Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk About Sexuality (26 page)

later work. It has been recently argued that this shift was at least in part due to his refusal to accept his female patients’ reports of sexual abuse by well-respected male relatives (Masson, 1984).

1. dangers of desire
   

   1. See the edited volumes
      Pleasure and Danger
      (Vance, 1984) and
      Powers of Desire
      (Snitow, Stansell, and Thompson, 1983), as well as the work of Susie Bright, Pat Califa, Andrea Dworkin, Susan Griffin, and Catherine MacKinnon for discussions of the “true” nature of women’s sexual desire, whether some forms of desire are the product of false consciousness and thus anathema to women, and the right of women to have and act on any sexual feelings.
      

   2. Tolman & Debold, 1993, p. 301. Recent research suggests that African American girls are less vulnerable to some of these concerns, likely because of a cultural emphasis on internal as opposed to external beauty and a greater acceptance of a fuller, more nourished female body. Constructions of beauty may also be greatly influenced by socioeconomic or other social circumstances; the value of thinness may be pervasive among middle-class African American girls.
      

2. parameters of pleasure
   

   1. Zines are small-scale magazines often put out by girls themselves as a kind of underground alternative to mainstream media.
      

   2. Controlling discourses, narratives, and “command” performances, such as those that produce the practices and limited range of feelings that femininity requires, including sexual passivity, are obviously powerful and woven virtually seamlessly into Western culture. However, resist- ance to them through critique and the generation of alternative dis- courses and narratives is possible and crucial in defining and then defying oppression (Freire, 1970; Bordo, 1993a; Martin-Baro, 1994). That is, we are not simply automatons subjected to these ways of being; we have the potential for agency and subjectivity on different terms (Hudson, 1984). Such resistance is often made possible or buoyed by alternative paradigms. As Ramazanoglu and Holland explained, “femi-
      

      nism... has offered women very forceful analyses of sexuality and the body which identify ‘normal’ heterosexual practices and relationships not just as social rather than natural, but as constructed in men’s inter- ests to control women’s bodies and subordinate women” (1993, pp. 240–241). Such potential resistance is equally applicable to the lived experiences of the body. Judith Butler suggested that while “the body is a legacy of sedimented acts” (1997, p. 406), it “is not passively scripted with cultural codes, as if it were a lifeless recipient of wholly pregiven cultural relations. But neither do embodied selves preexist the cultural conventions which essentially signify bodies” (p. 410). The sexual revo- lution was one such form of resistance. In the realm of sexuality, various forms of feminism have provided perspectives or standpoints “on the margins” (Hooks, 1984) of mainstream culture. These alternatives are grounded in women’s experience, which is not fully held or explained by the available discourses or narratives in mainstream society.
      

   3. In part, this is because the sexual revolution was not grounded in women’s desire (Jeffreys, 1990) but “allowed” women to take on a male model of sexuality, in which sex is commodified and feelings of inti- macy are split off from physical desire. In addition, the social expecta- tion that men do not want monogamous, committed relationships (Hunter, 1993) was not challenged.
      

   4. This statement reflects the notion that it is a girl’s responsibility to identify a male who will not take advantage of his various privileges within the institution of heterosexuality, including being able to besmirch a girl without challenge (see Phillips, 2000).
      

   5. It is likely that Barbara’s experience of abuse makes her particularly vulnerable to feeling ashamed of her own sexual responses (Kaplan, 1991).
      

   6. While she is part of the youth group, she is among the youngest and least experienced; like Megan, she feels somewhat intimidated even in this context, which is meant to offer her a sense of freedom to say and be who she is.
      

   7. Lisa Diamond (1998, 2000) has demonstrated that in adolescence girls’ sexual identities or feelings may indeed fluctuate.
      

   8. As with several girls in this study, when their own question about their sexual desire surfaces, the question of “how much I’m really like attracted to her personally” becomes the central question of our interview.
      

3. geographies of desire
   

   1. Constance Nathanson, Deborah Rhodes, and others have observed that this portrait was highly exaggerated (Nathanson, 1991; Lawson & Rhodes, 1993), leading to a moral panic about out-of-wedlock adoles- cent pregnancy.
      

   2. In addition to the theoretical justification for this analysis, there was a practical one as well. Owing to the size of the sample, there were insuf- ficient numbers of girls within any of these gross groupings (“white,” “black,” “Latina”) to examine differences within or between the girls when divided in this way. For example, there was only one girl of color in the suburban sample. I also did not conduct analyses to compare these girls on other meaningful differences in the arena of sexuality, such as their religions or family histories. Nevertheless, I believe that such analyses are important and ultimately requisite for developing a sufficiently complex understanding of female adolescent sexuality.
      

   3. Although I was careful to take into account an understanding of how female sexuality is constructed within the specific cultures of each of the girls, I did not give priority to this perspective in analyzing the girls’ narratives. This choice has produced one particular take on the stories; others are possible, in fact likely, but I felt that I could not do justice to the important nuances within these groups. For instance, some of the black girls in the study come from Haiti and other parts of the Caribbean, some are from families who have been in this country for centuries, and others are of mixed heritage. There are also contra- dictory perspectives in the feminist community about white women’s ability to “hear” girls of color.
      

