I'll tell you what is insidious about the Disney Princess, besides the fact that if you look into their merchandise, the 26,000 items, you're always finding books that are about "my perfect wedding." It's what it puts girls on the path for. And that it poses as something that protects girls, or staves off premature sexualization, when I think it primes them for it. I don't know where to put that on the continuum exactly. I guess eight?
Peggy OrensteinI had a lot of girls ask me whether it was weird that they didn't make a lot of noise during sex. I would get so irritated that they had learned this.
Peggy OrensteinThe anesthetizing against caring really threw me for a loop. I was seeing it with 15-year-olds. It was how they were starting their intimate lives. It alarmed me.
Peggy OrensteinMothers are doing a better job talking about risk, danger, reproduction, consent, unwanted pregnancy. We're not talking about how to balance the risks and joys and we're really not talking about the joys.
Peggy OrensteinFor years we've used the bases analogy - with intercourse being the "ultimate sex" even though that's probably not going to feel good to girls. That model doesn't let you say "I like it at second base, maybe I'll stay here."
Peggy OrensteinAnd 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.
Peggy OrensteinGirls would say: "I have a boyfriend for that." So in addition to putting their pleasure literally into someone else's hands - an inept teenage boy - these are the same girls who say they do not climax with a partner. It's the opposite with boys; they say because they can do that themselves, girls should perform oral sex.
Peggy Orenstein