Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape

“As concerned as I am about the policing of girls’ sexuality through clothing, I also worry about the incessant drumbeat of self-objectification: the pressure on young women to reduce their worth to their bodies and to see those bodies as a collection of parts that exist for others’ pleasure; to continuously monitor their appearance; to perform rather than to feel sensuality.”

Orenstein supports the argument that schools should not police girls’ clothing to keep them from dressing in ways that might be considered “sexy.” However, girls’ internalization of their objectification isn’t helpful either. They should dress how they would like, but it’s concerning that they so often feel better about themselves when they dress in ways that intentionally attract sexual attention.

“[H]ypersexualization is ubiquitous, so visible as to be nearly invisible: it is the water in which girls swim, the air they breathe. Whatever else they might be—athletes, artists, scientists, musicians, newscasters, politicians—they learn that they must, as a female, first and foremost project sex appeal.”

Girls wind up sexualized, no matter the activity. While boys are recognized for their skills and talents, girls will almost always be acknowledged for their sex appeal alongside or above their actual accomplishments. Orenstein includes examples, such as when girls are catcalled while playing sports or when girls at a highly competitive academic camp are rated by boys according to who the boys want to have sex with.

“The body as product […] is not the same as the body as subject. Nor is learning to be sexually desirable the same as exploring your own desire: your wants, your needs, your capacity for joy, for passion, for intimacy, for ecstasy.”

This quote refers to The Tension Between Being Sexually Attractive and Sexual. Girls self-objectify to suggest their agency and to feel powerful through their sexuality. The problem, though, is that being sexy is not the same as being sexual. It’s not the same as being in touch with one’s body in a way that supports pleasure, sensuality, and intimacy.

“It’s not surprising that girls feel powerful when they feel ‘hot’: it’s presented to them over and over as a precondition for success in any realm. But the truth is that ‘hot’ refracts sexuality through a dehumanized prism regardless of who is ‘in control.’ ‘Hot’ demands that certain women project perpetual sexual availability while denying others any sexuality at all. ‘Hot’ tells girls that appearing sexually confident is more important than possessing knowledge of their own bodies. Because of that, as often as not, that confidence that ‘hot’ confers comes off with their clothes.”

This quote refers to The Tension Between Being Sexually Attractive and Sexual. Young women want to be hot, and that is more important than knowledge of what they want for their own bodies. If others perceive them as hot, they feel confident. In other words, their appearances are more important to them than genuine connection and satisfaction.

“It’s a metaphor, a symbol in one concrete behavior for the lack of education about sex, the normalization of female pain, and the way what had once been stigmatized has, over the course of a decade, become expected.”

This quote refers to anal sex, and how the rise of anal sex has led to new pressures for girls to perform and accept pain as part of the sexual experience. It’s one more way girls’ sexual lives have been framed as pleasing others rather than themselves.

“I understood before I started having sex what it meant for a guy to finish. You know it has to happen for sex to be over and for them to feel good. But I had no idea what it meant for a girl.”

Girls don’t have the language to discuss their own sexual pleasure. Sex is, in many ways for many young women, not about their sexual pleasure at all. This quote refers to The Dilemmas of Girls’ Desire and how many wouldn’t know what to look for beyond the boys’ orgasm to know that the sex is finished. Girls rarely think about what would be physically satisfying to them because it isn’t talked about when it comes to sex.

“I’m not suggesting that first intercourse is psychologically or physically insignificant. Not at all. But why do girls in particular still elevate this single act (which, among other things, is rarely initially pleasurable for them) to a status beyond all others? Why do they imagine this one form of sexual expression will be transformational, the magic line between innocence and experience, naivete and knowing? How does this notion of ‘virginity’ as a special category shape their sexual experience? How is it affecting their sexual development, their self-understanding, their enjoyment of sex, their physical and emotional communication with a partner?”

Orenstein questions the immense weight put on first vaginal intercourse, and how culturally problematic and harmful that burden continues to be. While oral sex has become commonplace, girls still look to this one act as somehow life-changing. Meanwhile, virginity is a patriarchal construct that isn’t rooted in science.

“[T]hey all believed that one sexual act would magically transform them—for better or for worse—and they all risked harm to their sexual and emotional development as a result. They all based their worth, calibrated their self-respect, and judged other girls’ characters (tacitly or overtly) based on what was happening, or not happening, between their legs. And they all were still fundamentally defining themselves by their sexuality: by whether, when, where, with whom, and how many times they had intercourse.”

Girls’ worth is tied up in their sexuality, and the elevation of virginity and vaginal sex over other sexual activities is nonsensical. Still, girls accept this construct without question, even as other types of sex tend to happen before vaginal sex.

