From After School Specials to After School Threesomes: Industrial Shifts in the Depiction of Sex on Teen TV and its Formation of the Sex Positive Teen Girl

Abstract

A rash of teen TV shows that deal with stories and depictions of sex explicitly and graphically prove a marked change from the overtly pedagogical approach teen television shows of the past took to tackling controversial issues. Utilizing industry interviews to understand this shift, I argue that series include progressive rhetoric, specifically sex positive rhetoric lifted from the popular feminist movement, in their stories of teen sexuality in order to mitigate controversies that inevitably crop up in public discourse whenever teen sexuality is represented. In so doing, such series shape the potential and parameters of teen girl sexuality. This framing provides for a more capacious spectrum of sexuality for girls, namely in more nuanced and more frequent depictions of queer sexuality and sexually agentive girls. Yet it also highlights the dangers their sexuality poses living in a patriarchal world, subsequently upholding framings of caution and boundaries around girlhood sexuality.