I'm watching my own daughter grow up. I see this overt sexual culture coming at her like a Mack truck. She's in seventh grade.

I asked a high school girl about unreciprocated oral sex and said, "What if guys were asking you to get them a glass of water and never offered to you a glass of water? Would you put up with that?" She burst out laughing. It never occurred to her.

The point of creativity is to express and challenge yourself, to make meaning, to embrace your life.

It's not that pink is intrinsically bad, but it is such a tiny slice of the rainbow, and, though it may celebrate girlhood in one way, it also repeatedly and firmly fuses girl's identity to appearance.

And isn't that, at it's core, what the princess fantasy is about for all of us? "Princess" is how we tell little girls that they are special, precious. "Princess" is the wish that we could protect them from pain, that they would never know sorrow, that they will live happily ever after ensconces in lace and innocence.

I'm watching my own daughter grow up. I see this overt sexual culture coming at her like a Mack truck. She's in seventh grade.

We continue to think of virginity as first intercourse. That ends up minimizing and marginalizing other things kids are engaged in, like oral sex. And it's not going to feel particularly good for girls as the big marker of adulthood.