How do we turn girls into women?
     This discussion, which has recently taken on new urgency, often seems to me to be full of euphemisms, with crucial parts of the story left out. As we who grew into womanhood during and after the sexual revolution know, in our culture girls are turned into women through what happens to them, and what they choose to do, sexually.
     It has been difficult to discuss this aspect of girlhood because the years of female adolescence that so determine girls' confidence are now inscribed with scenes, events and memories that are extremely explicit. What ordinary contemporary girls can choose to do, and what is done to them, is very different, a much more intense sexual drama, than it has ever been before.
     I wanted to retrieve this secret struggle for womanhood that now characterizes female coming of age. I call it "secret" not, of course, because teenage girls' sexuality is invisible; nothing is further from being the case. From the Brooke Shields Calvin Klein ads of my own adolescence to today's talk shows (Ricki Lake: "You Slept Around, Mom; Why Can't I?") to infuriated debates on teen motherhood among middle-aged men on the Sunday morning political programs, girls' sexuality is everywhere on display. It is made use of for dissection, proscription and, most frequently of all, titillation. But the question of what to make of girls' sexual experience is usually taken out of girls' own hands . . .