Kerry Cohen: Dirty Little Secrets

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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

1. Courtney L. Martin, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body (New York: Free Press, 2007).

2. “Facts on American Teens’ Sexual and Reproductive Health,” Guttmacher Institute, January 2011, www.guttmacher.org/pubs/FB-ATSRH.html.

3. Ibid.

4. Joe S. McIlhaney Jr. and Freda McKissic Bush, Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex Is Affecting Our Children (Chicago: Northfield Publishing, 2008).

5. For a detailed evaluation of the studies on oxytocin and attachment, see Heather Corinna’s article, “Pump Up The Vole-Ume: Talking Oxytocin,” Scarleteen.com, August 4, 2010, www.scarleteen.com/blog/heather_corinna/2010/08/04/pump_up_the_voleume_talking_oxytocin.

6. Beth A. Auslander, Michelle M. Perfect, Paul A. Succop, and Susan L. Rosenthal, “Perceptions of Sexual Assertiveness among Adolescent Girls: Initiation, Refusal, and Use of Protective Behaviors,” Journal of Pediatric Adolescent Gynecology 20, no. 3 (2007): 157–162.

7. Michelle Fine, “Sexuality, Schooling, and Adolescent Females: The Missing Discourse of Desire,” Harvard Educational Review 58, no. 1 (1988): 29–53.

8. Joan Jacobs Brumberg, The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls (New York: Random House, 1997). See also Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1928).

9. Hugo Schwyzer, “The Paris Paradox: How Sexualization Replaces Opportunity with Obligation,” Hugo Schwyzer Blog , www.hugoschwyzer.net, November 9, 2010, hugoschwyzer.net/2010/11/09/the-paris-paradox-how-sexualization-replaces-opportunity-with-obligation/.

10. Volunteers completed a survey that read simply, “Describe your loose girl experience.” All volunteers answered my request after having read Loose Girl or having become aware of it and its theme.

1. Mary Pipher, Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls (New York: Ballantine Books, 1994), 19.

2. Ibid., 22.

3. Anne Beattie, introduction to At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women , by Sally Mann (New York: Aperture, 2005), 8.

4. Shumei S. Sun, Christine M. Schubert, William Cameron Chumlea, Alex F. Roche, Howard E. Kulin, Peter A. Lee, John H. Himes, and Alan S. Ryan, “National Estimates of the Timing of Sexual Maturation and Racial Differences Among US Children,” Pediatrics 110, no. 5 (2002): 911–919. Note that the earlier onset of puberty does not include “precocious puberty,” which is when puberty occurs before the age of eight.

5. Marcia E. Herman-Giddens, Eric J. Slora, Richard C. Wasserman, Carlos J. Bourdony, Manju V. Bhapkar, Gary G. Koch, and Cynthia M. Hasemeie, “Secondary Sexual Characteristics and Menses in Young Girls Seen in Office Practice: A Study from the Pediatric Research in Office Settings Network,” Pediatrics 99, no. 4 (1997): 505–512.

6. Julian Isherwood, “Dramatic Drop in Female Puberty,” Politiken.dk , June 18, 2010, politiken.dk/newsinenglish/ECE998340/dramatic-drop-in-female-puberty.

7. Florence Williams, “Younger Girls, Bigger Breasts: Are Chemicals to Blame?” Slate , July 28 2009, www.doublex.com/section/health-science/younger-girls-bigger-breasts-arechemicals-blame.

8. William Cameron Chumlea, Christine M. Schubert, Alex F. Roche, Howard E. Kulin, Peter A. Lee, John H. Himes, and Shumei S. Sun, “Age at Menarche and Racial Comparisons in U.S. Girls,” Pediatrics 111, no. 1 (2003): 110–113.

9. Committee on Communications, “Children, Adolescents, and Advertising,” Pediatrics 118, no. 6 (2006): 2563–2569.

10. Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used against Women (New York: Harper Collins, 2002).

11. Katy Gilpatric. “Violent Female Action Characters in Contemporary American Cinema,” Sex Roles 62, nos. 11–12 (2010): 734–746.

12. Diane E. Levin and Jean Kilbourne, So Sexy, So Soon (New York: Ballantine Books, 2009), 9.

13. Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women (Berkeley: Seal Press, 2009), 13.

14. Ibid., 30.

15. Deborah L. Tolman, Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk about Sexuality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002).

16. Wolf, Beauty Myth , 156.

17. Marta Meana, quoted in Daniel Bergner, “What Do Women Want?” New York Times Magazine , January 22, 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25desire-t.html.

1. Leanne K. Lamke, “The Impact of Sex-Role Orientation on Self-Esteem in Early Adolescence,” Child Development 53, no. 6 (1982): 1530–1535.

2. Naomi Wolf, Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood (New York: Random House, 1997), 113–114.

3. Sylvia Pagan Westphal, “Partners of Underage Girls Focus Study,” Los Angeles Times , August 13, 1999.

4. Mike Males, “Poverty, Rape, Adult/Teen Sex: Why ‘Pregnancy Prevention’ Programs Don’t Work,” Phi Delta Kappan 75, no. 5 (1994): 407–410.

5. Sharon G. Elstein and Noy Davis, “Sexual Relationships Between Adult Males and Young Teen Girls: Exploring the Legal and Social Responses,” American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law , October 1997, new.abanet.org/child/PublicDocuments/statutory_rape.pdf.