- crucial time in the development of psychological disempowerment for many women
(Brown and Gilligan)
- time when girls lose ability to speak about what they know, see, feel, and experience
- girls under cultural pressure to be "nice girls" and "good women" in adolescence
- girls’ bodies develop into women’s bodies and girls are then seen as sexual with sexuality as an aspect
    of girls’ lives
- societal taboo against being sexual outside of heterosexual, monogamous marriage
- "crisis of connection" - a relational dilemma in girls-how to be oneself and stay in relationships
    with others who do not want to know the truth of girls’ experiences (Gilligan)
- girls silence their own thoughts for sake of relationships
- energy needed for resistance to fight social conventions is diverted to maintain cultural standards
    that stand between women and their empowerment
- girls look at rather than experience their own embodied desire in order to know
    themselves from the perspective of men (they lose touch with their own bodily feelings and desires).

What are adolescent girls’ experiences of sexual desire?

How do girls enter their sexual lives and learn to negotiate or respond to their sexuality?

Patriarchal society
- silences and denigrates women’s sexual desire
- Madonna/whore dichotomy
- girls taught to recognize and to keep a lid on the sexual desire of boys
- girls not taught to acknowledge or even to recognize their own sexual feelings

Few feminist empirical studies of girls’ sexuality (little is known) that suggest that sexual
desire is a complicated and important experience during girls’ adolescence.
- Girls denied sexual subjectivity and are "missing" this "discourse of desire" (Fine)
- Need to understand what girls’ experiences of their sexual desire are like.

Methodology chosen
= Interviews of 30 girls aged 16.5 years on average, heterogeneous group (Black, Latina, Euro-American),
    urban and suburban schools attended
= voice-centered, relational method
= researcher the listener developing an interpretation of girls’ voice and experience
= speaker and listener are recognized and acknowledged

Adolescent Girls’ Experience of Sexual Desire
- a majority of girls experience sexual desire
- a minority of girls did not experience sexual desire
- remaining girls expressed confusion or spoke in confusing ways about their own sexual feelings
- contradictory messages for girls in our culture
- difficulty posed by girls’ sexual feelings
- aware of potential for pleasure and the threat of danger that desire holds for them (reality of bodily harm)

Megan - bisexual identification
- urban, Euro-American
- belongs to gay youth group
- feels sexual desire for boys
- power of her own desire & her doubt about her ability to control herself frighten her
- lack of control of her desire - "slut" labels and ostracism
- feels her own desire but arises in response to boy’s excitement
- confusion in voice when recognizing contradiction between societal messages about girls and sexuality
- caught in this contradiction
- pressure to have a boyfriend
- not sure of her feelings for girls (lack of sexual experience)
- links her desire for girls with feelings of fear-"unnatural" feelings

Melissa- lesbian identification
- suburban, white
- realities of living in heterosexual world "little crushes" on heterosexual girls will suffice-know this is not realistic in the long run
- aware that her desire and sexual feelings make her vulnerable to harm
- existence of her sexual desire for girls can lead to anger and violence if others know of it
- restrains her response (hiding) for fear of violence
- expresses physical affection freely with other girlfriends-common and acceptable among girls
- feels doubt in her first lesbian relationship (surprised that other girl had feelings for her-she was not the initiator)
- confusion about role of her body in her experience of sexual desire
- feels sexually attracted to another girl not her girlfriend
- feels a dilemma of desire-cannot "pretend" to feel feelings she wants in an intimate relationship.

Possibilities for Empowerment and Adolescent Girls’ Sexual Desire
- conflict described and confusions about their responses to sexual feelings
- speak of how their desire can get them into trouble (pregnancy, disease, ostracism, violence, bodily harm) - even
    speaking about it causes trouble
- mature women never talked to these girls about sexual desire
- empowerment for women can develop and be nurtured through shared experience with other women
    of oppression and power-but must keep expressions of their desire under wraps
- source of empowerment lost by not talking to other women
- difficulty for girls in having or sustaining a critical perspective on the culture’s silencing of their sexual desire
- girls need to be educated about the duality of their sexuality-it is their right
- adults worry that knowing about their own sexual desire will place girls in danger
- reality of pleasure and danger in women’s sexuality
- conscious-raising for girls can empower them (white middle class girls believe in equity) thus rejecting feminism as irrelevant
- learning to trust their minds and bodies can lead to a stronger sense of self and empowerment