ESSAY - Author Peggy Orenstein

"Why we should be thinking of sexual intimacy in terms of pizza" PBS NewsHour 8/23/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  In her new book “Girls & Sex,” Peggy Orenstein suggests that we re-think sexual intimacy, in both education and our everyday lives.  While she acknowledges the importance of the national debate on campus sexual assault, Orenstein also urges us to broaden our definition of "sex" and talk candidly about what happens after consent -- arguing that if we don't guide our teenagers, pop culture will.

NEWSHOUR BOOKSHELF - "American Girls"

"Sex, social media and the pressure on teenage girls" PBS NewsHour 4/4/2016

IMHO:  If any child asks "the question" the cat's out of the bag.  They need to know and if you do not tell them, they WILL find out.  And I am not just saying about the-birds-and-the-bees text book account.  They want to know what's it like, how does it feel, and need to know from mom AND dad.

I cringe when I see 11, 12 year-olds with Smart Phones, but there is likely no way to stop this.

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Teenagers today have never known a world without smartphones and social media.  But how is this technology influencing the way they view themselves and the world?  That’s the question journalist and author Nancy Jo Sales set out to answer in her new book, “American Girls.”  Sales joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the intersection of puberty, pornography and peer pressure in the Internet age.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Joining me now is author Nancy Jo Sales.

So, what are the challenges that American girls are facing today that are different from the ones they have always faced?

NANCY JO SALES, Author, “American Girls”:  Girls use social media lot.  They’re on their phones a lot.  And I think most parents are aware of that.

So, really, the question is, what is happening there, and how are these kind of — some regrettable trends that we have seen happening for some time, such as the sexualization of girls, bullying, how are these moving on to phones and on to screens?  And what is this environment doing to the life of girls and boys?

HARI SREENIVASAN:  You paint a picture almost of these young girls at this kind of intersection of the existing angst that a teenage girl has, combined with this technological leap that we’re all taking together, combined with pornography.

NANCY JO SALES:  Yes, I think the kind of elephant, maybe dinosaur in the room right now is pornography.  Pornography has been available online for some time.

But I don’t think we have really begun to have a conversation about what that is doing to kids.  And we know that they’re watching it.  They’re teenagers.  They’re going through puberty.  They’re curious.  They’re watching pornography.

But this tends to be more and more violent pornography that is also, one could I think reasonably say, very degrading to women.  And this is where a lot of teenagers now find their sex-ed.  And porn is also — the porn aesthetic is also really engulfing social media.  And social media is just full of really explicit sexual content.

And whether or not your child wants to see it or intends to see it, they are likely to see it.