Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual assault.

Orenstein shares the history behind Title IX, a law that grants students the right to sue colleges for sexual discrimination, as well as how the idea of “acquaintance rape” or “date rape” came about. A 1987 study revealed that more than one in four girls from the ages of 14 and up had been raped, and 57% of those rapes took place on dates. These statistics were met with a cultural backlash, including a book by graduate student Katie Roiphe that famously argued that real rape involved violence. Roiphe argued that claiming date rape was rape unnecessarily victimized women who had the agency to get drunk or take a drug, or who didn’t say “no” clearly enough. Public figures like Camille Paglia and Christina Hoff Sommers joined the effort to limit expanding the definition of rape. Date rape became a controversy and subject of public debate.

Section 2 begins Maddie’s story, which Orenstein weaves through this chapter about rape and consent to humanize the data and research. Maddie had a friend with benefits whom she gave oral sex and with whom she lost her virginity. She was happy with that experience, but then she learned he was having sex with someone else.