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Mothers are doing a better job talking about risk, danger, reproduction, consent, unwanted pregnancy. We're not talking about how to balance the risks and joys and we're really not talking about the joys.

Peggy Orenstein

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Peggy Orenstein
Age: 62
Born: 1961
Born: November 22
Author
Journalist
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Talking
Pregnancy
Jobs
Consent
Risks
Mother
Mothers
Better
Balance
Really
Danger
Unwanted
Joy
Reproduction
Risk
Joys

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The notion is called wabi-sabi life, like the cherry blossom, it is beautiful because of its impermanence, not in spite of it, more exquisite for the inevitability of loss.
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Sexualization is imposed from the outside as opposed to sexuality, an understanding of the body's responses and desires and ability to communicate that, cultivated from within.
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I never expected, when I had a daughter, that one of my most important jobs would be to protect her childhood from becoming a marketers' land grab.
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I had a lot of girls ask me whether it was weird that they didn't make a lot of noise during sex. I would get so irritated that they had learned this.
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It's not that pink is intrinsically bad, but it is such a tiny slice of the rainbow, and, though it may celebrate girlhood in one way, it also repeatedly and firmly fuses girl's identity to appearance.
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I asked a high school girl about unreciprocated oral sex and said, What if guys were asking you to get them a glass of water and never offered to you a glass of water? Would you put up with that? She burst out laughing. It never occurred to her.
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It's particularly important as parents in our conversations with our daughters and our sons to consider ideas intimate justice when we talk about and set them going on their early formative experience.
Peggy Orenstein
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A lot of what happens in consensual encounters and in the way we talk to both girls and boys about sex creates a medium in which assault flourishes.
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I talked to a junior in college, and she was fed up. She said, I'm not doing other girls any favours by faking orgasms and not calling out guys when we're having unequal experiences.
Peggy Orenstein
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Intimate justice touches on ideas of gender inequity, violence, bodily integrity, physical and mental health. I don't expect a 15-year-old girl to have that figured out it's hard enough to have it figured out when you're 50.
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I'm watching my own daughter grow up. I see this overt sexual culture coming at her like a Mack truck. She's in seventh grade.
Peggy Orenstein
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Parents tend to name all of baby boys' body parts, but with girls they go from belly button to knees with this void in the middle. That doesn't change as kids go into puberty.
Peggy Orenstein
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There is a way hook ups are serving young women. And it was important for me to always talk about how behaviours were serving girls, not just making them the victims.
Peggy Orenstein
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Girls are removing pubic hair before fully having it. They would say I feel cleaner, it's for me, but then they'd say if a boy saw pubic hair down there they'd head for the hills.
Peggy Orenstein
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Effectively, it makes the greasepaint permanent, blurring the lines not only between public and private but also between the authentic and contrived self. If all the world was once a stage, it has now become a reality TV show: we mere players are not just aware of the camera we mug for it.
Peggy Orenstein
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While I completely disagree with the purity concept, it was the only place I saw fathers talking to girls about their expectations and attitudes to sex and expressing love and support. I didn't see liberal dads having similar conversations with their daughters.
Peggy Orenstein
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All girls over age 14 remove pubic hair. The only touching is to remove hair. That's grim.
Peggy Orenstein
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Sexualization is the performance of sexuality, the performance of sexiness. Girls are super good at that now.
Peggy Orenstein
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Sex-ed courses look at girl's internal parts: for boys it's about ejaculation, erection and wet dreams for girls, it's periods and unwanted pregnancy. We never talk to girls about sexual self-exploration or self-knowledge.
Peggy Orenstein
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For years we've used the bases analogy - with intercourse being the ultimate sex even though that's probably not going to feel good to girls. That model doesn't let you say I like it at second base, maybe I'll stay here.
Peggy Orenstein