Reviving Ophelia Read Online Free PDF Page B

she barely knows. I asked Cayenne what she thought of that. She said, “It tells it like it is.”
    I’d just seen Medicine Man, the story of a male scientist who is in the rain forest searching for a cure for cancer. Sean Connery is visited by a female scientist forty years younger than he, wearing short shorts and a tight, low-cut top. He’s shocked to find that a scientist is female and refuses to work with her. She’s snooty and terrified of snakes. Then she has an accident, Sean saves her, and she falls weeping into his arms. Reduced to a helpless blob of jelly, the female scientist becomes more feminine and likable. She follows Sean around and he rewards her with smiles and caresses. In the end she gives up her career to help him find the cure for cancer.
    I thought it was sexist and told her why. “This movie says it’s okay for women to be scientists if they are beautiful, young and seductive. But they must allow themselves to be rescued by a man and give up their careers to serve his needs.”
    As I wondered aloud if a movie like this could influence a girl’s grades in science, I told Cayenne about the MTV I had watched in a hotel room in Chicago. I was shocked by the sexual lyrics and scenes. In the first video, openmouthed and moaning women writhed around the male singer. In the second video, four women with vacant eyes gyrated in low-cut dresses and high black boots. Their breasts and bottoms were photographed more frequently than their faces. When I expressed dismay, she said, “That’s nothing; you should see the Guns ’N’ Roses videos.”
    We talked about Silence of the Lambs. Much to my dismay, she insisted on describing to me the pictures of skinned women and oozing body parts. I realized as she talked how different we were. Violence and casual sex that upset me didn’t bother her. In fact, Cayenne was proud of being able to watch scary and graphic scenes—it proved she wasn’t a wimp. Despite our different reactions to media, the talk raised important issues—lookism, sexism, cultural stereotypes of men and women, and the importance of sex and violence in movies.
    Finally Cayenne was ready to talk about her own sexual experiences, at first in a tentative way, and later in a more relaxed manner. She made fun of the school films with their embryos and cartoon sperm that looked like tadpoles. She said her parents told her to wait for sex until she was out of high school and involved with someone whom she loved.
    I asked, “How does your experience fit with what your parents told you?”
    Cayenne looked at me wide-eyed. “My parents don’t know anything about sex.”
    She pushed back her frizzy bangs. “In seventh grade everyone was sex-crazy. Kids kept asking me if I did it, if I wanted to get laid, stuff like that. Guys would grab at me in the halls. I was shocked, but I didn’t show it. Later I got used to it.”
    By the middle of her eighth-grade year, Cayenne wanted to have sex. Her friends said it was fun and they teased her about being a virgin. But she was scared—she wondered if it would hurt, if she would get AIDS or become pregnant or if the boy would lose respect for her. She knew that “boys who have sex are studs, but girls who do it are sluts.”
    The summer before ninth grade she and Chelsea went to an unsupervised party. A guy she knew from the Olympics of the Mind team was there. Tim had been innocent and clean-cut in sixth grade. Now he was a sophomore with long hair pulled back in a headband and a sarcastic sense of humor.
    Tim’s friend had invited ten girls and nine guys. He opened his parents’ liquor cabinet and poured creme de menthe for the girls and scotch for the guys. Cayenne hated the cough-syrupy taste of liqueur, but because she was nervous, she drank it. Tim came over and sat by Cayenne. He complimented her shirt and joked about all the geeks at the party. He poured refills. Tim’s friend put on a Madonna tape and turned off all the lights.
    Cayenne was