Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk About Sexuality by Deborah L. Tolman

keeps another story at bay, a story of a girl whose spoken wish was not heeded, of a girl who may have been coerced or taken advantage of. Was Jenny raped? It is Jenny herself who brings the word “rape” into her story: “I mean I could’ve said no, I guess, and I could’ve pushed him off or whatever ’cause he, I mean, he’s not the type of person who would like rape me, or whatever. I mean, well, I don’t think he’s that way at all.” She may indeed, at some level, associate this experience with rape. This word signifies something about how it felt for her, and what it sounded like to me: a time when what she said was not respected, taken into account, or perhaps even heard; a time of violation, when the practice of sexual passivity made her vulnerable to another person’s desires. Although she stopped saying no eventu- ally, this sexual experience, like all of her other sexual experiences, was not related to any feeling of “yes” on Jenny’s part—not in her mind and not in her body. For Jenny, a dilemma arises in the absence of her desire. Since rape is predicated on a woman not wanting a sexual experience, if Jenny never has feelings of want or
    desire, how can she know if she has been raped?

    confused bodies Another group of girls describe “confused bodies” in that they are not clear about whether they have felt sexual desire. Two different examples of girls who have confused bodies follow. In the first, Laura is confused about how to interpret physical feelings that she can describe but cannot decide whether to call sexual. In the other, Kim simply does not know if she has felt sexual desire; her stories are a portrait of dissociation in action. Not only do these girls illu- minate how distressing a lack of clarity about one’s own feelings can be, their stories map how insidiously social constructions of male and female sexuality generate both the experience and the reality of sexual vulnerability, which leaves little room for girls’ sexual desire.

    Laura: One Story of Sexual Abuse Sitting with Laura, I sense her intelligence. Laura is a tall and un- assuming girl who attends the urban school. Neat, tight braids surround her alert brown eyes. She speaks with a measured and cautious voice, telling a complicated story about sexual desire, harm, betrayal, and confusion. For Laura, talk about sexuality is all about danger. Her grandmother and mother admonish her to “just think about school” and “[don’t] say much else.” In school, Laura observes that “there’s a lot of rumors about people goin’ around... No one knows if it’s true or not, only you know.” She says she “doesn’t really talk to anyone in school” in case “people go around talkin’ about you and sayin’ that you do all this other stuff. And you know you don’t or you know you do. It’s gonna, you know, make you feel bad either way.” For her to speak, she has to ascertain that she has found a safe space. From Laura’s descriptions of how she does and does not talk about sexuality, it seems that such safe spaces are few and far between. Thus, our interview offers
    a potential and unusual opportunity to talk about her sexuality, which Laura seems to find difficult but also clearly wants to do.
    Laura is trying to figure out if she experiences sexual desire. When I ask her if she has felt something she calls sexual desire, Laura pauses for a moment, watching me, perhaps wary or puzzled and says, “I don’t think I would know.” To clarify my understand- ing of her experience and to convey my genuine wish to listen to what she has to say, I ask her again if she has experienced such a feeling, and she hedges: “you could say that. I don’t know. I didn’t really know what it was at the time, so I wasn’t, you know, that sure. Since like no one really discussed these kinds of things, you know, I didn’t really know if it was or not.” Laura links her confusion about her feelings to never feeling able