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Sexualities
DOI: 10.1177/1363460705049577
2005; 8; 282Sexualities
Sue Jackson
Identities in Letters to a Teenage Magazine
`Dear Girlfriend...': Constructions of Sexual Health Problems and Sexual
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282
Abstract Advice columns in teenage magazines provide space for
young women to both write and read about representations of
issues that teenage girls may grapple with in their everyday lives.
Issues related to sexuality appear frequently in these pages. This
article examines letters about sexual health issues written to the
advice columns of Girlfriend, an Australasian teen magazine.
Using a Foucauldian poststructuralist analysis, the article asks
how sexual health problems are being constructed by writers and
the magazine doctor, and how young women's sexual
subjectivities are being drawn through their positioning in the
various discourses mobilized in the texts. Analyses suggest
glimmerings of plurality in sexual subjectivities, dominance of the
`coital imperative' in constructions of sexuality, and emphasis on
discourses of risk and danger versus pleasure.
Keywords problem pages, sexual health, sexuality, teen magazines,
young women
Sue Jackson
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
`Dear Girlfriend . . .': Constructions of
Sexual Health Problems and Sexual
Identities in Letters to a Teenage
Magazine
Young women's sexuality has been the focus of attention in a good
number of qualitative, feminist studies since the late 1980s (e.g. Frith and
Kitzinger, 1997; Jackson and Cram, 2003; Lees, 1993; Tolman, 1994). A
common thread in these studies has been the challenges for young women
in negotiating the sexual double standard (i.e. promotion of male and
denigration of female sexual `freedom') that functions to repress their
sexual agency and desire. Some of the research on young women's sexuality
has been undertaken within the context of sexual health issues, such
as HIV/AIDS prevention, that serve as an overarching framework
(Holland et al., 1998; Moore and Rosenthal, 1996; Roberts et al., 1995).
Article
Sexualities Copyright  2005 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
Vol 8(3): 282­305 DOI: 10.1177/1363460705049577
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Out of these sexual health studies has emerged a great deal of knowledge
and understanding about how gender and power cut through heterosexual
relationships in ways that impact significantly on young people's safer sex
practices. More specifically, the social construction of femininity and
masculinity is seen to impact on the negotiation of heterosex through its
positioning of women as passive recipients and men as active instigators
(Holland et al., 1998).
One example of how this binary in heterosexual relationships layers onto
safer sex practices can be seen in the negotiation of condom use. The
agency assigned to men may set up the expectation that it is their prerogative
to initiate condom use whereas the passivity assigned to women may
generate notions of not feeling entitled to request the use of condoms.
Furthermore, the sexual double standard may deter condom use through
young women's fears for their sexual reputation, since a condom can be
construed as them being `easy' and prepared for sex (Lees, 1994; Moore
and Rosenthal, 1998). Additionally, several scholars have noted the way in
which romantic discourse operates through its gendered lens to render
insistence on the use of condoms difficult and problematic for young
women (Flood, 2003; Gavey and McPhillips, 1999; Kirkman et al., 1998;
Moore and Rosenthal, 1998; Willig, 1998). Although condom use is
singled out here for mention, clearly all aspects of young women's negotiation
of heterosexual relationships are influenced by the gendered
construction of heterosexuality, for example pregnancy/contraception
(e.g. Luker, 1996), and first sex (Holland et al., 2000).
Unlike their adult counterparts, issues such as young people's use of
condoms, contraception, abortion and pregnancy are likely to receive
headline attention in the media. To some extent, this represents a trend
toward the problematization of young people's sexuality, not only evident
in the public arena but also in the academic world (see Griffin, 2000). The
academic literature is dominated by studies that on the one hand highlight
the failures of young women to be sexually safe or to prevent pregnancy
and on the other emphasize their proneness to being `swept away' by
`unanticipated, unintentional passion' (Thompson, 1990: 341). The
construction of teenage sexuality as problematic in these studies is largely
generated by an `outsider' perspective, based on what researchers construe
to be the issues (encapsulated in their research questions) rather than what
young people themselves present as problems (an `insider perspective', see
Phoenix, 1991). When researchers ask young people to provide their own
stories or narratives about sexuality issues, quite a different perspective is
generally obtained. In teenage pregnancy research, for example, young
women have been found to challenge prevailing negative constructions of
teen mothers, telling stories of personal growth and new directions in life
(e.g. Kirkman et al., 1998).
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In a different context to the research interview, young women may use
the vehicle of an advice column in a teenage magazine to frame sexuality
problems or issues in their own way. These letters provide an opportunity
to see what young women themselves may define as a sexual health
`problem'. Only a handful of feminist researchers have directed their
research gaze toward teenage magazines (e.g. Carpenter, 1998, 2001;
Currie, 1999, 2001; Kehily, 1999; McCracken, 1993; McRobbie, 1991;
Oinas, 1998; Pierce, 1990), some of whom have investigated advice
columns in particular. Yet these magazines have a substantial readership
and they are a highly salient and significant cultural resource for many
young western women not only in their negotiation of sexual identities
(Currie, 1999; McRobbie, 1991, 1996) but also in their learning about
sexuality and sexual health issues (Kehily, 1999). Young women in Currie's
(2001) study, for example, claimed that their magazines provided `things
they need to know about themselves and their social world' (2001: 261).
It is on the advice pages of a magazine that the quest for guidance, learning
and knowing is most obvious. These pages appear to be the favourite of
many young women, although they are often more interested in the
question than the answer (Currie, 2001; Kehily, 1999).
