Romantic Rebels, Regular Lovers
Romantic Rebels, Regular Lovers
This chapter examines how girls and boys in the Netherlands and the US—using the messages they receive in school, from healthcare institutions, and in popular and peer culture—conceptualize and navigate dilemmas of gender outside the home. Two issues are at stake here: The first concerns the physical risks and dangers of sex which have traditionally been thought to plague girls disproportionately—both in reality and in the discursive construction of sexuality. This chapter shows that American girls and boys both express little faith in their capacity to control the outcomes of sexual activity, with boys as likely to articulate a discourse of danger. The second issue concerns the ways teenagers in both countries confront gender-specific expectations and constraints, including the sexual double standard that makes sex a liability for girls and too little a liability for boys.
Keywords: gender, netherlands, US, physical risks, discursive construction, danger, sexual double standard
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