Liza Mundy

About the author: Liza Mundy is a staff writer for the Washington Post Magazine.

American popular culture is filled with sexual references, innuendo, and images that teens are readily and eagerly absorbing. As a result, today's young girls are becoming sexually aware—and active—at an unprecedented rate. For many girls, their sexual experimentation is a result of pressure and coercion by boys—both in their own age group and older. While some girls actively pursue these sexual encounters, the strong double standard that condemns girls but not boys for being sexually active generally means that girls are not using sex to empower themselves. In addition, the use by educators of scare tactics to discourage teen sex have perhaps led to the phenomenon in which boys target younger and...