Sexual cultures and the construction of adolescent identities (Health Society And Policy)

337 Pages·1994·32.58 MB·English

by  Janice Irvine

an~ the
Construction
ofA~olescent
I~entities
Editebdy
SEXUACLUllURES
andtheConstruction
ofAdolescent
Identities
Copyrighted Material
In the series
HealthS,ocietya,ndPolicy
edited by Sheryl Ruzek and Irving Kenneth Zola
Copyrighted Material
SEXUACLULTURES
andtheConstruction
of Adolescent
Identities
Edited by
Janice M. Irvine
TEMPLE UN IVERSITY PRESS
PHILADEL PHIA
Copyrighted Material
Temple UniversityPress, Philadelphia 19122
Copyright © 1994 byTemple University (exceptChapter I,copyright © Janice M. Irvine;
Chapter 5,copyright© ConnieS.Chan;Chapter 10,copyright © Linda K.Christian
Smith;Chapter II.copyright © SharonThompson;and Chapter 12,copyright ©
Deborah L. Tolman). Allrightsreserved
Published 1994
Printed inthe UnitedStatesofAmerica
The paper used in thispublication meetstheminimum requirementsofAmerican National
Standard forInformation Sciences- Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSIZ39.48-1984@l
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-Publication Data
Irvine,Janice M.
Sexualculturesandtheconstructionof adolescent identities/
editedbyJanice M. Irvine.
p. cm.- (Health,society,andpolicy)
Includesbibliographicalreferences.
ISBN 1-56639-135-0.- ISBN 1-56639-136-9 (pbk.)
I. Teenagers-Unit ed States-S exualbehavior. 2. Teenagers
United States- Attitudes. 3. Adolescentpsychology- United States.
4. Sex(Psychology) I. Title. II. Series.
HQ27.I78 1994
306.7'0835- dc20 93-22144
Copyrighted Material
CONTENTS
PREFACE VII
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
X
PartI: ContextsandTheories
l. Cultural Differences and Adolescent Sexualities 3
Janice M. Irvine
2. Adolescent Development: Whose Perspective? 29
JillMcLean Taylor
3. Sexuality Education for Immigrant and Minority Students:
Developing a Culturally Appropriate Curriculum 51
Janie Victoria Wardand Jill McLean Taylor
PartII: CulturesandCommunities
4. Culture, Context, and HIVInfection: Research on Risk Taking
Among Adolescents 71
Lee Strunin
5. Asian-American Adolescents: Issues in the Expression
of Sexuality 88
Connie S. Chan
6.AIDS and Latino Adolescents 100
Luisa Medrano
Copyrighted Material
VI CONTENTS
7.Homophobia, Identity, and the Meanings of Desire:
Reflections on the Cultural Construction of Gay and
Lesbian Adolescent Sexuality 115
Diane Raymond
8. Daughters with Disabilities: Defective Women or
Minority Women? 151
Harilyn Rousso
PartIII: TextsandConversations
9. Keeping Adolescents in the Picture: Construction of Adolescent
Sexuality in Textbook Images and Popular Films 183
Mariamne H. Whatley
10.Young Women and Their Dream Lovers: Sexuality in
Adolescent Fiction 206
Linda K. Christian-Smith
11.What Friends Are For:On Girls' Misogyny and Romantic Fusion 228
Sharon Thompson
12.Daring to Desire: Culture and the Bodies of Adolescent Girls 250
Deborah L. Tolman
13.Speaking Across Cultures Within Your Own Family 285
Janet R. Kahn
14.Teens Talk Sex:Can We Talk Back? 310
Robert E. Fullilove. Warren Barksdale,
and Mindy Thompson Fullilove
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS 323
Copyrighted Material
PREFACE
THIS COLLECTION argues that adolescent sexualitiesarenotmanifestationsof an
essential nature but are multivalent constructions shaped by a range of social
influences. Like its subject, this book is itself a social product, molded by a
particular set of historical events and theoretical and political discourses.
The idea for this volume emerged at a 1990conference on adolescent sexu
ality and intimacy sponsored by the Education Department of the Planned Par
enthood League of Massachusetts. As a consultant serving on the conference
organizing committee, I was particularly interested in planning the morning
session, which was a theoretical analysisof race, culture, and adolescent sexu
ality. It wasa groundbreaking discussionofthe waysinwhich adolescent sexu
ality is culturally constructed, and it prompted a suggestion for a conference
book. For important reasons of content and balance, this evolved beyond a
conference book. Although several contributors to this anthology were confer
ence presenters, most were solicited after the book had taken shape. As this
