Surgery Statistics Report, Arlington Heights, IL: American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 2014.

  25“Milk, Milk, Lemonade”: “Watch ‘Inside Amy Schumer’ Tease New Season with Booty Video Parody,” Rolling Stone, April 12, 2015.

  27As with those pop culture memes: Kat Stoeffel, “bell hooks Was Bored by ‘Anaconda,’” The Cut, New York Magazine blog, October 9, 2014.

  31“Sexy, but not sexual”: Levy, Female Chauvinist Pigs.

  32When she was fifteen: Katherine Thomson, “Miley Cyrus on God, Remaking ‘Sex and the City,’ and Her Purity Ring,” Huffington Post, July 15, 2008. Other lapsed promise ring Disney Kids include Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, and the Jonas Brothers. Britney Spears also claimed she was saving intercourse until her wedding night. It turned out she was “not that innocent”: she had sex for the first time in high school, years before her famed relationship with Justin Timberlake.

  33Mirroring (and raising further questions about): Foubert, Brosi, Bannon, et al., “Pornography Viewing Among Fraternity Men.” See also Bridges, Wosnitzer, Scharrer, et al., “Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos.”

  3441 percent of videos also included: Bridges, Wosnitzer, Scharrer, et al., “Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos.”

  34Watching natural-looking people: Chris Morris, “Porn Industry Feeling Upbeat About 2014,” NBCnews.com, January 14, 2014.

  34nearly 90 percent of 304 random scenes: Bridges, Wosnitzer, Scharrer, et al., “Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography.” An earlier study found that whether the director was male or female made little difference in the level of aggression or degradation of women in the films. Chyng, Bridges, Wosnitzer, et al., “A Comparison of Male and Female Directors in Popular Pornography.” See also Monk-Turner and Purcell, “Sexual Violence in Pornography,” which analyzed a random sample of adult videos and found that most had “sexually violent or dehumanizing/degrading themes.” For example, 17 percent of scenes showed aggression against women, 39 percent of scenes featured female subordination, and 85 percent of scenes showed men ejaculating on women. Barron and Kimmel, “Sexual Violence in Three Pornographic Media,” found a progressive increase in sexual violence in pornographic materials from magazines to videos to the Internet.

  34as one eighteen-year-old pursuing: Hot Girls Wanted, directed by Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus, Netflix, 2015.

  35“So when you see consistent depictions of women”: Personal interview, Bryant Paul, Indiana University–Bloomington, December 4, 2013.

  35Over 40 percent of children ages ten to seventeen have been exposed: Wolak, Mitchell, and Finkelhor, “Unwanted and Wanted Exposure to Online Pornography in a National Sample of Youth Internet Users.” Rates of unwanted or accidental exposure to porn rose from 26 percent in 1999 to 34 percent in 2005, Wolak and her colleagues found.

  35By college, according to a survey of more than eight hundred students: Carroll et al., “Generation XXX.”

  36There is some indication that porn has: Regnerus, “Porn Use and Support of Same-Sex Marriage.”

  36On the other hand, they’re also less likely: Wright and Funk, “Pornography Consumption and Opposition to Affirmative Action for Women.” This was true for both men and women, even when controlling for prior attitudes on affirmative action.

  36Among teenage boys, regular porn use: Peter and Valkenburg, “Adolescents’ Exposure to Sexually Explicit Online Material and Recreational Attitudes Toward Sex”; Peter and Valkenburg, “The Use of Sexually Explicit Internet Material and Its Antecedents.” See also Wright and Tokunaga, “Activating the Centerfold Syndrome”; and Wright, “Show Me the Data!”

  36Porn users are also more likely: Wright and Tokunaga, “Activating the Centerfold Syndrome”; Wright, “Show me the Data!”

  36Male and female college students who report recent porn use: Wright and Funk, “Pornography Consumption and Opposition to Affirmative Action for Women”; Brosi, Foubert, Bannon, et al., “Effects of Women’s Pornography Use on Bystander Intervention in a Sexual Assault Situation and Rape Myth Acceptance”; Foubert, Brosi, Bannon, et al., “Pornography Viewing Among Fraternity Men.” For a study involving high school students, see Peter and Valkenburg, “Adolescents’ Exposure to a Sexualized Media Environment and Notions of Women as Sex Objects.”

