Really interesting, and I'll need to put more thought into it before commenting at any depth, but: yes. I like the way this dynamic maps onto these stories. And I'll say that from the perspective of someone who hit her teenage years about 5 years before the AIDS epidemic took off, at a point/place where the young women I knew were actively claiming their sexuality (at least, that's what we said we were doing, and what it felt like at the time. I've always wondered if it wasn't that we'd internalized some level of micro-societal pressure to say yes instead of no, but there certainly wasn't any kind of slut-shaming at my high school, and there had been where I'd lived before California). Still, sexuality, and performative sexuality especially, are enormous minefields for women (wasn't it supposed to get easier? Why do all of society's battles need to be fought in our vaginas?)and I like the idea that we tell *this* story in *this* way because it lets us change the ending, so to speak...
no subject
Date: 7 Mar 2010 02:49 pm (UTC)