2. Dirty Dancing

I was sixteen and at a party, sitting alone with my male companion, when I was suddenly overcome with desire. I threw back the rest of my watery cocktail and, with my mouth still full of ice and rum, I straddled him. He looked into my face with the most horrified expression. All he said was "Jesus" — not in a gruff, turned-on way but instead in the tone you use when someone has just spilled red wine all over your dress. Then he pushed me off his lap like I was some stranger's yapping pet. I'd tried to own my sexuality and I'd ended up alone on a loveseat. I felt like a freak.

This guy's rejection convinced me that what I did wasn't normal; that I should be ashamed of acting upon my desire; that my role was to be the recipient, not the aggressor. But it is normal. The kid was just a weenie. The fact that he felt uncomfortable by my initiation doesn't reflect poorly on my femininity. In the words of Toni Braxton, he just wasn't man enough for me.

If only I had known that nobody pushed Baby off their lap. While the road to her transformation is a long one, Dirty Dancing's Baby eventually ends up in Johnny's cabin, pouncing on her dance instructor like a feral cat. She feasts on the sumptuous buffet that is Patrick Swayze's shoulders; she puts her pleasure on full display. With guidance like this, I could've spared myself so much bad, hesitant sex that starts in the cab, pauses awkwardly in the foyer, and ends with anticlimactic missionary performed in silence.