Dirty Little Secrets - Kerry Cohen [0]
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cohen, Kerry.
Dirty little secrets : breaking the silence on teenage girls and promiscuity /by Kerry Cohen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Teenage girls—Sexual behavior. 2. Promiscuity. I. Title.
HQ27.5.C64 2011
306.70835—dc22
2011007322
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
VP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the young women who generously shared their stories, and to those whose stories still ache to be told
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
LETTER TO MY TEENAGE SELF
INTRODUCTION: Girls Like Us
PART ONE: The Loose Girl
CHAPTER 1: Girls Will Be Girls: Female Sexual Development
CHAPTER 2: Boy Crazy: The Fantasy Girls Have about Boys
CHAPTER 3: The Unholy Trinity: The Virgin, the Slut, and the Empowered Girl
CHAPTER 4: Best Friends and Role Models: Mothers and Loose Girls
CHAPTER 5: Daddy Issues: How Fathers Matter
CHAPTER 6: Loose Girls in Context: Risks and Losses
CHAPTER 7: Saying Yes, Saying No: Consensual Sex and Rape
CHAPTER 8: Brave New World: The Loose Girl Online
PART TWO: Gaining Power
CHAPTER 9: Grown-Up Girl: The Adult Loose Girl
CHAPTER 10: The Beginning of Change
CHAPTER 11: Waves: Protecting against Loose-Girl Behavior
PART THREE: Resources
APPENDIX
NOTES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my tireless and supportive agent Ethan Ellenberg, to Sara Appino for seeing the potential for this book, and to my editor Shana Drehs for enthusiastically believing in the book, even when I struggled to. I’m still amazed, Shana, that you got me to the end. Thanks also to Deirdre Burgess, Regan Fisher, and Katherine Faydash for their thoughtful contributions and edits. Tremendous gratitude to April Sirianni and Heather Moore for their impressive work getting the book heard.
My writing group—Michael Guerra, Ken Olsen, Gigi Rosenberg, Katherine Schneider, Jeffrey Selin, and Ellen Urbani—helped me formulate the project and clarify the direction. My family has always been supportive—especially Michael and my two beautiful sons who accommodated my disappearance to work. Thanks to James Bernard Frost, who whisked me away to get writing done, even when we didn’t.
For research help, thank you to Tiffany Kalahui and Helen Delutz.
Finally, but most