I get why people are uncomfortable with acknowledging teen girl sexuality, too: the fact is that young women are often targeted for sexual assault, have fewer means to defend themselves from it because they know less about the world than adults, and are correspondingly fetishized by way too many creepy, misogynistic men. But to make the whole thing about whether teen girls should be allowed to be sexual, or whether they are Bad Girls for being sexual in ways we do not approve, places the onus on teenage girls and their sexuality. Rather than, say, predatory dudes. And that’s a problem.
It shouldn’t be a problem to assert these two things, simultaneously: first, that teenage girls are sexual, and want to express and experiment with their sexuality, and second, that their desire to express and experiment with their sexuality shouldn’t be exploited by predators. But it is, for some reason, and the end result is that we end up with role models as asexual and one-dimensional as Taylor Swift. Because a girl can’t be sexual and innocent, for whatever reason. Because we’ve constructed a worldview wherein desire and innocence can’t occupy the same space.
Amy A. Hasinoff 