Now and Then: Young Girls, Sexuality & Agency

I had watched the film Now and Then several times as a girl, but didn't remember a lot about it, so decided that viewing it again would be useful, especially analyzing it through a Girls Studies framework. One aspect of the film that stood out to me in my memory of it and then again upon my recent viewing of it was the character of Chrissy's exposure to and reactions to sexuality. She is a very sheltered girl who doesn't know much about her own body, boys' bodies or sexuality, partially as a result of the way in which her mom approaches these topics with her.

In the essay "Shifting Desires," Burns and Torre discuss how young girls are taught to fear sexuality as dangerous. They also discuss how girls' sexualities take a back seat to everything else in their lives as a result of the way their sexuality is addressed. Chrissy definitely doesn't have a developing sense of agency over her sexuality and is very uncomfortable with anything having to do with sex or bodies. When she was young, her mother explained sex to her through a metaphor involving gardens, which made little sense to Chrissy. I think it's Roberta who, in the narration, says that Chrissy is screwed up to this day as a result. Chrissy is completely misinformed about sex, even commenting that she's never french-kissed because she doesn't want to get pregnant.

I received abstinence-only education at my school. It was terrible. I remember an activity involving tearing pieces of a paper heart of, to symbolize giving yourself (and apparently diminishing yourself) to everyone that you have sex with. There was also an activity that involved people spitting in a cup to somehow address the whole "you sleep with everyone who your partner has slept with" thing and how you could get a trillion STDs. This kind of nonsense has long-lasting results for girls. Even as a feminist, with a sense of agency over my sexuality and a constant desire to learn more and educate myself, I still find that I just tend to know less factual information than women who had comprehensive sex-ed, such as specific info about STIs. Perhaps if, from a young age, we taught girls all of this information that they need to know to protect themselves they would be more likely, as an adult, to, you know, know things. It makes me angry that girls don't receive access to such important knowledge and are frequently taught to repress their sexuality because it's "bad" and "dangerous."

Chrissy is so uncomfortable with her own body that she considers "breast" a curse word. She is a fictional character, but plenty of girls like her exist -- afraid of sexuality and bodies, thinking that they are "bad." I consider this far more dangerous than the supposed danger of an educated girl.