Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk about Sexuality

272 Pages·2005·1.99 MB·English

by  Deborah L. Tolman

DILEMMAS DESIRE
of

D I L E M M A S D E S I R E
of
Teenage Girls
Talk about
Sexuality
Deborah L. Tolman
Harvard
University
Press
Cambridge,
Massachusetts
London,
England
Copyright © 2002 by the President and Fellows ofHarvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 2005
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tolman,Deborah L.
Dilemmas ofdesire :teenage girls talk about sexuality / Deborah L.Tolman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-674-00895-2 (cloth)
ISBN 0-674-01856-7 (pbk.)
1.Teenage girls—Sexual behavior. 2.Teenage girls—Attitudes. 3.Interpersonal
relations in adolescence. I.Title.
HQ27.5 .T65 2002
306.7'0835—dc21 2002024134
For my parents,E.Laurie and Sylvia Tolman,
for raising me to ask the question
For my husband,Luis Ubinas,
for sustaining me as I answeredit

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
1 Getting beyond “It Just Happened” 1
2 Voices ofDesire 25
3 Sounds ofSilence 50
4 Dangers ofDesire 80
5 Parameters ofPleasure 118
6 Geographies ofDesire 166
7 Speaking ofDesire 187
On Methodology 209
Notes 217
References 229
Index 251

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In a recently rediscovered photograph taken right after I graduated
from college, I am standing with one of my roommates; we are
laughing at a road sign that reads “Hidden Drives.”We are laugh-
ing because I had just announced that “when I grow up”I will write
a book with this title.Well,it’s not exactly that title but it is fairly
close.And so this book has been a very long time in the making.
First and foremost,I am grateful for the trust and enthusiasm of
the staffin the two anonymous schools involved in this study,who
opened the necessary doors to make this project happen. I am
equally grateful to the girls who shared their thoughts, feelings,
and experiences with me in the service of “this little research
thing,”as one ofthem called it.I also want to thank another group
ofadolescent girls,who participated in a subsequent two-year dis-
cussion group about adolescent sexuality and girls’sexual desire,
for deepening my insights into the complexities of growing up
female these days.My gratitude goes to Angela von der Lippe,for-
mer acquisitions editor at Harvard University Press, to Elizabeth
Knoll for shepherding the manuscript through the Press, and to
Elizabeth Hurwit for marvelous editing.
Over the years, I have benefited from the love and support of
mygrowing family,the faith and care of loyal friends,and the in-
tellectual stimulation and challenge of an expanding community
ix