It is in addressing the question of young women's engagement with
these texts in advice columns that feminist scholars have revealed important
understandings about the functions of the pages. Although these
columns may variously be read for a laugh, to criticize, mock or deride
(Kehily, 1999; McRobbie, 1991; Ussher, 1997) they may also be read as
`truth' and privileged over personal self-knowing and experience (Currie,
2001). Currie points out that the question and answer format of the
problem pages `encourages girls to claim that advice texts are "realistic"
in that they address actual problems that girls might encounter' (2001:
265). As they read about other `typical' young women's problems and
`solutions', they engage in a process of comparing their own understandings
with those in the text, a process that involves placing themselves inside
the `text'. Such a process has implications for young women's subjectivities,
and, more specifically in the context of letters about sexual matters,
their sexual subjectivities. Here the meaning of subjectivity is taken in the
poststructuralist sense of a discursively situated subject positioned within
discourses (see Weedon, 1987). Thus, in the texts of the problem pages
young women may variously take up or resist the subject positions made
available to them within the sociocultural discourses appropriated by the
agony aunt's advice. A number of scholars have noted the important
function of texts in popular culture in the constitution of a feminine, sexual
subjectivity (e.g. Davies, 1989; Jackson, 1993; Walkerdine, 1990). Teen
magazine advice columns provide a particular site in popular culture for
the production, definition and enhancement of meanings of being a
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young, sexual woman. That such meanings may be changing has been
suggested in McRobbie's (1996) investigation of more recent magazines
such as More, in which she observes the emergence of altogether more
plural, contradictory yet complementary sexual subjectivities.
My purposes in this article are twofold. First of all I wish to examine a
sample of letters to advice columns in Girlfriend magazine (a teen
magazine published for the New Zealand/Australian market) for the ways
in which sexuality/sexual health matters are constructed. These columns
provide a unique opportunity to identify what constitutes sexual health
problems from the perspective of the young women who write into the
magazine. This context allows us to investigate material that has not been
generated by the questions of a researcher and so has the potential to
contribute different and perhaps new understandings. Of particular
interest here is whether young women's constructions of sexual health
problems concur with those in the public and academic worlds. My second
aim is to investigate the construction of sexual subjectivities in letters to
the magazine problem pages, based on the notion that advice pages are
significant and privileged sites for the construction of feminine subjectivities.
In this respect I particularly want to interrogate McRobbie's
(1996) contention that `new' sexual subjectivities are emerging in teen
magazines. This work seeks to contribute to the small body of literature
addressing teen magazines as an important source of young women's
learning about themselves and about sexuality but has the pragmatic
purpose of examining implications for sexual health education.
Analytical approach
The analysis of the advice column material is set within a post-structuralist
discursive framework. My approach does not treat the letters as representing
the `truth' about young women's sexual health problems. Rather,
they are viewed as produced within the specific context of the commercial
world of a magazine driven by the need for sales. I should point out that
there are highly salient issues for the treatment of the material around what
letters are published and what parts of letters are edited. Clearly, the letters
cannot be taken as necessarily being representative of all letters written to
the magazine. Nor can they be read as representing what all young women
are concerned about regarding sexual health. Additionally, assumptions
cannot be made that letters are `genuine' or even written by young
women. On the other hand, such issues are, in a sense, irrelevant for
analysis since letters will be read and made sense of by readers independently
of their source or status.
In my discursive analysis I focus on the ways in which sexual health is being
constructed in the letters, in particular the meanings that are made of
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problems. I draw on Foucauldian notions of discourse, thus my analyses seek
to identify the sociocultural discourses or broader sociocultural patterns of
meaning and practice (see Burman and Parker, 1994) being mobilized in
the young women's letters and in the advice columnist's responses. Of
central interest in the analyses is how young women's sexual subjectivities
are being constructed within these discourses and to what extent their
positioning within them creates or represses agency (see Davies and Harré,
1990). While my analyses are more focused on identifying cultural texts that
are used as a resource in the letters, I also attend to practices in the text.
Layering these two approaches onto analyses allows us to examine the
different and complementary aspects of what is being brought to the text
and what is being achieved by the text (see Wetherell, 1998). A layered
approach acknowledges that people are both produced by and producers of
discourses (Burman, 1996; Edley and Wetherell, 1998). Underlining these
analyses is the wish to produce alternative knowledge to mainstream `truths'
about sexual health issues for young women and to point toward possibilities
for how advice columns might be used within a broad sexuality education
project to enhance young women's sexual agency.
Method for the study
Data description
The study described here is the first completed phase of a three-stage project
involving textual analyses of problem pages, interviews with magazine staff
and focus groups with readers of the magazine. The letters for this study
were gathered from the monthly issues of Girlfriend magazine over a fiveyear
period, from 1997 to 2002. The magazines were primarily located in
regional libraries and all but two issues were ultimately available (total of 58
issues). The original data set included all autobiographical material, comprising
letters to problem pages and first person account stories, but the latter
will be the subject of future investigation. Letters were extracted from the
three types of problem pages that young women may write to, which are all
termed question and answer pages (referred to as Q and A). In `Q and A
Love' the letters generally relate to problems in relationships with boys, with
the occasional letter about a lesbian relationship or attraction. `The Q and
A Life' pages deal with problems pertaining to family, friends and sexual
relationships. The Agony Aunt manages both the `Love' and `Life' advice
columns. The third advice page is `Q and A Body' where concerns about
breasts and vaginas dominate but also skin problems, looks and parts of their
bodies which young women are unhappy with. The `Q and A Body' advice
page is managed by a doctor. All letters from each of the three problem pages
across the five-year collection of magazines were scanned to provide the transcripts
for analysis, a total of 720 letters.
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Analytic process
For the current study all letters that referred to any sexual health matters
were selected from the main corpus (67 letters). Some of these letters
appeared in `Q and A Life' and some in `Q and A Body'. Topics that
appeared in the sexual health selection included pregnancy, safer sex,
menstruation, STIs, condoms, infections and physical aspects of sexual
behaviour. Topics could occur in the letter, in the agony aunt's (or doctor
in the main) response or in both. Only letters that referred to physical
aspects of sexual activity are the subject of this article. The analysis of these
letters resembled that suggested by Parker (1992). The letters were firstly
read, then reread and all references to the ways in which `sex' was being
constructed were highlighted. From these highlighted pieces of text key
themes were identified that were organized around the various constructions
of `sex'. Texts were then examined for sociocultural discourses
informing these constructions and the positions available within these
discourses were elaborated.
