Lorena Garcia: Respect Yourself, Protect Yourself: Latina Girls and Sexual Identity

Excerpt

The sexuality of youth, particularly girls’ sexual behavior, often has been interpreted as a crisis in society. The perception is that teenage girls, those who are promiscuous, have unprotected sex, get pregnant and have children, create a problem because they become socially, economically, and educationally deprived and disadvantaged (Garcia 2012, p. 5). Understanding a teenage girl’s sexuality from this perception is as limiting and problematic as the approach to studying the girl’s sexuality, of which Garcia offers three lines of reasoning. First, the problem with the sexuality of youth is primarily focused on girls without regard of the resulting consequences of pregnancy and STD rates as a problem prevalent among all youth. Second, the emphasis of youth sexuality is placed in the racial context, primarily that it is a problem among certain racial groups-African American and Latina girls and not among all racial groups. Third, by focusing on sexuality and pregnancy, a greater emphasis is placed on the prevention of pregnancy and less emphasis on the meanings that youth assign to their sexuality (Garcia 2012). Without highlighting the number of ways that youth discuss their sexuality and sexual experiences, society further contributes to the crisis of youth sexuality. …