Dirty Little Secrets Read Online Free PDF

and talked to God in Spanish).
    Eventually, she and her boyfriend broke up. He moved on to some other young girl without even telling her. She was pretty upset, but she went right back to the club, hoping that some other guy would come along. She says that she has her sights set on someone saving her from her life, and who better to do that than an older guy?
    Two-thirds of girls younger than age 18 choose sex partners who are close to their age, and a mere 7 percent choose partners who are six or more years older. 3 But men older than high school age account for 77 percent of births among girls age 16–18 and for 51 percent of births among girls age 15 and younger. Men older than age 25 father twice as many births with teenage girls than do boys younger than 18. 4 So, while teenage girls partnering with older men is not a significant trend, when it does happen, it seems that girls wind up with older men as the fathers of their children.
    Why do some girls want older men? A few of the girls I interviewed told me they felt that teenage boys were immature and that they liked how the older men treated them, referring to dinners and gifts. One noted, “It doesn’t hurt that they have cars, too.” It does seem that girls who like older men gravitate to their money, but research also suggests that girls who choose men so far out of their age ranges also tend toward low self-esteem and depression. 5 Many of these girls are looking to replace their abusive or difficult families with new ones. They often perceive the men as white knights who will save them from whatever pain they’re suffering at home.
    Regardless of the girls’ claims, men who choose teenage girls tend to be immature and insecure, with egos matching those of teenage boys. 6 Many have criminal histories, so they are not the safe havens girls make them out to be. Of course, partnering with a teenage girl under the age of consent is statutory rape, not to be taken lightly.
    Grown men who choose adolescents as sex partners tend to have these immaturities, but they also simply learned about girls from our culture. They, like all boys, learn from media that girls aren’t worth more than their looks and their accessibility for sex; they absorb this message as completely as girls do. Boys erroneously learn, just as girls do, that boys are horny and girls aren’t, and that it is up to the girls to protect their morality by fending off boys’ advances. They learn that boys choose girls, not the other way around. And they learn that the more girls a boy can score, the more manly he is.
    It is easy to see how these messages can lead boys to behave badly, to try to get girls in bed and dump them just as quickly, to not feel any sort of responsibility for their sexual behavior in the world. It is also easy to see how we don’t vilify or shame boys for their sexual behavior the way we do with girls. That double standard is still entirely alive and well. Although it might seem that boys get away with murder in this respect, the truth is that—just like girls—they get pigeonholed away from real intimacy. Our culture’s expectations regarding sex harm boys, too. Boys learn that they should want sex, pursue it, and be good at it. They don’t, however, learn about the emotional potentials that come along with their desire, and they don’t learn that most boys share a similar awkwardness and curiosity, along with the excitement and awe, when it comes to sex. In Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood , William Pollack argues that boys’ ravenous sexual appetites are more often than not a cover for their fear of sexual humiliation. 7
    Imagine, if you will, boys and girls exploring sexually and safely in a loving, kind way. Imagine they could learn about how to have relationships, could communicate about their needs, without cultural and parental shaming. Sad how much this vision seems like an impossible dream. Before we can look more closely at ways to