A 1995 study by the National Survey of Family Growth scandalized much of the nation and provided fodder for news commentaries when it reported that nearly two-thirds of the sexual partners of teen mothers were twenty years old or older. Commentators, policymakers, and parents began worrying that male sexual predators were exploiting innocent young girls and urged lawmakers to enforce statutory rape laws.

In the midst of the media reports about the sexual exploitation of teen girls by adult men, a few commentators offered a dissenting view. In 1997, R.E. Lieb wrote an opinion piece in the Toronto Globe and Mail in which he argued that some teenage girls may be willing, and even enthusiastic, participants in their sexual relationships with adult men. The teenage years are a time of raging hormones, Lieb and others assert, and many teens are anxious...