Ferguson and Crowley’s (1997) findings of shame-proneness in women and guilt-proneness in men suggested that our society associates sex with shame and taboo and that children are socialized to have negative feelings about their gender roles. Young (1990) discussed the socialization of girls today and interpreted many changes as improvements. Many more girls and women are encouraged to engage in sports and physical activities. There is a relative lack of confinement of clothes (e. g., girls can wear pants) and other social practices (e. g., many women travel alone locally and internationally). Indeed, one may say that girls are freer to extend themselves socially, physically, and emotionally. Still observations of girls confirm Young’s conclusion that “many girls and women still live a confined and inhibited experience of space and movement, which both expresses and reinforces a continuing confined and inhibited right to assert themselves in the social world” (p. 15).
Masters, Johnson, and Kolodny (1995) also have addressed the social influences on girls’ sexual attitudes and behavior. They identified sexual scripts imposed by contemporary society that girls absorb and use. Two examples of these scripts are the Don’t Touch Yourself Down There and the Nice Girls Don’t scripts. The Don’t Touch Yourself Down There script discourages girls from touching their genital region, making it a foreign entity that is dirty and never to be explored, The Nice Girls Don’t script teaches girls that all forms of sex are dirty, sinful, and potentially dangerous. Sex, however, becomes miraculously transformed and is deemed acceptable and appropriate behavior when it is saved for marriage. Whether children accept the scripts described by Masters et al. or not, contemporary children are exposed to sexual choices and by adolescence must make decisions about their sexual lives.