Initial analysis identified four dominant ways in which sexual health
issues were being constructed: sex as painful, sex as dangerous, sex as safe
and sex as technique. Sex as painful was the predominant construction and
it incorporated all letters referring to pain, soreness, or physical discomfort.
The next most common construction was sex as dangerous that
included letters specifically alluding to `dangers' but also those that held
warnings of STIs, abuse or pregnancy. Relatively few letter authors took
up constructions of sex as safe but where they did their letters addressed
matters such as whether tests might be needed and issues related to protection.
The less commonly occurring construction of sex as technique
included letters instructing or inquiring about condom use, sexual
positions, lubrication and self-exploration. The following analyses present
examples of letters within each of these four ways in which sex was
constructed. The first four examples have been selected as typical of letters
appearing in the problem pages, but since the problem pages do not
exclusively present these kinds of letters, the last example provides a less
typical letter, particularly in terms of the columnist's response.
Analyses
It is important to emphasize that in the following analyses the letters are
analysed from the perspective of them being written by young women
readers since this is how they are represented by the magazine. However,
this is not taken to mean that all letters are necessarily `real' or `genuine'
and indeed readers themselves may not treat them as such (Kehily, 2002).
Rather, the analyses focus on what sexual subjectivities and constructions
of sexuality the magazine is making available to its readers through its `real
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life' structure of the problem pages. The extent to which letters are edited,
the assigning of pseudonyms and the selection of letters for publication
are all aspects of the yet to be completed second phase of the study.
Sex as painful
As noted earlier, the construction of sex as painful dominated letters
related to sexual health problems. In Carpenter's (2001) comparative
study of Bravo and Seventeen teen magazines, the topic of painful sex similarly
featured strongly in young women's letters or items. Such dominance
is perhaps not surprising given the wide cultural availability of painful sex
stories to young western women, particularly in relation to first sex. As
Thompson puts it, `pain has become so much a part of the Grand Guignol
lore of teenage sexuality that girls' own stories increase their fear of sex'
(1990: 343). All the letters that constructed sex as painful referred to
heterosex but not necessarily penetrative sex. In some of the letters
concerns about painful sex emerged from experience, for others the
concerns connected with future possible experiences, such as wondering
whether first sex would be painful. An example of the latter follows.
Example 1
The title the magazine has given the letter, `My first time', prepares
readers for a letter from someone who has not previously experienced a
sexual relationship. Worried tells the advice doctor (and the reader) that she
is thinking about having sex but she raises two related questions, the first
about the painfulness of first sex and the consequential question of what
could be done to make it less painful if that should be the case. Although
brief, the letter constructs several identities for the writer. In common with
many of the letters to the advice pages, her letter opens with a statement
of age that constructs her as a younger adolescent. While an opening that
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288
My first time
I'm 15 and considering having sex with my boyfriend. Is it painful the first time?
If so, is there any way to reduce the pain? Worried. ACT
Take a while deciding what you want to do. At 15, you haven't reached the
age of consent. Don't be pressured by your boy or your friends. Talk to your
doctor about contraception. Depending on the method, it might take time
before you're safe to have sex and it's important your boyfriend wears a
condom if he has had sex before. Condoms offer the most protection against
STDs. Make sure you are comfortable with your own body. If you are fully
aroused before sex it will be much easier for you. Remember to take it slowly
for the first time.
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declares age may reflect the genre of the problem page (Coward, 1984),
age has saliency here in the context of coital sex because of the legal age of
consent. Indeed this is highlighted in the advice doctor's response to the
letter. Yet the legal age does not appear to be an issue for Worried since she
is `considering' having sex with her boyfriend. In both her `considering'
and her questioning, Worried is constructed as thoughtful and deliberating
over sex as opposed to rushing into her first sexual experience. This
construction contrasts with representations in the body of Girlfriend
magazine where being sexually active is paraded as normative but conforms
with cultural norms that assign responsibility to young women for
managing boyfriends' sexual impulses and desires (Holland et al., 1998).
Although Worried's hesitancy positions her outside of normative
magazine constructions of teenage sexuality, the deliberation over sex in
the context of the letter relates to concerns about pain. The pseudonym
situates her as a `worried' young woman and represents the kind of
`reason' readers would expect someone to write into the problem pages
(Kehily, 1999). Worried's questioning about first sex constructs her as a
virgin within the current dominant social meanings of the word as being
a woman who has not had penetrative, vaginal sex. Further, her questions
position her as someone who is naive about heterosexual experience and
has not received information about first sex through other means, such as
friends or even articles found in the body of the magazine to which she
writes. On the other hand, young women have access to readily available
stories in circulation about the experience of first sex as painful and
adopting a position of naive inquirer in a letter to the advice column
provides a way to check out the `truthfulness' of such claims.
The advice doctor's response almost entirely circumvents Worried's
concern about pain and whether it can be reduced. The doctor takes up an
instructional, authoritative position in her reply with a series of imperatives
for Worried to follow (taking time to decide, not to be pressured, talking
to her doctor, to be comfortable with her body, to take it slowly). Although
the response overall is particularized and individualized to Worried, the
doctor's response does give some recognition of the social context of young
women's sexual problems in her instruction for Worried not to be pressured
by her boyfriend. While she refrains from directly telling Worried she
is too young for sex her juxtaposition of advising Worried to take her time
and the legal age of consent contain a veiled message to that effect.
