Adolescent girls' sexuality

Abstract

Adolescent girls’ sexuality has been seen as a problem, leading to surveillance and moral panics. The power of girls’ sexual agency (i.e., to know and act on their own desires) both challenges and incites judgment and slut-shaming. The discourse of “sexual empowerment” seems to repudiate it, but is actually a more insidious controlling discourse. A renovated sexual double standard is the mechanism for keeping girls’ sexual desires under wraps, invisibly propping up gendered (hetero)sexuality. There are new mandates for girls of sexiness, sophistication, and sexual freedom, which seem to have been rebuffed; however, these new mandates cover up and reinforce traditional values. There are tensions at the heart of girls’ sexuality and development: pleasure and danger and sexual agency and sexual violence are constantly negotiated. Race, class, sexuality, and gender identity are fundamental to the possibilities for and obstacles to these paths, as are media and social media. Sexual embodiment and sexual entitlement are crucial for girls’ sexual agency. Girls are resisting suppression of sexual knowledge and sexual agency to ensure their sexual well-being and sexual rights, through positive sexuality, activism, and disruption of controlling discourses.