From girls into women: Scripts for sexuality and romance inseventeenmagazine, 1974–1994

Abstract

Drawing on the scripting approach to sexual behavior, I use a combination of quantitative and qualitative content analysis to evaluate 244 articles on sexuality and romance from Seventeen, a teen magazine. I highlight changes and continuities in the magazine's depiction of sexuality from 1974 to 1994. Over this period, the variety of sexual scripts available in Seventeen expanded to recognize female desire, ambivalence about sexuality, homosexuality, masturbation, oral sex, and even recreational sexual activity. However, Seventeen's editors generally resolved controversies in ways that reinforced dominant gender and sexual norms. Sexual scripts in popular media may have profound real‐life effects. Young women who encounter scripts that acknowledge their own experiences may be more receptive to messages about practicing safer sex. In addition, young women who are encouraged to balance sexuality and romance with other aspects of life may get a head start on important developmental processes. But to the extent that magazine editors favor traditional sexual scripts, they may discourage challenges to the sexual and gender status quo, on both individual and collective levels.