  36female porn users are less likely than others to: Brosi, Foubert, Bannon, et al., “Effects of Women’s Pornography Use on Bystander Intervention in a Sexual Assault Situation and Rape Myth Acceptance.” One of the arguments for pornography is that rates of sexual assault drop in countries where bans against it have been lifted. But as Paul Wright, a professor of telecommunications at Indiana University–Bloomington, told me, if both male and female porn users are more likely buy into rape myths, if women users are less likely to notice when they are at risk, and if women who are objectified are more likely to be blamed when assaulted, then it may not be that there are fewer rapes in such countries so much as that they go unrecognized or unreported. Author interview, Paul Wright, December 6, 2013.

  36Only 3 percent of females do: Carroll et al., “Generation XXX.”

  37They believed that the unnatural thinness: Paul, Pornified.

  38“What I’m saying is whether it’s rated X”: “Joseph Gordon-Levitt, on Life and the Lenses We Look Through,” Interview on Weekend Edition. National Public Radio, September 29, 2013.

  39And the impact of that garden-variety, “pornified” media: Author interview, Paul Wright, December 6, 2013. See also Fisher, “Sweeping Analysis of Research Reinforces Media Influence on Women’s Body Image.”

  39The average teenager is exposed to: Fisher et. al., “Televised Sexual Content and Parental Mediation.”

  3970 percent of prime-time TV: That’s up from 56
percent in 1998, the first year tracked. Ninety-one percent of comedies and 87 percent of dramas contained sexual content, ranging from innuendo to implied intercourse. Ward and Friedman, “Using TV as a Guide”; Shiver Jr, “Television Awash in Sex, Study Says,” Los Angeles Times, November 20, 2005.

  39College men who play violent, sexualized video games: Stermer and Burkley, “SeX-Box.”

  39College women who, in experiments: Fox, Ralston, Cooper, et al., “Sexualized Avatars Lead to Women’s Self-Objectification and Acceptance of Rape Myths”; Calogero, “Objects Don’t Object.”

  39Meanwhile, in a study of middle and high school girls, those who were: Aligo, “Media Coverage of Female Athletes and Its Effect on the Self-Esteem of Young Women”; Daniels, “Sex Objects, Athletes, and Sexy Athletes.”

  39Young women who consume more objectifying media: Calogero, “Objects Don’t Object.”

  39In other words, as Rachel Calogero: Ibid.

  39The sex in TV and movies: Thirty-five percent of sex on TV occurs between two people who either have never met or are not in a relationship: Kunkel, Eyal, Finnerty, et al., Sex on TV 4.

  42Kim’s true contribution has been an ingenious “patriarchal bargain”: Lisa Wade, “Why Is Kim Kardashian Famous?” Sociological Images (blog), December 21, 2010.

  43“Our hopes have gotten so cheesy”: Tina Brown, “Why Kim Kardashian Isn’t ‘Aspirational,’” Daily Beast, April 1, 2014.

  Chapter 2: Are We Having Fun Yet?

  48“‘Do you spit or do you swallow?’”: Tamar Lewin, “Teen-Agers Alter Sexual Practices, Thinking Risks Will Be Avoided,” New York Times, April 5, 1997.

  48The reporter linked that incident: Laura Sessions Stepp, “Unsettling New Fad Alarms Parents: Middle School Oral Sex,” Washington Post, July 8, 1991.

  48Girls’ bodies have always been vectors: Brumberg, The Body Project.

  49In 1994, just a few years before: Laumann, Michael, Kolata, et al., Sex in America.

  49By 2014, oral sex was so common: Author interview, Debby Herbenick, Indiana University, December 5, 2013.

  50Oral sex practices of minors: Remez, “Oral Sex Among Adolescents.”

  50By 2000 the Clinton presidency was winding down: Anne Jarrell, “The Face of Teenage Sex Grows Younger,” New York Times, April 2, 2000.

  50That was not true: Kann, Kinchen, Shanklin, et al., “Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance—United States, 2013.”

