I think I see a lot of this reflected in home life and parental attitudes. I experienced growing up, and I see it with friends now who have children, that the idea of a girl experiencing sexual pleasure is considered kind of disgusting.

A lot of parents are invested in the idea of keeping young girls “pure,” insulated from the very real sort of sexuality they experience but are taught to suppress.

When I was a kid it seemed like parents were just sort of resigned to the fact that boys were sexual animals, that even small boys would tend to get erections and experience pleasure from them. There was strong pressure to keep those kinds of things private, but not explicitly to eliminate them.

I think it’s different with girls. I mean, I know things are changing, but I think there’s still a strong tendency for people to experience sexuality in girls as something innately less positive than in boys.

I suppose a lot of it is unconscious, and that parents don’t mean to pass those attitudes on to their children, but I think they often do anyway.