   4. Collins, 1990; see also Spillers, 1984. These dehumanizing images render the problems of desire and sexual subjectivity for all black ado- lescent girls, regardless of their socioeconomic status, especially com-
      

      

      note to page 170
      225
      

      plex. And there are also significant differences within the black com- munity in how female sexuality is constructed. Evelynn M. Ham- monds (1997) describes a “politics of silence” around sexuality among middle-class black women, which she traces back to the efforts of nineteenth-century black women reformers to gain entrée into the desexualized but morally superior, and exclusively white, “cult of true womanhood” (Cott, 1978; see also Carby, 1987; Brown, 1994; Wyatt, 1997). Noting the invisibility of black women’s sexual subjectivity, Hortense Spillers has identified the complicated “interstices,” or miss- ing words, of sexuality for black women, including not only the nega- tive but also the positive aspects of sexuality—for instance, through “the singer who celebrates, chides, embraces, inquires into, controls her womanhood . . . she is in the moment of performance the pri- mary subject of her own being. Her sexuality is precisely the physical expression of the highest self-regard and, often, the sheer pleasure she takes in her own powers” (1984, pp. 87–88; see also Omolade, 1983). Mimi Nichter, Sheila Parker, and their colleagues (1995) have found that black girls feel more comfortable about their bodies and seem less vulnerable to disengaging from or monitoring their bodies in the ways that their white counterparts do. Hammonds (1997) and other women of color (i.e., Anzaldua, 1981, 1990; Espin, 1999) note the added layer of complexity for lesbians of color, who must negotiate what is often an especially taboo form of female sexual expression within communities that are already marginalized, as well as the dou- bled oppression from dominant society.
      

   5. In Latinas’ cultures of origin, female sexuality is framed consistently as entirely passive and submissive; marianismo, the notion that women’s sexuality is a male possession and that it is women’s duty (only in mar- riage) to provide for and “suffer” men’s sexual needs, renders the pos- sibility of sexual subjectivity in adolescence even more complex (Espin, 1984; Comas-Diaz, 1987; Hurtado, 1996; Vasquez & des las Fuentes, 1999), especially in the context of varying levels of acculturation among family and community members (Espin, 1999; Fine, Roberts, & Weis 2000). Having to consider the impact of their adolescent sexual
      

      choices on the desires of potential husbands and other men and women in their families means that their sexuality is culturally con- structed as a matter not of their own desire but of family honor (Espin, 1984).
      

   6. This disembodiment is evident in relation to food as well (Tolman & Debold, 1993; Nichter, 2000).
      

   7. Cott, 1978. See Hammonds, 1997, for a discussion of comparable efforts made by black middle-class women.
      

   8. I set aside the very wealthy urban dwellers, who carve out a separate society of expensive stores and private schools, from which many who live in the community are explicitly excluded.
      

   9. Consistent with my experience with narratives from other girls attending urban schools, the urban girls in this study often told their stories with an economy of words. Some of them were remarkable sto- rytellers, seeming to revel in the act of narrating their experience to an interested listener. But they were able to communicate a surprising amount in relatively few words. In contrast, many of the suburban girls told dense narratives. More of the suburban girls tended to tell longer stories and to demonstrate obvious comfort with “having the floor” in the interview (Tolman & Szalacha, 1999).
      

   10. While it may be argued that the girls did not mention HIV or AIDS more frequently because the study was done in the early 1990s, it is significant that this school did have comprehensive sexuality educa- tion that addressed these risks specifically.
       

   11. See Tolman & Szalacha, 1999, for detailed information about the cod- ing and quantitative analyses of these data, as well as the supplemen- tary qualitative analysis.
       

   12. We were aware that “collapsing” such very different experiences of vio- lence is highly problematic, and that there are often different out- comes associated with the intensity and type of violent experience, as well as with the duration of and age at which it occurred (i.e., Terr, 1990; Herman, 1992). This variable is thus meant only as a gross proxy to capture what we found to be a significant difference in these girls’
       

       notes to pages 183–201
       227
       

       

       experiences of sexuality and relationships. Further study of specific types and characteristics of sexual and relationship violence are war- ranted by this finding.
       

   13. See Terr, 1990, for elaboration of the notion of “psychic priming” due to previous experiences of trauma producing varying vulnerabili- ties for subsequent trauma.
       

   14. The qualitative similarity in how desire was described by the majority of the urban girls, regardless of their sexual violation status, explains the weakness in the statistical interaction between geography and sex- ual violation.
       

4. speaking of desire
   

1. The connection between adolescent and adult experiences is sug- gested by a recent study of adult sexual dysfunction. Based on a nationally representative study of adult sexuality published in the
Journal of the American Medical Association,
Edward Laumann and his colleagues (1999) declared that the high prevalence of adult sexual dysfunction constitutes a public health crisis. While the majority of men in the study reported problems of premature ejaculation or impotence, over a third of the women reported problems with arousal or desire, in comparison with a tiny percentage of the men. Those with low educational achievement and minority status had higher risk of sexual dysfunction, echoing the urban girls in this study. The stories of these girls suggest that the roots of adult women’s “disorders of desire” (Irvine, 1990) may be adolescent dilemmas of desire. With the current rush to render women’s sexual dysfunction a physiological problem that can be cured with a “magic bullet” boost in testosterone, Ellyn Kaschak and Leonore Tiefer (2002, which includes the collectively authored “New View on Women’s Sexual Problems”) urge us to (re)consider the sociopolitical, relational, and individual histories of women’s lives to understand why their sexual desire may be dimin- ished, rather than assume a physical root and antidote to difficulties with sexuality (see also Basson, 2000). These findings highlight as well