  50An article in the now-defunct Talk magazine: Linda Franks, “The Sex Lives of Your Children,” Talk, February 2000; See also Liza Mundy, “Young Teens and Sex: Sex and Sensibility,” Washington Post Magazine, July 16, 2000.

  51The girl whose color hit farthest down: “Is Your Child Leading a Double Life?” The Oprah Winfrey Show. Broadcast October 2003/April 2004.

  51A 2004 NBC News/People survey taken: Tamar Lewin, “Are These Parties for Real?” New York Times, June 30, 2005.

  52By the end of ninth grade: Halpern-Felsher, Cornell, Kropp, and Tschann, “Oral Versus Vaginal Sex Among Adolescents,” found that one in five ninth-graders reported having experience with oral sex; 37 percent of boys and 32 percent of girls ages fifteen to seventeen reported oral sex experience; by ages eighteen to nineteen, those numbers had roughly doubled, to 66 percent and 64 percent, respectively. Child Trends DataBank, “Oral Sex Behaviors Among Teens.” See also Herbenick et al., “Sexual Behavior in the United States”; Fortenberry, “Puberty and Adolescent Sexuality”; Copen, Chandra, and Martinez, “Prevalence and Timing of Oral Sex with Opposite-Sex Partners Among Females and Males Aged 15–24 Years.” Over half of fifteen- to nineteen-year-old girls had oral sex before having first intercourse. See Chandra, Mosher, Copen, et al., “Sexual Behavior, Sexual Attraction, and Sexual Identity in the United States”; Chambers, “Oral Sex”; Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, “Teen Sexual Activity,” Fact Sheet; Hoff, Green, and Davis, “National Survey of Adolescents and Young Adults.”

  52Right-wing influence on sex education: Dotson-Blake, Knox, and Zusman, “Exploring Social Sexual Scripts Related to Oral Sex.”

  52over a third of teenagers included it: Dillard, “Adolescent Sexual Behavior: Demographics.”

  5270 percent agreed that someone: Child Trends DataBank, “Oral Sex Behaviors Among Teens.”

  53a widespread belief among teens that it is risk free: Halpern-Felsher, Cornell, Kropp, and Tschann, “Oral Versus Vaginal Sex Among Adolescents.” Only 9 percent of teens engaging in oral sex report using a condom. See Child Trends DataBank, “Oral Sex Behaviors Among Teens.” See also Copen, Chandra, and Martinez, “Prevalence and Timing of Oral Sex with Opposite-Sex Partners Among Females and Males Aged 15–24 Years.”

  53rates of sexually transmitted diseases: Advocates for Youth, “Adolescents and Sexually Transmitted Infections”; See also “A Costly and Dangerous Global Phenomenon.” Fact Sheet. Advocates for Youth, Washington, DC, 2010; “Comprehensive Sex Education: Research and Result”; Braxton, Carey, Davis, et al., Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance 2013.

  53The new popularity of oral sex: Steven Reinberg, “U.S. Teens More Vulnerable to Genital Herpes,” WebMD, October 17, 2013. See also Jerome Groopman, “Sex and the Superbug,” New Yorker, October 1, 2012; Katie Baker, “Rethinking the Blow Job: Condoms or Gonorrhea? Take Your Pick,” Jezebel (blog), September 27, 2012.

  53The number one reason they do it: avoiding STDs ranked fifth for girls in a list of motivations for engaging in oral sex, after improving relationships, popularity, pleasure, and curiosity. It ranked third for boys. Cornell and Halpern-Felsher, “Adolescent Health Brief.”

  53For years, psychologists have warned: Gilligan et al., Making Connections; Brown and Gilligan, Meeting at the Crossroads; Pipher, Reviving Ophelia. See also: Simmons, Odd Girl Out; Simmons, The Curse of the Good Girl; Orenstein, Schoolgirls.

  54Boys, incidentally, far and away, said: They were also twice as likely as girls to report feeling good about themselves after oral sex; girls were three times more likely to say they felt used. Brady and Halpern-Felsher, “Adolescents’ Reported Consequences of Having Oral Sex Versus Vaginal Sex.” This study specifically looked at consequences of oral sex among ninth- and tenth-graders.

