WEBVTT

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For several years now,

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we've been engaged in a national debate
about sexual assault on campus.

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No question --

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it's crucial that young people
understand the ground rules for consent,

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but that's where the conversation
about sex is ending.

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And in that vacuum of information

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the media and the Internet --

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that new digital street corner --

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are educating our kids for us.

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If we truly want young people
to engage safely, ethically,

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and yes, enjoyably,

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it's time to have open honest discussion
about what happens after "yes,"

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and that includes breaking
the biggest taboo of all

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and talking to young people

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about women's capacity for
and entitlement to sexual pleasure.

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Yeah.

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(Applause)

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Come on, ladies.

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(Applause)

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I spent three years
talking to girls ages 15 to 20

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about their attitudes
and experience of sex.

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And what I found was

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that while young women may feel
entitled to engage in sexual behavior,

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they don't necessarily
feel entitled to enjoy it.

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Take this sophomore
at the Ivy League college

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who told me,

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"I come from a long line
of smart, strong women.

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My grandmother was a firecracker,

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my mom is a professional,

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my sister and I are loud,
and that's our form of feminine power."

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She then proceeded
to describe her sex life to me:

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a series of one-off hookups,

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starting when she was 13,

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that were ...

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not especially responsible,

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not especially reciprocal

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and not especially enjoyable.

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She shrugged.

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"I guess we girls are just socialized
to be these docile creatures

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who don't express our wants or needs."

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"Wait a minute," I replied.

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"Didn't you just tell me
what a smart, strong woman you are?"

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She hemmed and hawed.

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"I guess," she finally said,

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"no one told me that that smart,
strong image applies to sex."

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I should probably say right up top
that despite the hype,

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teenagers are not engaging in intercourse
more often or at a younger age

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than they were 25 years ago.

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They are, however,
engaging in other behavior.

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And when we ignore that,

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when we label that as "not sex,"

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that opens the door
to risky behavior and disrespect.

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That's particularly true of oral sex,

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which teenagers consider
to be less intimate than intercourse.

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Girls would tell me, "it's no big deal,"

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like they'd all read
the same instruction manual --

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at least if boys
were on the receiving end.

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Young women have lots
of reasons for participating.

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It made them feel desired;

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it was a way to boost social status.

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Sometimes, it was a way
to get out of an uncomfortable situation.

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As a freshman at a West Coast
college said to me,

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"A girl will give a guy a blow job
at the end of the night

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because she doesn't
want to have sex with him,

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and he expects to be satisfied.

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So, if I want him to leave

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and I don't want anything to happen ... "

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I heard so many stories
of girls performing one-sided oral sex

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that I started asking,

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"What if every time
you were alone with a guy,

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he told you to get him
a glass of water from the kitchen,

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and he never got you a glass of water --

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or if he did, it was like ...

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'you want me to uh ...?'"

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You know, totally begrudging.

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You wouldn't stand for it.

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But it wasn't always
that boys didn't want to.

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It was that girls didn't want them to.

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Girls expressed a sense of shame
around their genitals.

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A sense that they were
simultaneously icky and sacred.

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Women's feelings about their genitals

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have been directly linked
to their enjoyment of sex.

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Yet, Debby Herbenick,
a researcher at Indiana University,

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believes that girls' genital
self-image is under siege,

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with more pressure than ever

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to see them as unacceptable
in their natural state.

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According to research,

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about three-quarters of college women
remove their pubic hair -- all of it --

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at least on occasion,

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and more than half do so regularly.

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Girls would tell me that hair removal
made them feel cleaner,

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that it was a personal choice.

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Though, I kind of wondered
if left alone on a desert island,

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if this was how they would
choose to spend their time.

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(Laughter)

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And when I pushed further,

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a darker motivation emerged:

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avoiding humiliation.

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"Guys act like they
would be disgusted by it,"

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one young woman told me.

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"No one wants to be
talked about like that."

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The rising pubic hair removal
reminded me of the 1920s,

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when women first started regularly
shaving their armpits and their legs.

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That's when flapper dresses
came into style,

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and women's limbs were suddenly visible,

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open to public scrutiny.

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There's a way that I think
that this too is a sign.

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That a girl's most intimate part
is open to public scrutiny,

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open to critique,

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to becoming more about
how it looks to someone else

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than how it feels to her.

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The shaving trend has sparked
another rise in labiaplasty.

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Labiaplasty, which is the trimming
of the inner and outer labia,

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is the fastest-growing cosmetic
surgery among teenage girls.

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It rose 80 percent between 2014 and 2015,

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and whereas girls under 18 comprise
two percent of all cosmetic surgeries,

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they are five percent of labiaplasty.

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The most sought-after look, incidentally,

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in which the outer labia
appear fused like a clam shell,

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is called ...

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wait for it ...

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"The Barbie."

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(Groan)

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I trust I don't have to tell you

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that Barbie is a) made of plastic

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and b) has no genitalia.

