boyfriend, but there was a guy she found attractive, a guy she knew wouldn’t go out with her but would definitely have sex with her if she said that’s what she wanted. So, she did exactly that. She got drunk enough to go right up to him and say, “I want you.” They went upstairs to a bedroom, and she lost her virginity to him. The next day, her friends felt sorry for her that she been taken advantage of. They supported her as a victim. I was the only one, she said, who knew the truth.
In chapter 1, we examined the idea that girls tend to associate sexual desire with being desired. A curious twist to the disallowance of desire is that in our culture, girls are permitted to want sex if love accompanies it. They cannot want sex without it, lest they be sluts. I’ve heard often from girls that their initial masturbatory experiences involved stories about boys wanting them—her hand on her crotch was a boy’s hand, a boy who tenderly loved her as he also enlivened her sexual arousal—whereas boys’ stories of first masturbations usually include images, something they saw, or something they might do to someone else.
Because of this need for real love to be involved, sex among teenage girls often “just happens.” They get drunk and black out. They dissociate from their bodies. Alcohol is an easy out, a way not to take responsibility for one’s actions, sexual or not, boy or girl. People say, “I was drinking—I didn’t know what was happening,” or “I have no control over myself when I’m drunk, so if I did it, it was the alcohol, not me, making the choice.” Alcohol has long been a regular gateway drug to sex. Often, boys take advantage of drunk girls, thinking that the drunkenness gives them license.
But many girls, like Nikki, admit that they get drunk to loosen up sexually. They get drunk because a drunk girl doesn’t know what she was doing and therefore can’t be a slut. In my interviews, many let me know that they used alcohol often as a sort of lubrication, as a way to open themselves more easily for boys’ passes. One noted, “If I could blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol [referring to a Jamie Foxx song] I could get away with anything I secretly really wanted with a guy.”
Jessica told me that when she was as young as twelve, she started drinking because she was unhappy with herself. It was a way to be someone else, she said. Someone who could hang out with friends and not constantly compare herself to them, who could be around boys she liked and not feel fat or ugly or unappealing. Pretty quickly, too, she learned she could be flirtatious and open with boys in a way that got her attention, which turned quickly to sex. She liked the attention and the sex. She liked finally feeling like she could attract boys, like she was comfortable in her skin. That wasn’t the problem.
The problem was the way she was treated the next week in school. Everyone knew. She was called a “whore” and a “slut.” Friends started excluding her. At first, she became depressed. She drank more. She had more sex, just trying to feel better. One morning, a friend who hadn’t deserted her said, “Jess, you’ve got to stop drinking. It makes you do stuff with boys, and that’s why everyone’s being so mean to you.” Her statement was like a lightbulb for Jessica: “It was the alcohol. She could say it was the alcohol.”
And sure enough, the next time someone made a mean comment about her being a slut, she laughed and said, “I’ve got to stop drinking! I have no idea what I’m doing when I do. Cuervo is making me a slut.” The girl, who had once been her friend, laughed too, and over time they were friends again. Jessica learned the powerful lesson that it is OK to be sexually active with boys if you’re too drunk to have chosen to do so.
Sometimes, too, girls find ways to dissociate without alcohol. A young woman told me about her first time with a stranger twice her age, a man she met on the
In chapter 1, we examined the idea that girls tend to associate sexual desire with being desired. A curious twist to the disallowance of desire is that in our culture, girls are permitted to want sex if love accompanies it. They cannot want sex without it, lest they be sluts. I’ve heard often from girls that their initial masturbatory experiences involved stories about boys wanting them—her hand on her crotch was a boy’s hand, a boy who tenderly loved her as he also enlivened her sexual arousal—whereas boys’ stories of first masturbations usually include images, something they saw, or something they might do to someone else.
Because of this need for real love to be involved, sex among teenage girls often “just happens.” They get drunk and black out. They dissociate from their bodies. Alcohol is an easy out, a way not to take responsibility for one’s actions, sexual or not, boy or girl. People say, “I was drinking—I didn’t know what was happening,” or “I have no control over myself when I’m drunk, so if I did it, it was the alcohol, not me, making the choice.” Alcohol has long been a regular gateway drug to sex. Often, boys take advantage of drunk girls, thinking that the drunkenness gives them license.
But many girls, like Nikki, admit that they get drunk to loosen up sexually. They get drunk because a drunk girl doesn’t know what she was doing and therefore can’t be a slut. In my interviews, many let me know that they used alcohol often as a sort of lubrication, as a way to open themselves more easily for boys’ passes. One noted, “If I could blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol [referring to a Jamie Foxx song] I could get away with anything I secretly really wanted with a guy.”
Jessica told me that when she was as young as twelve, she started drinking because she was unhappy with herself. It was a way to be someone else, she said. Someone who could hang out with friends and not constantly compare herself to them, who could be around boys she liked and not feel fat or ugly or unappealing. Pretty quickly, too, she learned she could be flirtatious and open with boys in a way that got her attention, which turned quickly to sex. She liked the attention and the sex. She liked finally feeling like she could attract boys, like she was comfortable in her skin. That wasn’t the problem.
The problem was the way she was treated the next week in school. Everyone knew. She was called a “whore” and a “slut.” Friends started excluding her. At first, she became depressed. She drank more. She had more sex, just trying to feel better. One morning, a friend who hadn’t deserted her said, “Jess, you’ve got to stop drinking. It makes you do stuff with boys, and that’s why everyone’s being so mean to you.” Her statement was like a lightbulb for Jessica: “It was the alcohol. She could say it was the alcohol.”
And sure enough, the next time someone made a mean comment about her being a slut, she laughed and said, “I’ve got to stop drinking! I have no idea what I’m doing when I do. Cuervo is making me a slut.” The girl, who had once been her friend, laughed too, and over time they were friends again. Jessica learned the powerful lesson that it is OK to be sexually active with boys if you’re too drunk to have chosen to do so.
Sometimes, too, girls find ways to dissociate without alcohol. A young woman told me about her first time with a stranger twice her age, a man she met on the
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