  54For both sexes, but particularly for girls: Cornell and Halpern-Felsher, “Adolescent Health Brief.”

  54Intercourse could bring stigma, turn you into a “slut”: Initiating fellatio earlier than their peers, however, was associated with low self-esteem for girls. Fava and Bay-Cheng, “Young Women’s Adolescent Experiences of Oral Sex.” Although they said oral sex was a strategy to gain popularity, ninth- and tenth-grade girls were only half as likely as boys to feel that strategy was successful. Brady and Halpern-Felsher, “Adolescents’ Reported Consequences of Having Oral Sex Versus Vaginal Sex”; Cornell and Halpern-Felsher, “Adolescent Health Brief.”

  54the calculus and compromises they made to curry favor: One in three girls in a national survey of teens reported engaging in oral sex specifically to avoid intercourse. Hoff, Green, and Davis, “National Survey of Adolescents and Young Adults.”

  55They were both dispassionate and nonpassionate about: Burns, Futch, and Tolman, “‘It’s Like Doing Homework.’”

  60As Anna said, reciprocity in casual encounters: In their research on college students, Laura A. Backstrom and her colleagues similarly found that cunnilingus was an assumed part of relationships but not of hookups. Women who wanted oral sex in hookups had to be assertive to get it; those who did not want it were found to be relieved. In relationships, women who did not want oral sex were uncomfortable, whereas it was considered a source of pleasure for those who enjoyed it. Backstrom et al., “Women’s Negotiation of Cunnilingus in College Hookups and Relationships.”

  62Around a third masturbated regularly: According to the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior (NSSHB), more than three quarters of boys ages fourteen to seventeen say they have ever masturbated; less than half of girls have; about a third of girls in every age group masturbate
regularly, while the percentage of boys rises steadily with time. Fortenberry, Schick, Herbenick, et al., “Sexual Behaviors and Condom Use at Last Vaginal Intercourse”; Robbins, Schick, Reese, et al., “Prevalence, Frequency, and Associations of Masturbation with Other Sexual Behaviors Among Adolescents Living in the United States of America”; Alan Mozes, “Study Tracks Masturbation Trends Among U.S. Teens,” U.S. News and World Report, August 1, 2011. According to Caron, The Sex Lives of College Students, 65 percent of male students masturbate once a week compared to 19 percent of female students.

  63“Like once you’ve done that, you really must be”: Most of the college students Backstrom et al. studied likewise viewed cunnilingus as intimate and emotional, and so more desirable within a relationship. Backstrom et al., “Women’s Negotiation of Cunnilingus in College Hookups and Relationships.” See also Bay-Cheng, Robinson, and Zucker, “Behavioral and Relational Contexts of Adolescent Desire, Wanting, and Pleasure.”

  64They are dirty, the male writer continues: Wayne Nutnot, “I’m a Feminist but I Don’t Eat Pussy,” Thought Catalog, June 7, 2013.

  65Those early experiences can have a lasting: Schick, Calabrese, Rima, et al., “Genital Appearance Dissatisfaction.”

  66Women’s feelings about their genitals: Author interview, Debby Herbenick, Indiana University, December 5, 2013; Schick, Calabrese, Rima, et al., “Genital Appearance Dissatisfaction.” See also Widerman, “Women’s Body Image Self-Consciousness During Physical Intimacy with a Partner.”

  66College women in one study who were uncomfortable: Schick, Calabrese, Rima, et al., “Genital Appearance Dissatisfaction.” See also Widerman, “Women’s Body Image Self-Consciousness During Physical Intimacy with a Partner.”

  66Another study, of more than four hundred undergraduates: Bay-Cheng and Fava, “Young Women’s Experiences and Perceptions of Cunnilingus During Adolescence.”

  66Young women who feel confident: Armstrong, England, and Fogarty, “Accounting for Women’s Orgasm and Sexual Enjoyment in College Hookups and Relationships.”

  69Largely as a result of the Brazilian trend: American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, “Labiaplasty and Buttock Augmentation Show Marked Increase in Popularity,” Press release, February 5, 2014; American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, “Rising Demand for Female Cosmetic Genital Surgery Begets New Beautification Techniques,” Press release, April 15, 2013.