Flirting with Danger by Phillips Lynn M.;

Author:Phillips, Lynn M.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York University Press
Published: 2000-06-18T04:00:00+00:00

Choosing to Be a “Bad Girl”

Finally, a small number of the young women I interviewed elected to deal with the conflicting demands of being both sexual and “innocent” by choosing consciously to turn their backs on the faces in the mirror that stressed the cultural requirement to be pleasing women or good girls. Three of the women made a clear decision at some point to be, as Laura put it, “a Bad Girl: capital B, capital G.” By her definition, a Bad Girl is a girl or woman who is openly and unapologetically sexual, and who derives a sense of pleasure from refusing to comply with social prescriptions for being a “good girl.” This strategy stands in rather sharp contrast to letting/making it “just happen.” Laura explained the thinking that prompted her decision, early in adolescence, to become a Bad Girl.

I grew up with all that madonna/whore stuff. It was all around me growing up. It was real strong in my community and my family. The whole madonna/whore thing is supposed to be like a threat. For girls, it’s supposed to make you want to be the virgin. But I realized when I was around fourteen that madonnas were good girls, but whores had fun. I decided enough with that madonna crap, I wanted to have fun. I decided right there that I was going to just go for broke. Be a bad girl and just have a good old time, even if somebody wanted to call me a whore. In fact, it was like a point of pride with me. If somebody had come up and called me a whore or something, I would have said, “Thank you” or something crazy like that. (Laura, 22, “bisexual,” “bi-racial/West Black Indian, white American”)

Theresa, too, decided to become a bad girl at an early age. Realizing at age thirteen that she felt strong sexual desires and wanted to act on them, she was simultaneously aware that “good girls don’t.” It quickly became clear to Theresa that her desire to have sex outweighed her desire to be seen as a nice girl, and so, she said, she decided to become “a slut.”

Basically, I just decided to become a slut. Really, I mean, that’s what I decided to do. I decided I wanted to have sex and I wasn’t going to be like the passive, demure little lady about it and try to pretend I was a nice girl, because I knew that once you decided to have sex you were never going to be a nice girl anymore in anyone’s eyes anyway, so why not just accept the fact and be a slut? I knew exactly what I was doing, and I basically felt really empowered by it. (Theresa, 19, “heterosexual,” “bi-racial”)

While Theresa described a sense of empowerment gained through her choice to become “a slut,” she went on to say that her decision did entail a certain loss.

I felt mostly really good about deciding to be a slut. But there are other things you miss out on.

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