It’s Time to Accept Teens’ Sexuality

The article titled “Hungry for Love” proved one point: The double standard is alive and well. Showing an interest in sex is considered healthy for a teen-age boy, but it is deviant behavior in teen-age girls, a sign that there is a lack of love and attention at home.

Television producers especially perpetuate the portrayal of teen-age girls as compliant and naive cutie-pies disgusted by and afraid of sexual overtures, save for Kelly Bundy (of Fox’s “Married . . . With Children”), who was obliged to trade in her intelligence to portray a cleavage-revealing wiggly walking airhead. Will I ever live to see the portrayal of a sexually expressive teen-age girl who is also a leader and a scholar?

Teen-age females have no socially acceptable outlet for their sexual curiousity. They face the dilemma of having to chose between being a “bad” sexually active girl or a “good” sexually repressed girl. What a choice.

This archaic “forbidden fruit” attitude about sex can only result in the continuation of unplanned pregnancies and disrupted family relationships. If only this society would embrace our daughters’ sexual nature. We must allow the unrestricted availability of reliable contraceptives and provide information about human sexuality to our teen-agers. Ignorance has proven to be a lousy method of birth control.

BEVERLY J. SCHNEIDER

Van Nuys