On the other hand, the doctor provides information about contraception
and STD's that carries an assumption that Worried is likely to have
sex. Effectively then, the doctor conveys a double message to Worried that
may add to the ambivalence already suggested by her `considering'.
Turning to the information itself, the doctor gives this in a factual, `value
neutral' manner, an approach similarly identified in Currie's (2001)
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analysis of teen magazines. In the provision of contraception information,
the doctor's response positions Worried as unknowledgeable about such
matters, which may or may not be a correct assumption. Worried's letter
had not sought such information and this pattern of the doctor's reply
addressing contraception and condom use in the absence of a request for
information was a common one. Indeed, there were very few letters to the
magazine asking specifically about safer sex and contraception issues. The
provision of non-requested information on these issues suggests that the
magazine might consider it has a moral obligation to equip its readers for
safer sex, particularly as much of its content sets up assumptions and expectations
that girls are sexually active. Whatever the magazine's rationale, the
practice of repeatedly framing questions about sex in terms of its threats
and negative consequences serves to locate young women's sexuality in
discourses of sex as safe and sex as `dangerous'.
Having dispensed with the provision of safer sex information, the
doctor's response then takes a more personal turn to address making
Worried's first sexual experience more comfortable. The tone, however, is
once again instructional and authoritative. Somewhat ironically, in the
light of the earlier positioning of Worried as naive and unknowing, the
reply assumes that Worried knows how to be comfortable in her body, how
to become sexually aroused and what it means to take it slowly. Notably,
Worried's boyfriend is absent in the response, assigning responsibility for
the satisfaction of her first (coital) sexual experience to Worried herself. A
number of feminist scholars have noted the responsibility assigned to
women for not only ensuring their own sexual satisfaction, but also that
of their partners (e.g. Holland et al., 2000; Tolman and Szalacha, 1999).
Letters that constructed sex as painful were not always in relation to
coital sex. Some letters, such as `Sore point' in the next example, referred
to painfulness associated with digital penetration.
Example 2
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Sore point
I am 16 years old and a virgin. Recently I was fingered by my boyfriend. Afterwards,
my vagina was very sore and I think I had a heavier discharge than
normal. When I inserted a tampon it hurt. Scared, Qld
If your vagina was sore afterwards it was probably because your boyfriend
was a little rough ­ vaginas are delicate things and remember it's OK to ask
him to take it more gently. If your vagina was a little dry, maybe a lubricant
would make it hurt less and make things more enjoyable. It's unlikely that
you `caught' anything from your boyfriend's finger; it is more likely that the
heavier discharge was because you had progressed in your cycle.
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Unlike Worried's concern about how painful sex might be in the future,
the author of this letter, printed under the name Scared, writes about her
experience of pain after her boyfriend had digitally penetrated her. She is
worried about the pain and the meaning of the discharge. Yet before
Scared mentions the pain and discharge she discloses two facets of an
identity as a young woman: being 16 and being a virgin. The juxtaposition
is an interesting one and calls into question the possible relationship
between the two. Sixteen is the age of legal consent for coital sex and so,
at least in a legal sense, Scared could be sexually active and no longer a
virgin. Indeed, if a recent survey in New Zealand is representative of sexual
behaviour, then around one-third of girls may be sexually active before the
age of 16 (Fenwicke and Purdie, 2000). The status of virgin sets Scared
apart from her sexually (coital) active peers and at the same time challenges
the normative representation of being sexually active in the very magazine
to which she writes. There are, however, some interesting permutations
and nuances around representations of her virginity. Scared's letter
mobilizes a heterosexual discourse of the `coital imperative' (see
McPhillips et al., 2001), within which a virgin is generally constructed, so
that being fingered (and possibly having your hymen broken) does not
count either as sex or virginity loss.
In addition to the identity of a 16-year-old virgin, Scared's relationship
with a boyfriend positions her as heterosexual. The overwhelming
majority of letters to Girlfriend are about heterosexual relationships, a
pattern that is readily understood in the context of a society in which
heterosexuality is both normative and compulsory (Rich, 1980; Wilkinson
and Kitzinger, 1993). Although Scared's positioning as a virgin
perhaps obscures an identity as a sexually active young woman, her letter
suggests she and her boyfriend are engaged in sexual behaviours that
might be regarded as `petting'. Within that sexual relationship Scared's
description locates her as the recipient of her boyfriend's sexual foray in
a passive position ­ she was fingered by him, not that `we were "mucking
about", I wanted his fingers inside me' a more agentic description given
in a different letter. A good number of feminist scholars have addressed
the ways in which the social construction of heterosexuality positions men
as active, initiating sexual subjects and women as passive, receiving objects
(e.g. Holland et al., 2000; Hollway, 1984; Jackson, 1993). So the
construction of Scared's sexual relationship shows continuity with
prevailing social texts of heterosexuality.
The doctor's response focuses on Scared's vagina and her construction
of vaginas is an interesting one. Although the doctor begins by acknowledging
that the boyfriend's roughness may be the problem this is overshadowed
somewhat by locating the vagina as the cause of the problem.
Her description of vaginas as `delicate things' constructs them within a
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Sexualities 8(3)
292
discourse of conventional femininity that, for example, defines femininity
in terms of softness, fineness and tenderness. Constructing the vagina
as delicate also perhaps signals its vulnerability. Braun and Kitzinger's
(2003) interviews with women about the vagina found this construction
of the vagina as vulnerable evident in the women's talk, both its psychological
vulnerability (e.g. personal intrusiveness) and its physical vulnerability
(e.g. penetration, childbirth). The authors suggest that these and
other meanings of the vagina are sociocultural products. The advice
doctor continues her focus on the vagina with her comments about it
perhaps being a `little dry', reinforcing the vagina as the source of the
problem rather than the boyfriend's technique or roughness. The
boyfriend is, however, very much positioned as the instigator and the
doctor does suggest that Scared asks him to `take it more gently', an
expression that further builds on the notion of the vagina as a delicate
thing. At the same time her advice positions Scared as the `teacher',
instructing her boyfriend on what to do. This locates responsibility with
Scared for her sexual pleasure, as does her suggestion that Scared use
lubrication. In her closing sentences the doctor assures Scared that she
probably hasn't `caught' anything. So although Scared has not said she
is afraid that she might have caught an STI through digital penetration,
the doctor in a sense reads between the lines, assuming that this is relevant
to Scared's anxieties.
