Reviving Ophelia - Mary Bray Pipher [110]
Our culture is deeply split about sexuality. We raise our daughters to value themselves as whole people, and the media reduces them to bodies. We are taught by movies and television that sophisticated people are free and spontaneous while we are being warned that casual sex can kill us. We’re trapped by double binds and impossible expectations.
A recent study of teenagers in Rhode Island documents the confusion. Teens were asked to respond to questions about circumstances under which a man “has the right to have sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent.” Eighty percent said the man had the right to use force if the couple were married, and 70 percent if the couple planned to marry. Sixty-one percent said that force was justified if the couple had had prior sexual relations. More than half felt that force was justified if the woman had led the man on. Thirty percent said it was justified if he knew that she had had sex with other men, or if he was so sexually stimulated he couldn’t control himself, or if the woman was drunk. More than half the students thought that “if a woman dresses seductively and walks alone at night, she is asking to be raped.” Clearly at least 80 percent of these teenagers didn’t know that a man never has a right to force sex.
Our cultural models for ideal female sexuality reflect our ambivalence about women and sex. Men are encouraged to be sexy and sexual all the time. Women are to be angels sometimes, sexual animals others, ladies by day and whores by night. Marilyn Monroe understood and exploited this split. She was an innocent waif and a wildcat, a child and a sultry sexpot. Understandably, girls are confused about exactly how and when they are to be sexy.
Girls receive two kinds of sex education in their schools: one in the classroom and the other in the halls. Classroom education tends to be about anatomy, procreation and birth. Students watch films on sperm and eggs or the miracle of life. (Even these classes are controversial, with some parents thinking that all sex education should come from parents.) Some schools offer information about sex, birth control and STDs, but most schools’ efforts are woefully inadequate. Most do not help students with what they need most—a sense of meaning regarding their sexuality, ways to make sense of all the messages, and guidelines on decent behavior in sexual relationships.
In the halls of junior highs, girls are pressured to be sexual regardless of the quality of relationships. Losing virginity is considered a rite of passage into maturity. Girls may be encouraged to have sex with boys they hardly know. Many girls desperate for approval succumb to this pressure. But unfortunately the double standard still exists. The same girls who are pressured to have sex on Saturday night are called sluts on Monday morning. The boys who coaxed them into sex at the parties avoid them in the halls at school.
At the Red and Black Cafe, where local teens dance to grunge bands, the graffiti on the walls of the rest room speaks to the confusion. One line reads: “Everyone should make love to everyone.” Just beside that line another girl had written: “That’s how you die of AIDS.”
Adolescent girls approach their first sexual experience with a complicated set of feelings. Sex seems confusing, dangerous, exciting, embarrassing and full of promise. Girls are aware of their own sexual urges and are eager to explore them. They are interested in the opposite sex and eager to be liked by boys. Sex is associated with freedom, adulthood and sophistication. The movies make sexual encounters look exciting and fun.
But girls are scared of many things. They are worried that they will be judged harshly for their bodies and lack of experience. They are worried about getting caught by their parents or going to hell. They fear pregnancy and STDs. They worry about