Little girls gone wild

What are some of the distortions that girls learn from magazines and advertising about what girls' sexuality is all about?

If you've got it, flaunt it. Sex is only about baring the body, and exhibiting the body, and especially girls' bodies. That's a very narrow definition of what sexuality is. At the same time, you can't express yourself, you can't enjoy your body, you can't feel like your body is sexual unless you've got this perfect, sex goddess anatomy, which is something like a Barbie body. That's ridiculous, too. It makes girls end up hating their bodies, and not enjoying their own sensuality and sexuality. That's a real problem.

Then, there's this insistence that younger and younger girls are sexual. There's this huge emphasis on linking youth with sexuality. People mature sexually throughout their lives, and there is a lot of scientific evidence that women who are past menopause really enjoy sex. Children who are 12, 13 years old are not in a position to understand or cope with their sexuality very well. Linking sex to youthfulness is really dangerous.

Girls are always supposed to be changing their bodies and dressing up in order to attract male attention. There is not much emphasis on girls enjoying their own bodies, or even any reciprocity where boys might be thinking about what they could do to please girls. It's not very mutual.

But aren't boys also sold a very limited ideal of what it means to be sexual, too? Like all the pop culture references to pimps?

I think that male sexuality is defined in really narrow and limiting ways as well, but in the end, it ends up giving more power to boys. It actually hands it all off to them as being the arbiters of girls' sexuality, and the ones who can make the sexual decisions.

When you talk to girls do you find that they are pretty media savvy?

I've always expected them to understand a great deal about how the media works. But in fact, they don't. I show them videos of how much images are digitally altered before they appear in magazines, and they're stunned by that. They've never really thought about how if the word "glamour" is put beside a particular outfit, then the outfit becomes glamorous.

You write that the current Western beauty ideal -- very slender with big breasts -- is just one in a long line of cultural beauty ideals that have shifted over the centuries in different countries. So, what makes this one different from any of the others?

I think that one of the things about this one is that it's so hard to obtain. It's just basically a body not found in nature. You have to be extremely thin and at the same time extremely voluptuous, and those things are contradictions, because usually thin people are not voluptuous, so you have to go to all of these great artificial lengths in order to maintain a very low weight, and at the same time a very voluptuous figure. All it does is generate endless consumerism.

I'm not saying some of the beauty ideals of the past were progressive. Foot binding, for example, was just as horrible. But it just seems to me that in the 21st century we ought to have a more diverse range of the understandings of beauty.

When you talk to middle school and teen girls, you find them stuck between the cultural imperative to always look "hot," but at the same time not be seen as a "slut" by expressing sexual desire. How do you suggest talking to teens about that?

Just pull out some of the media. Every magazine cover has "405 ways to look hot!" Just say: "What does it mean to look hot?" Once you start bringing it up, I've found that they're very critical of the whole issue, and they want to be seen as multidimensional people with talents and abilities beyond this ridiculous standard of hotness. Helping them find strength in that critical voice that they have is really important.

But how can you reassure girls that it's OK to express their own sexual desires, or even have their own sexual desires, if there is potentially this label of "slut" hanging over them?

I know. It's so difficult. Perhaps I'm just optimistic. In an era of abstinence-only, sex becomes such a fearful thing. It just seems to be so wrong to be interested in sex. Bringing it up, normalizing it, and helping them to understand that this is part of growing up, and that it can be the most wonderful and pleasurable thing can really help a lot. It's going to take a cultural shift.

Do you think that the whole abstinence-only environment is enforcing these dichotomous taboos?

I really do. I think it's either no sex, or let's just leap into it, and ignore every precaution.

Yet, at the same time, it's really important to look hot.

To be hot, yet to abstain. They're getting such a terrible mixed message.

How can parents encourage their daughters to critique the image of girlhood sexuality that they're being sold without seeming like tedious scolds, condemning everything that's "hot"?

I don't think that condemnation ought to come into it either. Everybody wants to be attractive. Everyone wants to find love and relationships. So, I don't think anybody should come across as just condemning popular culture. Lots of it is pleasurable and fun, and so I don't want to deny that part of it either.

What parents ought to do is just open up conversations with their daughters. "You're looking at Seventeen magazine. What do you think about that outfit? Do you think her body is the one that everybody ought to aspire to?" Have those conversations with girls. They're remarkably interested in talking about it, if they don't sense censure. Share your values, share your opinions and listen respectfully to theirs.

There are so many ways now for girls to make their own media. Do you feel like that can help girls create their own images of girlhood, rather than just consuming the ones that are being sold to them?

I really do. I think it's a wonderful thing to encourage girls to be creators of their own media. They can blog. They can make Web sites. They can shoot videos. They can make their own magazines.

When should adults start talking to kids about what the images in the mainstream media mean to them?

I don't think that it's ever too early to start. You can start with very young children talking to them about advertising, and how they make things look pretty to get you to buy them.

It's amazing how much kids understand. If you start these conversations when they're very young, you can continue them when they're teenagers. I think that opening those lines of communication is incredibly important.

How young?

Two.

That is young. How would you do that with a 2-year-old?

I've done it. If they're watching a commercial on TV, and there is a toy, you can just start talking to them: "Do you think that toy is as good when you bring it home as it is on TV? Do you know why they make it look so fun, and like these kids are having so much fun? Because they really want you to spend money on it."

They understand.