Sex as dangerous
Letters that typified the construction of sex as dangerous generally
related to concerns about particular sexual acts or about fears of being
damaged or infected. The notion of sex as dangerous has been a feature
in a number of studies conducted on young women's sexuality (e.g.
Fine, 1988; Tolman, 1994). Fine (1988) identified the emphasis in sexuality
education on disease and pregnancy to the exclusion of young
women's agency and sexual desire. Young women in Tolman's (1994)
study related their pull toward sexual pleasure but also their fears around
dangers of abuse and pregnancy. Vance (1992) has similarly drawn attention
to the mingling of pleasure and danger in women's sexual lives and
the need to reduce danger while increasing possibilities for pleasure.
Some letters to the problem pages did address the dangers of risk (pregnancy,
STIs) and abuse, but others, as in the following example, were
couched in more general concerns about the dangers associated with the
act of coital sex.
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Example 3
In contrast to the two previous examples there are no claims related to
sexual or age identity in this letter. The pseudonym of Curious positions
the writer as knowledge seeking and wanting to be informed rather than
worried or concerned. The question about having sex during a period
suggests Curious may be sexually active, although there is no clear
evidence of this in the letter. Nor is it clear whether the relationship is
heterosexual since the term partner, not boyfriend, is used. The term
partner is much less typically used in the letters but one of its common
meanings is to signal an egalitarian relationship. The egalitarian theme
continues with Curious asking not only about dangers to herself but also
to her partner if they have sex during her period.
The meaning of `sex' in the letter is unclear and it may be coital, anal
or digital, any of which could produce pain (`hurt'). When Woollett et
al. (1998) talked with groups of young women about sexual activities
they found that `sex' was typically constructed as heterosexual sexual
intercourse. The authors suggest that the dominance of sexual information
in schools relates to STIs, contraception and unwanted pregnancies
reinforcing such a popular construction amongst young women.
In the letter, Curious asks whether it will hurt any `more' during her
period suggesting that perhaps sex is painful at other times as well.
Menstruation is widely constructed in negative terms in western
societies, by young women (e.g. Beausang and Razor, 2000), in public
discourses (Oinas, 1998) and in materials crafted to teach about
menstruation (Diorio and Munro, 2000). Thus, it is perhaps not surprising
for sex during menstruation to be pondered as dangerous and
Jackson `Dear Girlfriend . . .'
293
Period sex
I just want to know if it's OK to have sex when I've got my period? Are there
any dangers for either partner and could it hurt me any more during this time?
Curious, Qld
There are no problems from your point of view if you have sex when you
have your period, but it's usually a bit messier. Really, it's more a matter of
your personal preference. In some parts of the world they actually use sex
during the period as a method of birth control. Unfortunately it's not
reliable, as sperm live inside the uterus and tubes for some days after sex. Sex
on the tail-end of a period can cause a pregnancy. Having sex during your
period shouldn't hurt any more than having sex at any other time, and in fact
some people say an orgasm can help to relieve period pain. From a partner's
point of view ­ a man would be at a higher risk of catching any blood-carried
infections a woman might have, such as Hepatitis or HIV, if they have sex
with her when she's bleeding.
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Sexualities 8(3)
294
painful. Curious does not specify the dangerous possibilities, although
the advice doctor reads into her use of the word that Curious is worried
about HIV.
The doctor dismantles the notion that sex during a period is dangerous
for Curious in the opening to her reply. At this point in the letter the
doctor's tone is personal and she directly addresses the questions that
Curious has raised. However, she subsequently detours from the issues
raised by Curious to talk about birth control. Here, then, is another
example of the way in which the doctor uses letters as an opportunity to
promote safer sex messages around pregnancy and STIs both to the writer
and to the magazine readership. The tone of the letter changes from a
personal one to an instructional, knowledgeable one and reads as a mini
information `factoid'. The doctor is positioned as an expert not only on
conception and birth control but also on what happens in other parts of
the world. Her `factoid' functions to deter both Curious personally, and
young women generally, from using sex during their periods as a birth
control method.
Following this educational diversion, the doctor resumes addressing
Curious's questions about pain and danger. In contrast to her positioning
as medical expert earlier in her reply, the doctor now draws on lay
theory to inform Curious that `some people say an orgasm can relieve
period pain'. Implicit in her comment is the notion that orgasm is normative
and likely to be experienced during sex. The doctor assumes Curious
knows what an orgasm is, a shift from Curious being positioned as the
learner and the doctor as the teacher. In the conclusion of her reply the
doctor addresses the final issue raised by Curious, those of the danger for
her partner. The doctor depersonalizes her response once again to talk
generically of men and not of Curious's partner specifically. This reconstructs
the issue as a universal one rather than an individual one.
Sex as safe
As noted earlier, few of the sexual health letters appearing across the five
year period of analysis asked the advice doctor directly about safer sex practices
to prevent pregnancy and STIs. Amongst the letters that did seek
such advice, the questions asked related to STI screening, transmission of
STIs, pregnancy prevention and condom use. In the selected example of
these letters a young woman expresses her concern about whether or not
her boyfriend will agree to using protection.
