Adolescents receive a variety of messages about sexuality. Each cul tural and ethnic group develops norms and proscriptions for behaviors for its adolescent population, which at certain times may appear to contradict the messages of mainstream culture. In the United States increasingly there has been a concern about sexualizing younger and younger girls. In the 1980s film Pretty Baby, Brooke Shields portrayed a sexually provocative child; similarly, Jodie Foster’s role as a pre-teen hooker in the film Taxi Driver showed the seductive nature of the adolescent girl. Still, youth and sexuality sells. In the 1990s controversial advertisements for Calvin Klein underwear and jeans featured prepubescent teens in sexually suggestive poses, further perpetuating the connections of eroticism with youth.
Girls and young women receive the message that sexual allure is valuable and necessary to social success. They are provided with myths of romantic adventures that are powerful and rewarding. Ironically, the notion that being prepared for a romantic encounter (i. e., having a condom or diaphragm) is contradictory to the fable. The ideal appears to be that a woman should be overcome with passion, yet able to control the outcome; she should be innocent and pure, but still held responsible for resulting pregnancies. She may be taught by her family and other adults to abstain from sexual fulfillment (i. e., remain sexually immature) while her peers are pressuring her to grow up. Thus, negotiating adolescent years becomes a maze of contradictory sexual choices, values, and concerns, and unambiguous, sensitive guidance is often not available.