Girl talk

Are frank online discussions of blow jobs and masturbation empowering teen girls -- or turning them into Lolitas?

By Janelle Brown

Jul 28, 1999 | The thread begins with a teenage girl who's tortured about the heavy petting she's been doing with her boyfriend. "Am I still virgin by doing things that I do with my boyfriend or is that just the same as if I do sexual intercourse?" she writes. "Is that wrong? Does that mean I'm a sinner? Because all those things just feel so good, I can hardly stop! Please answer this ... because I'm so curious and confused, and I am too embarrassed to talk about this to my friends."

The older girls begin to chime in. "Don't rush it! There is no hurry to lose your virginity," posts one woman. Another replies, "You are still a virgin, you are doing nothing wrong, just make sure you do what you're comfortable with and when you do go all the way use protection." And a third: "Bottom line -- there's no rule that says you HAVE to satisfy this guy just because you turn him on -- he won't die or be irreparably injured just because he didn't get to have sex with you. Orgasms are a privilege, not a right!"

When I was growing up, teenage girls gleaned their sexual know-how from romance novels, Cosmopolitan articles, vague illustrations on pamphlets distributed in sex ed class and a few whispered conversations at slumber parties. Today's teens have it much easier: They have the Internet. In chat rooms and mailing lists, online communities and bulletin boards on teenage-oriented Web sites, girls are having frank sexual discussions about everything from how to give a proper blow job to the vagaries of virginity to the mysteries of the female orgasm. And they are not merely chatting with their peers, but with their elder feminist sisters who are quite happy to impart knowledge to curious youth.

Of course, this open access to sexual information raises concerns for some people: Will exposing a teenage girl to these blunt discussions about sex have a detrimental effect on her sexual development? Listening to the more conservative observers, you might come to believe that the preponderance of sex, porn and explicit sexual discussions online will turn our innocent teens into a generation of Lolitas. Donna Rice Hughes, spokeswoman for the anti-porn watchdog group Enough is Enough and author of "Kids Online: Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace," says that with "early exposure [to sex information online], we will see an increase in sexual activity with kids."

There's no hard evidence of that. But according to the teens themselves, as well as the women who run the communities where girls talk, the Internet is having a positive influence on the sex lives of teenagers -- not merely helping them make informed decisions about sex, but about the kinds of sex they are having. Will the Internet have a measurable effect on the way teens think about sex, eliminating misconceptions and opening up new dialogues that might, in fact, bring about positive changes in some of the alarming ways that teenage girls approach sex? If you ask this group, it already has.

As Lyz, a 14-year-old in Ontario who hangs out on the teen Web community Razzberry, puts it, the Net "is having an impact on my everyday decisions because I am now more comfortable with myself mentally and physically, and I think that gives me more self-confidence and lets me stand up for what I believe in. Since coming online I have found many girls that have the same problems as me and it makes me feel less alone."

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