Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape

Amber created male avatars in the games Second Life and The Sims as a kid, and then began talking to and flirting with girls in the games. Orenstein observes that sexual orientation isn’t just about sex, but about social and emotional relatedness and connection. Amber got this from her male game avatars, and she also created a MySpace account where she posed as a boy and flirted with girls online.

In her real life, though, Amber felt like she was posing as a girl. She wound up with a boyfriend who initiated sexual activities she didn’t want to do at all, but she didn’t say no, and he misinterpreted her passivity as consent. Many of the queer girls Orenstein met had a history of trying to pass as straight. Eventually, Amber met her girlfriend Hannah when she looked online for a lesbian community.

Family acceptance is the most important factor in an LGBTQ child’s well-being, and it is also the main problem queer kids face, according to a survey. When Amber came out to her mother, her mother said she loved her but thought maybe it was a phase, which was hurtful to Amber. Worse, when her mother discovered the messages between Amber and Hannah, she refused to let Amber meet Hannah in person for a long time.

When they did meet, Amber felt things she never felt with boys. In their interviews with Orenstein, girls in relationships with other girls spoke very differently about their sexual encounters: They were reciprocal. One girl said her sex was “off the script,” so she and her partner could create whatever sex life they wanted together.