Heterosexual Relationships of Young Women in a Rural Environment

Abstract

This paper draws on ethnographic research to discuss the ways in which a group of thirteen- and fourteen-year-old girls living in a rural area organised, negotiated and controlled their developing heterosexual relationships - of getting and having boyfriends. Their active initiation of relationships with boys and the lead they took in defining boundaries contradicts the picture of passivity presented in feminist youth culture literature of the 1970s and 1980s. Three forms of heterosexual relationships are explored: getting off, seeing someone and going out with and the differing quality of each relationship. Within each variety there is a continuum of seriousness. Each relationship form was negotiated in such a way that it would not interfere with the business of doing friendship with girlfriends. The girls' sexual behaviour and the way in which they themselves discuss and make sense of their sexuality are framed within the boundaries of compulsory heterosexuality