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Sexuality & Culture (2012) 16:321341
DOI 10.1007/s12119-012-9126-5
ORIGINAL PAPER
Sarah H. Smith
Published online: 25 January 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC (outside the USA) 2012
Abstract The rich literature focusing on adolescents consumption of popular media often focuses on sexual content and the various messages about sex and sexuality available to youth. However, one particular concept that has received little scholarly attention is media messages about sexual desire among young people, especially teen girls. What messages about teen girls sexual desire are available for youth in popular media? The following paper explores this question through qualitative content analysis of 130 scenes from 34 popular lms featuring teen characters in lead and supporting roles between 2000 and 2009. Findings indicate that such lms convey three primary messages about teen girls sexual desire: desire is unspoken, only bad girls verbalize desire, and expressing desire results in negative consequences. My analyses and discussion are informed by the sexual scripting framework and by critical feminist social thought.
Keywords Sexual scripts Sexual desire Teen girls Media Adolescence
Background
Despite concern and debate about medias messages to girls and young women about gender, sex, and their bodies (e.g., Attwood 2006; Gigi Durham 2008; Gill 2007; Oppliger 2008; Wray and Steele 2002), popular media persist in their emphases on sexy female bodies, uncommitted and consequence-free casual sex, with little attention to sexual health. At the same time, media stress the transformative and irresistible power of heteroromantic love and commitment (Kilbourne 2003; Martin and Kazyak 2009; Phillips 2000).
S. H. Smith (&)
Sociology Department, University at Buffalo, SUNY, 430 Park Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA e-mail: [email protected]
Scripting Sexual Desire: Cultural Scenarios of Teen Girls Sexual Desire in Popular Films, 20002009
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322 S. H. Smith
While medias messages are often inconsistent and conicting, they are an important component in the construction and reconstruction of sexualities for young people (Arnett 1995; Martin 1996; Mazzarella and Pecora 1999). Popular media, produced largely by adults, convey the cultural scripts for a variety of social norms, including norms of gender and of sexualities. However, very often missing from the media, and scholars analyses of media, is clear and meaningful attention to teen girls experiences with and around sexual desire.
Part of the socialization process for youth...