“To me, purity and hypersexualization are flip sides of the same coin. I’d rather girls were taught that their sexual status, regardless of what it is, is not the measure of their personhood, their morality, their worth.”

At many points in the book, Orenstein acknowledges that there are no easy answers when it comes to girls and sex. Rarely is there a black-and-white way to look at it. More often than not, the two choices available to girls are not good ones, and this is an example of that. Girls are either hypersexualized or they are abstinent. Both choices define girls by, as she writes in a previous quote, what’s between their legs.

“’[E]very girl’s goal is to be just slutty enough, where you’re not a prude but you’re not a whore. Yeah, you have your one-night stands. Yeah, you’re experienced. But you’re not sleeping with every guy in the fraternity. You’re not making brothers Eskimo brothers’—when two or more fraternity members have intercourse with the same girl. ‘Finding that balance is every college girl’s dream, you know what I mean?’”

This is said by one of the girls interviewed by Orenstein. She tries to define how girls try to present themselves in the world. The quote shows the impossible balance girls must find to be considered good enough.

“Women, not men, wear body-baring outfits. Women, not men, relinquish turf and transportation. Women, as females and often as younger students, are expected to be ‘nice’ and deferential to their male hosts. A ‘fun girl’ wouldn’t make a scene just because a guy grabbed her ass or held her down and grinded against her; she’d just find a way to artfully and politely disengage. ‘Fun girls’ also drink freely—alcohol gives them license to be sexual, loosening inhibitions while anesthetizing against intimacy, embarrassment, or accountability. It can also undermine their ability to resist, remember, or feel entitled to report sexual assault.”

Orenstein refers to the campus party scene in this quote. Girls must be “fun” to be liked but being “fun” means allowing men to treat them like objects who exist for boys’ enjoyment. Alcohol further limits girls’ abilities to be in control of what happens to them at these parties.

“Some girls bragged to me that they could ‘have sex like a guy,’ by which they meant they could engage without emotion, they could objectify their partners as fully and reductively as boys often objectified them. That seemed a sad, low road to equality. What if, instead, they expected boys to be as sexually giving as girls? What if they were taught that all sexual partners, whether total strangers or intimates, deserved esteem and generosity, just as people do in any human interaction? What if they refused to settle for anything less?”

At many points, Orenstein reveals ways her interviewees try to work around their disenfranchisement, but almost all the ways they do this further hurt or oppress them. Self-objectification is one example of that. This is another: Girls feel empowered if they act like boys. Orenstein challenges this and suggests a shift in expectations so boys become more like girls—aiming to please and being generous and concerned about their partners’ feelings.

“As the age of coming out has dropped, parental support has become more crucial than ever. It’s one thing for your mom and dad to banish you from the home at twenty-five; it’s quite another at twelve.”

Mainstream culture in the United States continues to become more accepting of sexuality in all its forms. Kids on average come out sooner than in the past. For those kids, their well-being is more at risk if their parents aren’t accepting.

“Girls in relationships with other girls spoke very differently about sex from those who were involved with boys. A senior at a California public high school who identified as bisexual told me that she enjoyed the reciprocity she found—and had found only—in her same-sex encounters. ‘It’s so different,’ she explained. ‘It’s like my turn, her turn, my turn, her turn.’ Another bisexual high school senior said she tended to be more passive with male partners. ‘With another girl…well, you can’t both be passive. Nothing would happen. With a guy it feels like he’s doing something to you, but with a girl, you’re doing it with each other.’ A college junior in the Midwest told me sex with her girlfriend felt ‘off the script’: since there was nothing they were supposed to do, they were free to create the sex life that worked for them.”

Here, Orenstein highlights that the heterosexual-focused patriarchy is the problem for girls and sex. Boys are conditioned to feel entitled to sexual pleasure, and girls aren’t. Rules and limitations are in place. Girls police themselves and their sexual behavior with boys. When you take boys out of the equation, girls are liberated and able to find much more sexual satisfaction.

“When we’ve defined femininity for their generation so narrowly, in such a sexualized, commercialized, heteroeroticized way, where is the space, the vision, the celebration of other ways to be a girl?”

The younger generations question their gender identities, but Orenstein suggests that rather than define new genders or no genders, removing the restraints put on femininity and masculinity and expanding the definition of what it is to be a girl is necessary.

“‘Silence has the rusty taste of shame,’ she declared. ‘I will not be quiet.’”

These are the words of Angie Epifano, a former Amherst student. Her story of campus sexual assault, ensuing suicidal ideations, and time in a psych ward, and the disappointing administrative response went viral. These words in particular reveal the cultural changes that began to take place when young women found voices online. They would no longer stay anonymous or ashamed.

