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“It used to be there were parts of girls’ bodies that were not exposed to public opinion,” Nagoski says. That’s why, as Orenstein reports in her new book, Girls and Sex, one in three girls ages 15-18 have given oral sex to avoid having intercourse, and as many as 70% of girls fake orgasms.Īs if girls didn’t have enough to be self-critical about- a study last year found that 80% of girls have dieted by age 8- they can now add female genitals to the list. “They worry about doing it well, doing it right, and doing it in a way that’s pleasing for the other person,” Tolman says. The same unwritten rules are in play on the horizontal: put others’ needs before yours, be liked, be nice, and don’t make people mad. In other words, the pressure to be a “good girl” doesn’t evaporate when a girl lies down. It’s about what they think someone else thinks they should be like in order to be wanted, as opposed to focusing on their own wanting, or the lack thereof.” Girls, she says, “are still focused on sex being for someone else’s pleasure, and not for themselves and what they want, and how they feel. One young woman says, “the first time a guy went down there, he told me it was hideous, and that it was disgusting and that he never wanted to see me again.” Another says, “I don’t think it looks good,” while another adds, “I’m afraid it’s going to be ugly.” In it, adult women explain why they refused to lay eyes on their vulvas. A video called “Women See Their Vagina For The First Time” has over 4 million views on YouTube. Many girls avoid looking at their genitals at all. And secrets invariably become a source of shame. For girls, genitals, and the things they do (remember hiding that tampon up your sleeve as you snuck out to the bathroom during class) are a secret. Parents often teach boys the correct terms for their genitals, yet neglect to do the same for girls.įor boys, genitals – their size, and their fitness - are a source of pride.
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Yet many girls are taught to believe that female genitalia is “dirty and dangerous and disgusting,” says Nagoski.
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On the one hand, they live in a culture oversaturated by sex – girls see thousands of references to sex each year on television, and girls on screen are four times more likely to be portrayed in a sexual manner than boy characters. Long before they know what porn even is, girls hear confusing messages about their genitalia. “Girls are worried about feeling rejected or ashamed,” Martinez said. Not surprisingly, many girls come to believe there is something wrong with their bodies. Meanwhile, boys who use porn to learn about female genitals may recoil when they actually encounter them in real life, damaging a girl’s sexual self-worth. “That’s happening in the absence of any education from their parents, or any sort of positive from their parents about the shape of their vulvas.” Emily Nagoski, author of Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life and Director of Wellness at Smith College. “When girls watch pornography, they see a very limited range of what other people’s bodies look like,” said Dr. “There is even a beauty standard for labia.” “There’s an unspoken standard that there is something people want,” said Nancy Martinez, 22, a college senior. Just as magazines teach girls they have to be skinny to be considered attractive, porn teaches girls that to be sexy their genitals must look a certain way. When girls watch porn, they see an idealized version of female genitals on display. But the only thing “baffling” here is widespread ignorance of porn’s impact on girls’ sexual confidence -and its likely role as a culprit in the alarming increase in surgeries. Julie Strickland, chair of the ACOG’s Committee on Adolescent Health Care, said doctors were “kind of baffled” by the surge. Some doctors say girls want genital surgery to alleviate physical irritation in that area, but Dr.
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More than 8,000 teen girls received augmentation breast surgery in 2014, nearly double the number from just four years earlier, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, which officially recommend girls wait until they are 18 to go under the knife. And the increase in this procedure is part of a larger boost in cosmetic surgery for teens. While the rise in requests for labiaplasty remains relatively small-with an increase from 220 to 400 girls overall-the data suggest more girls are becoming ashamed of the most intimate parts of their bodies.
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