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(Laughter)

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The labiaplasty trend
has become so worrisome

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that the American College
of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

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has issued a statement on the procedure,

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which is rarely medically indicated,

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has not been proven safe

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and whose side effects
include scarring, numbness, pain

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and diminished sexual sensation.

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Now, admittedly,

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and blessedly,

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the number of girls involved
is still quite small,

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but you could see them
as canaries in a coal mine,

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telling us something important
about the way girls see their bodies.

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Sara McClellan,

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a psychologist
at the University of Michigan,

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coined what is my favorite phrase ever
in talking about all of this:

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"Intimate justice."

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That's the idea that sex has political,
as well as personal implications,

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just like, who does
the dishes in your house,

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or who vacuums the rug.

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And it raises similar
issues about inequality,

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about economic disparity,

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violence,

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physical and mental health.

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Intimate justice asks us to consider

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who is entitled
to engage in an experience.

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Who is entitled to enjoy it?

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Who is the primary beneficiary?

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And how does each partner
define "good enough"?

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Honestly, I think those questions
are tricky and sometimes traumatic

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for adult women to confront,

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but when we're talking about girls,

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I just kept coming back to the idea
that their early sexual experience

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shouldn't have to be
something that they get over.

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In her work,

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McClellan found that young women
were more likely than young men

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to use their partner's pleasure
as a measure of their satisfaction.

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So they'd say things like,

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"If he's sexually satisfied,

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then I'm sexually satisfied."

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Young men were more likely to measure
their satisfaction by their own orgasm.

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Young women also defined
bad sex differently.

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In the largest ever survey

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ever conducted
on American sexual behavior,

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they reported pain
in their sexual encounters

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30 percent of the time.

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They also used words like "depressing,"

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"humiliating,"

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"degrading."

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The young men never used that language.

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So when young women
report sexual satisfaction levels

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that are equal to
or greater than young men's --

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and they do in research --

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that can be deceptive.

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If a girl goes into an encounter
hoping that it won't hurt,

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wanting to feel close to her partner

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and expecting him to have an orgasm,

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she'll be satisfied
if those criteria are met.

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And there's nothing wrong with wanting
to feel close to your partner,

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or wanting him to be happy,

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and orgasm isn't the only
measure of an experience ...

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but absence of pain --

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that's a very low bar
for your own sexual fulfillment.

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Listening to all of this
and thinking about it,

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I began to realize that we performed
a kind of psychological clitoridectomy

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on American girls.

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Starting in infancy,

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parents of baby boys are more likely
to name all their body parts,

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at least they'll say,
"here's your pee-pee."

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Parents of baby girls
go right from navel to knees,

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and they leave this whole
situation in here unnamed.

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(Laughter)

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There's no better way
to make something unspeakable

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than not to name it.

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Then kids go into
their puberty education classes

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and they learn that boys
have erections and ejaculations,

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and girls have ...

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periods and unwanted pregnancy.

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And they see that internal diagram
of a woman's reproductive system --

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you know, the one that looks
kind of like a steer head --

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(Laughter)

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And it always grays out between the legs.

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So we never say vulva,

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we certainly never say clitoris.

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No surprise,

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fewer than half
of teenage girls age 14 to 17

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have ever masturbated.

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And then they go
into their partnered experience

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and we expect that somehow
they'll think sex is about them,

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that they'll be able to articulate
their needs, their desires, their limits.

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It's unrealistic.

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Here's something, though.

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Girls' investment
in their partner's pleasure remains

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regardless of the gender of the partner.

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So in same-sex encounters,

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the orgasm gap disappears.

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And young women climax
at the same rate as men.

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Lesbian and bisexual girls would tell me

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that they felt liberated
to get off the script --

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free to create an encounter
that worked for them.

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Gay girls also challenged
the idea of first intercourse

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as the definition of virginity.

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Not because intercourse isn't a big deal,

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but it's worth questioning
why we consider this one act,

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which most girls associate
with discomfort or pain,

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to be the line in the sand
of sexual adulthood --

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so much more meaningful,

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so much more transformative
than anything else.

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And it's worth considering
how this is serving girls;

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whether it's keeping them
safer from disease,

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coercion, betrayal, assault.

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Whether it's encouraging
mutuality and caring;

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what it means about the way
they see other sex acts;

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whether it's giving them more control over

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and joy in their experience,

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and what it means about gay teens,

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who can have multiple sex partners
without heterosexual intercourse.

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So I asked a gay girl that I met,

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"How'd you know
you weren't a virgin anymore?"

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She said she had to Google it.

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(Laughter)

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And Google wasn't sure.

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(Laughter)

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She finally decided
that she wasn't a virgin anymore

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after she'd had
her first orgasm with a partner.

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And I thought --

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whoa.

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What if just for a second

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we imagined that was the definition?

