The Secret Lives of Girls: What Good Girls Really Do--Sex Play, Aggression, and Their Guilt

Let girls be girls, counsels psychologist Sharon Lamb in her provocative book The Secret Lives of Girls. "I want to be able to free girls and women to take off the shimmering costume of a femininity that equals goodness--to acknowledge all aspects of being human," she writes.

Reporting on 125 interviews with girls and women, Lamb details and normalizes the sexual play and anger expressed in the privacy of girls' bedrooms and playhouses. The result is a groundbreaking and guilt-free guide for parents and teachers to assist girls in accepting their sexual and aggressive feelings. Her portraits of girls' exuberant sexuality ("practice kissing," "I'll show you mine") and spontaneous anger (not-so-dear diary, pranks, and "cutting down") are fresh and fascinating. One particularly memorable chapter describes games of "naked Barbie" and applauds the lessons learned about becoming a sexual person rather than just a desired object.

Lamb's observations are so sharp that readers may wish the chapters offering her smart suggestions for change were longer. Some readers may be surprised and others unsettled by the vivid scenarios Lamb portrays. Still, by listening to girls and telling their stories without judgment, Lamb invites them to stop living a double life that ignores their anger and sexual feelings. She provides parents and teachers with a powerful and practical model of how to understand and nurture the hidden and genuine strengths of every girl. --Barbara Mackoff

Sexual play and acts of aggression are common for girls, according to Lamb, a psychology professor at St. Michael's College, but they are conducted in secrecy and often burden the participants with lifelong guilt. Based on interviews with 122 women and girls from a fairly wide range of socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds (29 were African-American and 22 Latina), this accessible and engaging study reveals that most girls experience sexual and aggressive feelings that fall outside cultural notions of the "good girl." Lamb examines different ways girls express their ambivalence about their sexuality and aggressiveness: keeping their play and their anger secret from adults, sexually torturing their Barbie dolls and pretending to be victims or "playing dead" so that they can experience sensual pleasure without being full participants. She draws a clear line between sexual play and coercion, but at the same time finds examples of behavior that could be considered coercive by adults but was experienced by the girls as positive and pleasurable. Advocating a broader definition of "good girl," Lamb argues that the current emphasis on caring and sensitivity strips girls of a complete self-image, one where their sexual and aggressive "impulses exist alongside their sweetness, competence, and ability to love and care for others." Allowing girls "to practice these feelings and emotions in spaces where adults acknowledge them and help shape their development" is essential to helping them realize their full human potential, says the author. Agent, Carol Mann. (Mar. 5)Forecast: Parents seeking to understand how to talk to their daughters about sexuality, power or ways to deal with anger will learn much here.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.