Quote

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.

Peggy Orenstein

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Peggy Orenstein
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: November 22
Author
Journalist
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Happens
Medium
Way
Mediums
Creates
Girls
Sex
Consensual
Boys
Flourishes
Talk
Assault
Girl
Encounters

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All girls over age 14 remove pubic hair. The only touching is to remove hair. That's grim.
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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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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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We continue to think of virginity as first intercourse. That ends up minimizing and marginalizing other things kids are engaged in, like oral sex. And it's not going to feel particularly good for girls as the big marker of adulthood.
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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.
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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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Saying yes [to sexual activity] is a pretty low baseline for sexual experience and I wanted to write about what was happening to girls after yes.
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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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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.
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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.
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.
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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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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.
Peggy Orenstein
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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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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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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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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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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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Girls would say: I have a boyfriend for that. So in addition to putting their pleasure literally into someone else's hands - an inept teenage boy - these are the same girls who say they do not climax with a partner. It's the opposite with boys they say because they can do that themselves, girls should perform oral sex.
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