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Again, not because
intercourse isn't a big deal --

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of course it is --

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but it isn't the only big deal,

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and rather than thinking about sex
as a race to a goal,

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this helps us reconceptualize it
as a pool of experiences

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that include warmth, affection, arousal,

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desire, touch, intimacy.

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And it's worth asking young people:

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who's really the more sexually
experienced person?

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The one who makes out
with a partner for three hours

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and experiments with sensual
tension and communication,

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or the one who gets wasted at a party
and hooks up with a random

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in order to dump their "virginity"
before they get to college?

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The only way that shift
in thinking can happen though

00:13:32.840 --> 00:13:36.896
is if we talk to young people
more about sex --

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if we normalize those discussions,

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integrating them into everyday life,

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talking about those intimate acts
in a different way --

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the way we mostly have changed

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in the way that we talk
about women in the public realm.

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Consider a survey
of 300 randomly chosen girls

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from a Dutch and an American university,

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two similar universities,

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talking about their early
experience of sex.

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The Dutch girls embodied everything
we say we want from our girls.

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They had fewer negative consequences,

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like disease, pregnancy, regret --

00:14:14.640 --> 00:14:16.416
more positive outcomes

00:14:16.440 --> 00:14:18.856
like being able to communicate
with their partner,

00:14:18.880 --> 00:14:20.576
who they said they knew very well;

00:14:20.600 --> 00:14:23.176
preparing for the experience responsibly;

00:14:23.200 --> 00:14:24.760
enjoying themselves.

00:14:25.680 --> 00:14:26.880
What was their secret?

00:14:27.720 --> 00:14:31.976
The Dutch girls said
that their doctors, teachers and parents

00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:33.616
talked to them candidly,

00:14:33.640 --> 00:14:35.376
from an early age,

00:14:35.400 --> 00:14:40.320
about sex, pleasure
and the importance of mutual trust.

00:14:41.480 --> 00:14:42.696
What's more,

00:14:42.720 --> 00:14:47.496
while American parents weren't necessarily
less comfortable talking about sex,

00:14:47.520 --> 00:14:50.016
we tend to frame those conversations

00:14:50.040 --> 00:14:53.640
entirely in terms or risk and danger,

00:14:54.600 --> 00:14:59.280
whereas Dutch parents talk
about balancing responsibility and joy.

00:15:00.200 --> 00:15:01.416
I have to tell you,

00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:03.296
as a parent myself,

00:15:03.320 --> 00:15:05.376
that hit me hard,

00:15:05.400 --> 00:15:07.936
because I know,

00:15:07.960 --> 00:15:10.216
had I not delved into that research,

00:15:10.240 --> 00:15:14.016
I would have talked to my own child
about contraception,

00:15:14.040 --> 00:15:15.896
about disease protection,

00:15:15.920 --> 00:15:18.656
about consent because I'm a modern parent,

00:15:18.680 --> 00:15:20.014
and I would have thought ...

00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:23.200
job well done.

00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:26.600
Now I know that's not enough.

00:15:27.920 --> 00:15:30.960
I also know what I hope for for our girls.

00:15:31.960 --> 00:15:36.216
I want them to see sexuality
as a source of self-knowledge,

00:15:36.240 --> 00:15:38.456
creativity and communication,

00:15:38.480 --> 00:15:41.096
despite its potential risks.

00:15:41.120 --> 00:15:44.576
I want them to be able
to revel in their bodies' sensuality

00:15:44.600 --> 00:15:46.120
without being reduced to it.

00:15:47.120 --> 00:15:50.336
I want them to be able
to ask for what they want in bed,

00:15:50.360 --> 00:15:51.600
and to get it.

00:15:52.560 --> 00:15:56.016
I want them to be safe
from unwanted pregnancy,

00:15:56.040 --> 00:15:57.256
disease,

00:15:57.280 --> 00:15:58.496
cruelty,

00:15:58.520 --> 00:16:00.096
dehumanization,

00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:01.320
violence.

00:16:02.080 --> 00:16:03.856
If they are assaulted,

00:16:03.880 --> 00:16:07.336
I want them to have recourse
from their schools,

00:16:07.360 --> 00:16:08.776
their employers,

00:16:08.800 --> 00:16:10.000
the courts.

00:16:11.120 --> 00:16:12.520
It's a lot to ask,

00:16:13.240 --> 00:16:14.440
but it's not too much.

00:16:15.480 --> 00:16:19.536
As parents, teachers,
advocates and activists,

00:16:19.560 --> 00:16:24.336
we have raised a generation
of girls to have a voice,

00:16:24.360 --> 00:16:28.216
to expect egalitarian
treatment in the home,

00:16:28.240 --> 00:16:29.496
in the classroom,

00:16:29.520 --> 00:16:30.720
in the workplace.

00:16:31.720 --> 00:16:36.376
Now it's time to demand
that intimate justice

00:16:36.400 --> 00:16:38.560
in their personal lives as well.

00:16:39.760 --> 00:16:40.976
Thank you.

00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:43.600
(Applause)