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Example 4
Scared is positioned in this letter as heterosexual, sexually experienced
and knowing her own mind about wanting sex (`I said yes'). In Scared's
letter the gendered construction of heterosexuality, within which men
have sexual needs and women respond, is evident since her boyfriend is
the one to ask about having sex and she is the one to acquiesce. Scared is
also positioned in her letter as responsible within the safer sex discourse
since she is concerned about using protection. Young women's dilemmas
about using protection coupled with young men's reluctance to use it are
well documented in the literature (e.g. Holland et al., 1998; Moore and
Rosenthal, 1998). The skewed power dynamic that underscores heterosexual
relationships may make it difficult for young women to insist on the
use of a condom, as pointed out by several feminist scholars (e.g. Gavey
and McPhillips, 1999; Holland et al., 1998; Kippax et al., 1990). So too
can romantic discourse (`if you loved me you wouldn't ask'; `don't you
trust me?', Moore and Rosenthal, 1998), sexual reputation (`"slags" sleep
around and need to use condoms', Lees, 1994) and fear of losing a
boyfriend (Tolman, 1994) complicate young women's insistence on
condom use.
The doctor's reply unsettles Scared's decision to have sex. Despite
Scared's positioning of her boyfriend as a nice guy, not just nice but `really
nice', and identifying the relationship as long term the doctor seems to
adopt a stance of doubting Scared's decision. In doing so she appropriates
a romantic discourse, constructing sex as not just special but `incredibly'
special and powerful and continuing with her use of notions of love, trust
and respect. Amongst young women romantic discourse serves as a
Jackson `Dear Girlfriend . . .'
295
Safe sex
I've been going out with this really nice guy for around a year and a half.
Recently, he asked me to have sex with him and I said yes. I've done it before, but
it was before I'd started getting my periods. I'm worried that he might not want
to use protection. What should I do? Scared, Vic
The first thing you need to ask yourself is if you really want to have sex with
this person. Are you really OK about it or would you prefer to wait? Sex is
an incredibly special and powerful thing to do. You really need to feel that
you can trust your guy and be able to talk about anything that might be
worrying you ­ especially contraception. Ask him how he would feel if you
got pregnant. If he loves and respects you he will be happy to use protection.
If he doesn't want to use a condom, he's being selfish and stupid. If you are
ever feeling pressured to do something you'd really prefer not to do, then
you know something is wrong. Trust your feelings. If something doesn't feel
right, just don't do it.
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significant cultural resource in the negotiation of their relationships,
impacting on decisions to stay in abusive relationships, condom use and
reasons for having sex (Gavey and McPhillips, 1999; Jackson, 2001;
Moore and Rosenthal, 1998). More specifically, young women have been
found to differentiate between the construction of sex as special within a
love relationship and sex for fun within a casual relationship (Jackson and
Cram, 2003). So it is somewhat interesting to see the doctor drawing here
on a construction of sex that young women themselves may use.
Subsequent to building an argument fashioned from romantic discourse
that functions to trouble Scared's decision to have sex, the doctor then
focuses on Scared's boyfriend. In contrast to Scared's positioning of her
boyfriend as `nice', the doctor's response creates the possibility of contradictory
positions as a selfish, stupid and coercive guy (pressuring a girl into
sex). Because she mentions the possibility of sexual pressuring it would
seem that the doctor is reading into Scared's letter that this might be why
Scared is worried about her boyfriend not wanting to use protection. On
the other hand, the doctor's mention of sexual pressuring may once again
be a device for addressing issues deemed relevant to the wider readership.
By addressing sexual pressuring from boyfriends the doctor highlights an
important social context in which young women's sexual problems may
occur. In the conclusion of her reply she moves from the social back to
the personal, invoking Scared to trust her feelings and to only do what
feels right to her. In Garner, Sterk and Adams's (1998) analysis of teen
magazines, advice to girls considering sex adopted a stance of encouraging
young women to look to themselves and their own needs as the doctor
appears to be doing here. For girls who had `crossed the threshold' into
a sexual relationship, however, the advice positioned young women as
responsible for the sexual relationship and any problems occurring within
it. Scared indicates in her letter that she has `crossed the threshold' (i.e.
she has `done it before') but her sexual experience is completely erased in
the advice doctor's response, stripping Scared's account of its complexity.
Sex as technique
Garner and her colleagues (1998) use the term `sex therapists' to describe
the positioning of young women writing into advice columns as teachers,
responsible not only for facilitating their partner's sexual expression but
also for meeting their own needs within the sexual relationship. This
notion of sex as something to be taught and learned, that is to say a skill,
is further suggested in McRobbie's (1996) analysis of teen magazines. A
number of the letters to the advice doctor addressed issues around this
idea of sex as a skill to be learned or taught. These letters have been categorized
as `sex as technique', reflecting the notion of young women as
needing to teach their partners some aspect of sexual performance or
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wanting to know `how to' manage some aspect of sexual activity. In the
example provided here, a young New Zealand woman wants to know
how she can prevent her boyfriend's fingers getting `mucky' when they
are petting.
Example 5
In contrast to previous examples of letters, the writer identified as
Embarrassed presents a more agentic construction of her (hetero)sexuality.
In common with a number of letters, she writes not about coital sex but
about `fingering'. The letter constructs Embarrassed as desiring this sexual
play and, accordingly, as having sexual agency. While it would seem that
she is mobilizing a discourse of desire here, it seems to be more of a
whisper of this discourse (see Fine, 1988) since it is her boyfriend's desire
to finger her that she responds to with her own. For example, she does
not say `I want my boyfriend to finger me and he wants to', which would
position her as outside of discourses of heterosexuality that assign
initiation to men and submission to women (Hollway, 1984).
However, in her metaphor of `muck around' to denote their sexual
activity Embarrassed avoids sexual terminology that underscores the
gendered bipolarity of heterosexuality, evident in terms such as `bonk'
`screw' or `pull' (see Weatherall and Walton, 1999). Her metaphor is also
an interesting play on words since Embarrassed is concerned about the
mucky stuff that occurs during their `mucking around'. The construction
of her discharge as mucky evokes an image of something that is not
particularly pleasant. The sociocultural representation of the vagina as an
object of disgust (e.g. as smelly or dirty, see Braun and Kitzinger, 2003)
Jackson `Dear Girlfriend . . .'