project proceeded, some of the authors were unable to complete their chapters.
Included among these were additional studiesof race, ethnicity, and disability.
Although I regret the loss of these chapters, I am heartened that the ground
breaking research continues, and I am excited by this unprecedented collection
of research on culture and adolescent sexuality.
This book isabout difference. It challengescommonplace assumptions:that
sexuality is a natural, biological response; that adolescence entails a standard
set of developmental tasks; that puberty is a predictable and consistent event;
and that adolescent sexuality unfolds in a universal and monolithic fashion.
Instead, the articles in this book demonstrate that adolescent sexuality is not
singular and stable but plural and dynamic. Adolescent sexualities emerge out
of multiple cultural identities. Sexual meanings, sexual practices, and adoles
cents' sexual bodies are complicated social artifacts mediated by such influ-
Copyrighted Material
viii PREFACE
ences asrace, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, class, andphysical ability. We
cannot claim to understand adolescent sexualities without engaging in cultural
analysis.
The articles in this book were written in a historical moment of concen
trated attention to issuesof sexuality and culture. The rape trials ofMike Tyson
and William Kennedy Smith and the sexual harassment charges by law pro
fessor Anita Hill during the Senate confmnation hearings on the nomination of
Clarence Thomas for Supreme Court justice riveted the public imagination in
1991-1992 . Sharp divisions, symbolized by T-shirts proclaiming either "He
Did It" or "She Lied" prompted public recognition of, and a heightened na
tional discourse on, issues ofrace, gender, sexuality,and power. And although
not relatedto sexuality, thebeating ofAfrican-American motorist Rodney King
by police officers, the acquittal of the officers after a trial in the white suburb
Simi Valley, and the subsequent riots in Los Angeles further foregrounded the
issue of race and prompted the familiar question, "Do we live in two Amer
icas?" The articles in this book argue that we live not simply in two Americas
but in a society in which multiple configurations of race, class, gender, and
sexual identity not only construct attitudes and behaviors but also mediate
power and access to resources.
Meanwhile, the AIDS epidemic is the ever-present backdrop for these de
bates about sexuality and culture. During this period teenage sexuality made
headlines for one predictable reason: white heterosexual adolescents are con
tracting HIV and dying of AIDS. Despite the heightened prevalence rates of
HIV among adolescents of color, the cover of the August 3, 1992, Newsweek
featured white, sixteen-year-old Krista Blake, who warned readers that her life
in "basic, white-bread America" was no protection from HIV infection. The
media and some public health professionals are perpetuating familiar mistakes:
sexuality is being discussed only in the context of danger from disease or
abuse; the lives and sexual health of only white, middle-class, heterosexual
adolescents are the subject of widespread concern; and differences among ado
lescents regarding sexual behaviors and meanings arediminished or ignored. In
contrast, the authors in this collection describe the diverse worlds in which
teenagers negotiate sexual pleasure and adventure, sexual danger and confu
sion.
HIV/AIDS is a pressing risk for adolescents, but it is not their only sexu
ality-related threat. They are also in danger from a society that will speak to
them only of sexual denial and not of sexual pleasure, that implicitly tolerates
sexual violence, and that privileges the sexuality of some, while perpetuating
destructive sexual stereotypes based on race or other difference. This book
encourages a close examination of the varied sexual cultures of adolescents so
Copyrighted Material
PREFACE IX
that we may more effectively plan programs, policies, and everyday conversa
tions with them. Its operating premise is that we want more than for some
adolescents merely to survive an epidemic. We aspire to a world in which they
all can develop rich and satisfying sexualities.
JANICE M. IRVINE
Copyrighted Material