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Abstract
Girls are having sex sooner now than in earlier generations (Currie, 1999). Some authors have started to ask girls about their sexual attitudes and experiences (Hass, 1979; Martin, 1996; Ponton, 2000). Because historically, so little attention has been paid to the sexual fantasy and sexual experience of early teens (Tolman, 2002), there is still very little emotional and cultural support an adolescent, parent, or society can turn to when a young female crosses that first sexual threshold.
The textual hermeneutic research method with a heuristic inquiry was applied to this topic in order to gather many-sided observations and attitudes about young teen girls and sexual initiations. The dialogue is an exchange between the ideas in mythology, anthropology, sociology, developmental psychology, depth psychology, my own experiences, and discussions with women and teens.
Looking further into the experiences of so many young women who have sex at an early age, I am not merely pursuing facts, but hope to conduct an inquiry into the meanings of such significant socially perceived violations. The young women who have crossed this socially discouraged line need to be understood in order to bring honor to their mistakes and their discoveries. My experience as a young female teen who engaged in sexual intercourse gives me a fertile passion and entry into my subject matter. Counseling women and teens for 25 years has sensitized my ears and eyes to the underworld of young female teen sexuality.
Listening to and learning from these girls' journeys of forbidden sexuality, one can begin to hear lost fragments in the development of a modern Western culture, to collect and reveal missing pieces from the initiating psyche, and tend the wounded nature of female adolescence and the corresponding wounds of uninitiated elders.
Working with and learning from teenagers and grown women who have had sexual intercourse before the age of 15 years sheds light on the mysteries of female sexuality, spiritual longing, psychological individuation, and the climate of North American cultural messages toward women.