“‘Hilarious’ seemed to be the default position for some boys—something like ‘awkward’ for girls—when they were unsure of how to respond, particularly to something that was both sexually explicit and dehumanizing, something that perhaps actually upset them, offended them, unnerved them, repulsed them, confused them, or defied their ethics. ‘Hilarious’ offered distance, allowing them to look without feeling, to subvert a more compassionate response that might be read as weak, overly sensitive, and unmasculine. ‘Hilarious’ is particularly disturbing as a safe haven for bystanders—if assault is ‘hilarious,’ they don’t have to take it seriously, they don’t have to respond: there is no problem.”

Occasionally in the book, Orenstein speaks to the ways that boys are both participants and victims of patriarchal assumptions and expectations regarding sex. Here, she points to the word often used by boys in uncomfortable situations that are difficult for them to understand or accept. “Hilarious” is a catchword to avoid accountability. 

“Activists are correct in saying that the only thing that 100 percent of rapes have in common is a rapist. You can shroud women from head to toe, forbid them alcohol, imprison them in their homes—and there will still be rape.”

Rapists rape. Our society continues to try to limit rape by getting girls to behave differently, but evidence shows that it doesn’t matter what girls do: Rapists will continue to rape. This quote is important because so much of this chapter is devoted to policies regarding consent. Orenstein wants to clarify that the issue is made muddier than it needs to be.

“Boys’ sex drive is considered natural, and their pleasure is a given. They are supposed to be sexually confident, secure, and knowledgeable. Young women, as I’ve said, remain the gatekeepers of sex, the inertia that stops the velocity of the male libido. Those dynamics create a haven for below-the-radar offenses that make a certain level of sexual manipulation, even violence, normal and acceptable.”

Here is another way cultural assumptions harm women. Boys are thought of as the ones who want sex and girls as the ones who don’t. It’s not true, but continuing to follow these assumptions, creates a fuzzy terrain where boys are expected to pressure and coerce to get what they want.

“‘Girls have all this modeling for being nice and polite and caring and compassionate about others’ feelings,’ Simpson Rowe explained. ‘These are wonderful things—good characteristics. But because they’re so ingrained, a lot of women think this is how they’re supposed to be when faced with an unsafe situation, and they’re afraid of being seen as rude. The word that comes up a lot is bitchy. So, it’s kind of an ‘aha’ moment when they realize a guy who is pressuring and persuading and not stopping when say you don’t want to do something is not respecting you or your boundaries—and at that point, you don’t have to worry about hurting his feelings.’”

Simpson Rowe works with girls to help them build awareness about when a sexual situation turns from normal to one where she’s being pressured. In this quote, she identifies the key shift in understanding that girls need to make to protect themselves. When boys’ coercion is considered a right or entitlement, it becomes invisible and impossible to see. Rowe helps girls see the problem with this dynamic.

“What ‘yes means yes’ may do, though, especially if states aim solid curriculum efforts at younger students, as California plans to, is create a desperately needed reframing of the public conversation away from the negative—away from viewing boys as exclusively aggressive and girls as exclusively vulnerable, away from the embattled and the acrimonious—and toward what healthy, consensual, mutual encounters between young people ought to look like. Maybe it will allow girls to consider what they want—what they really want—sexually, and at last give them license to communicate it; maybe it will allow boys to more readily listen.”

This quote refers to affirmative consent policies, in which the accused must prove that their partner said or otherwise made clear they consented, as opposed to policies that put the onus on the victim to prove they said no. Orenstein speaks to the ways policies like this can change fundamental assumptions about boys, girls, and consent, and how necessary this shift in thinking is for girls’ agency.

“It’s not just about sex, though—according to Schalet, there’s a fundamental difference in the two countries’ conceptions of how teenagers become adults. American parents consider adolescents to be innately rebellious, in thrall to their ‘raging hormones.’ We respond by cracking down on them, setting stringent limits, forbidding or restricting any behavior that might lead to sex or substance use. We end up with a self-fulfilling prophecy: teens assert independence by breaking rules, rupturing their relationships with parents, separating from the family. Sex, which typically involves sneaking around or straight up lying, becomes a vehicle through which to do that.”

Orenstein touts the Netherlands as a sex-positive place to raise girls and boys. It’s a country to which the US should look to create change in sex education. This quote points to one of the ways parents behave differently here than they do there; American parents set up their kids to behave secretly around sex, to carry shame, and to avoid important discussions. 

“It’s no longer enough to simply 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.”

Chapter 7 is devoted to solutions. Orenstein discusses how boys must be included in these conversations as well. Parents need to talk to boys about the cultural expectations put on them and girls, to educate them about the harm this causes, and to encourage participation in changing those expectations.