297
Sticky situation
My boyfriend wants to finger me and I want him to, but I'm embarrassed. When
we muck around I get mucky stuff coming out of me. I know what it is and that
it's normal but I doubt he knows that. When he fingers me he'll get it all over
his fingers. Is there any way I can stop it from getting on his fingers? Embarrassed.
NZ
You're right, this is normal! When you get aroused, the blood vessels around
the vaginal walls swell up and this causes the vaginal walls to sweat the fluid
you've noticed. Sex would be dry and uncomfortable without it. The same
thing leads to an erection for a guy! I doubt a bit of moisture is going to
worry him all that much. Maybe you could ease into it by telling him how
wet and excited he's making you ­ then he won't be in for a total shock. Incidentally,
women in France last century used to dab a little of their vaginal
discharge behind the ears like perfume as it contains powerful sexual scents
. . . it's certainly cheaper than Chanel No 5!
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provides a readily available resource for Embarrassed's construction of her
vaginal discharge as `mucky'.
Although using the descriptor `mucky', Embarrassed is not represented
in her letter as being disgusted by her discharge. Rather she draws on a
natural discourse to identify it as normal. Indeed, she is positioned as
knowledgeable about her own body discharge in contrast to her boyfriend
who is positioned as naive about such matters. While she is knowing about
her vaginal secretions on the one hand, they seem also to be a source of
potential embarrassment to her (the source of the pseudonym perhaps)
since she worries about her boyfriend getting it all over his fingers.
The doctor in her response emphasizes the construction of vaginal
secretions during sex play as normal and then uses Embarrassed's letter as
a springboard for an educational, biological explanation of what produces
the secretion. So on the one hand she reinforces Embarrassed's positioning
as knowledgeable about her body while on the other she positions
herself as a knowledgeable medical expert teaching Embarrassed about the
workings of her vagina. As has been seen repeatedly in previous examples,
the information does not link to any of the writer's questions, thereby
suggesting functions of educating the readership and perhaps demonstrating
the doctor's expertise. The irrelevance for the questions asked by
Embarrassed is highlighted in the doctor's `factoid' that states `this also
happens to guys!' The emphasis given to this fact is curious, giving it the
appearance of something to be acclaimed or celebrated.
Subsequent to the biology lesson, and in stark contrast to its tone and
content, the doctor moves on to address the secretion `problem'. What
Embarrassed coins mucky stuff, the doctor re-labels as `a bit of moisture'
which functions to minimize the problem quite literally (`a bit'). Embarrassed's
`whisper of desire' is more graphically expressed in the doctor's
suggestion that she tell her boyfriend `how wet and excited he's making
you'. The absence of such specific articulation of desire as experience in
the body is significant in feminist research on young women's sexuality so
here the doctor's articulation may also be considered as informative for
young women readers. Indeed, the doctor actively resists the silencing of
many aspects of women's desire with her story about the women of France
who used their discharge as an erotic, sexually powerful perfume. Her
story deconstructs the representation of women's vaginal discharge as
something private, shameful or disgusting and constructs it as something
erotic and public. The doctor's story also positions women as having
sexual agency, with men unable to resist the power of the vaginal potion.
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Discussion
One of the aims of this article was to examine the ways in which sexual
health issues were constructed in a sample of young women's letters to the
problem pages of a teenage magazine. Of particular interest was how the
representation of problems on these pages compared with representations
of young people's sexuality and sexual health in public and academic
domains. Perhaps the most remarkable feature in this respect was the
relative silence about contraception and safer sex in young women's letters.
Yet their silence was not matched by the responses of the advice doctor
who made opportunities in her replies to address contraception and safer
sex practices such as using a condom. What are some possible meanings
of this pattern that occurred so consistently across letters, not only in those
sampled but also the entire corpus of letters? In the context of the
magazine as a whole, sexual activity is normative so it may be that the
advice pages serve to convey messages of sexual responsibility within that
part of the magazine where there is a more intimate relationship with
readers. It could also be that the advice columns are deemed by the
magazine to have a moral and public health responsibility to provide safer
sex education. McRobbie's (1996) contention that magazines have
obtained legitimacy for their increasing sexual content through the
employment of safer sex discourses seems to be informative here as well.
The meanings of silence on sexual safety and contraception in young
women's letters can only be surmised. Possibly, they feel that they already
know enough about such matters through sexuality education, talking
with friends, reading magazines or surfing the Internet. In survey research,
for example, young people tend to report high levels of knowledge about
sexual safety issues (Allen, 2001). So rather than sexual safety issues, letters
from young women addressed issues concerning aspects of sexual activity,
not just coital but also, frequently, non-coital sexual behaviours. Ironically,
the appearance of articles on the latter, at least in Girlfriend magazine is
sparse yet experiences of masturbation and `petting' may be a great deal
`safer' for young women. Young women who were interviewed by
Thompson (1990) and who knew sexual pleasure through such experiences,
for example, went into sexual relationships knowing they wanted
sex and were prepared for `safer' sex in terms of pregnancy and STI
prevention.
Whereas a rampant notion of sexuality tends to dominate in media
representations of young people, what we see in the letters analysed here
is considerably more constrained. In common with the body of letters as
a whole, young women in the letters sampled represented themselves as
considering or poised on the brink of having coital sex or as engaged only
in non-coital sexual activities. Moreover, these young women were
Jackson `Dear Girlfriend . . .'
