Launched in 1988 in the midday heat of conservative Reagan America, Sassy was the first magazine aimed at teenage girls and young women to deal frankly with the fact that its readership—despite statutory rape laws, remaining cultural taboos against pre-marital sex, parental strictures, and limited access to adequate birth control—might indeed be engaging in sexual activity. Instead of addressing the topic of boys and physical attraction in moralistic tones, Sassy's writers tried to provide a realistic viewpoint along with coherent, practical advice, and it forced its competition to do the same. "What Sassy did—to its everlasting shame or credit, depending on one's point of view—was to suggest not only that these teenage girls had sexual lives but that it was a proper editorial mission for a magazine to address their urgent informational needs about sex," commented Kathleen T. Endress and Therese L. Lueck in...