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positioned in their letters as responsible: not rushing in to have coital sex
but seeking advice and information or, if having sex, being mindful of risks
or dangers. On the other hand, their letters by and large are constructed
within a discourse of sexual victimization ­ victims of pain, afraid of things
they may have `caught', worrying if having sex can be dangerous. Such
constructions should not surprise us when, for example, sexual education
curricula has been found to privilege sex as a risky enterprise over sex as
pleasure (see Fine, 1988; Thompson, 1990; Tolman, 1994; Vance, 1992)
and the dominant press about teenage sexuality concerns high teen pregnancy,
abortion or STI rates. Furthermore, as McRobbie (1996) points
out, the safe sex discourse is very much part of the `new sexuality' (i.e.
young women as sexually active, independent and knowledgeable) in
women's magazines.
The second purpose of this article was to examine sexual subjectivities
constructed either by the young women or the advice doctor since these
have clear implications for safer sex practices. McRobbie (1996) suggests
that the `new' sexual subjectivities, as well as being organized around a
safe sex discourse, are constructed as more complex and knowing. By
virtue of writing to a problem page young women are positioned as not
knowing about a particular aspect of sexuality or sexual health. However,
in other ways the writers were positioned as knowing ­ knowing about
different types of sexual activity, being aware and knowing about their
bodies, knowing about possibilities of `dangers' and knowing about the
need to use protection. In contrast, the doctor's response frequently
positioned the young women as not knowing and even when a young
woman purported to know (e.g. when Scared, in Example 4, tells us she'd
been asked to have sex and she said yes) her knowing was unsettled by the
doctor. Such erasure of young women's knowledge in advice columns has
similarly been noted in Dawn Currie's (1999) work.
Despite glimmerings of possibilities for a more `knowing', aware sexual
subjectivity, in the main sexual subjectivities as represented in letters
seemed more pieced together from dominant versions of female sexuality.
So, although there were fragments of desire in Embarrassed's letter it was
constructed within a framework of male initiation and female receptivity,
as was Scared's agreement to have sex with her boyfriend. Most of the
letters clearly identified relationships as heterosexual, typical of the corpus
as a whole, reflecting an absence of lesbian sexualities. Moreover, the `sex'
referred to in letters tended to be penetrative, either coital or digital, with
masturbatory or oral sex falling into obscurity. In common with findings
of other feminist researchers the letters sampled here, and in the majority
of letters to the columns, positioned young women within a discourse of
responsibility. Such responsibility wove through issues about protecting a
boyfriend from `mucky stuff', concerns about using protection, and
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`dangers' for self and partner of sex during menstruation. Young women's
positioning as responsible can be seen as residing not only in traditional
discourses of female (hetero)sexuality but also in safe sex discourse and a
discourse of sex as dangerous versus pleasurable. In sum, notions of `free'
sexual practices, sexual fantasies and other aspects of sexual diversity
observed by McRobbie in British magazines of the 1990s (McRobbie,
1996) seem not to have been incorporated into the sexual subjectivities
represented in the sample of letters to Girlfriend magazine.
Similarly, in the advice doctor's replies evidence of any `new' sexualities
is either slight or non-existent. Perhaps because she draws so heavily on a
safer sex discourse in her responses, the dominant sexuality she constructs
is heterosexual and coital. Within this safer sex construction young women
are positioned as potential `victims' (of disease) as well as bearers of sexual
responsibility. Although opportunities were presented in the letters for the
doctor to support the `safer sex' practices of non-penetrative sex, she did
not take them up. Nor did she suggest such alternatives to those who were
`considering' having sex. In this way, a sexual subjectivity based on the
`coital imperative', that naturalizes penile-vaginal sex, (see McPhillips et
al., 2001) seemed to be privileged. There were occasions, however, when
the doctor's advice pointed to a sexuality defined more by pleasure than
risk or danger. For example, she mentioned orgasm as a way of relieving
period pain in response to Curious and provided Embarrassed with a
bodily language for talking about sexual desire. Thus, within these
responses the doctor constructed possibilities for an active, desiring sexual
subjectivity.
To conclude, turning our research gaze toward advice columns in young
women's magazines provides an opportunity to examine sexuality and
sexual health issues free of the constraints of a research interview where
young women may self-regulate their talk. On the other hand, the
magazine itself is regulatory so that the letters are subject to the whims of
what editors consider to be both good press and accommodating of the
magazine's agenda. The agenda that the analyses in this article reveals is
predominantly a safer sex one and while that might not be surprising in
the context of sexual health letters, it is significant in the relative absence
of young women themselves writing to obtain such knowledge. Emphasizing
risks and dangers of sex erases pleasure, which has clear implications
for sexual subjectivity (see Fine, 1988). Several scholars have noted the
importance of recognizing the complexity and plurality of sexuality in the
realms of sexuality education (e.g. Thompson, 1990; Tolman, 2000).
Opportunities for the advice columnist to provide alternative sexualities in
response to letters were largely missed. As noted previously, advice
columns have clearly been identified as the favourite page of young
women, as well as a highly salient source of their sexuality information
Jackson `Dear Girlfriend . . .'
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(Currie, 1999; Kehily, 1999). Thus, any changes implemented by advice
columnists toward highlighting plurality and complexity and challenging
discourses that constrain young women's sexuality would have the potential
for greatly assisting young women's negotiation of sexuality. Perhaps
instead of targeting individual young women for sexuality education, it is
more the educators, in the broadest sense of the term, who should be the
focus of attention.
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Biographical Note
Sue Jackson is a senior lecturer in the School of Psychology, Victoria University
of Wellington. Her major area of research and publication is young women's
heterosexual relationships and identities within those relationships, with a
particular focus on issues related to their sexuality. Sue is currently developing a
new course on psychology, gender and sexualities and she is working toward
publishing a book that draws together aspects of her work to date on young
women's sexuality and heterosexual relationships. Address: School of Psychology,
Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand.
[email: sue.jackson@vuw.ac.nz]
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