Byline: MEGAN TWOHEY Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
MILWAUKEE -- Heather, a 16-year-old with sandy blond hair, remembers how it felt the time she had sex on the same day with two different boys. Neither was her boyfriend.
``I felt like I was in control,'' said the Neenah, Wis., native, who like other teens interviewed for this story is being identified only by her first name. ``I felt like a player.''
Fourteen-year-old Mia of Racine, Wis., explains with pride how she uses a calculated approach to flirting and dating to extract money from multiple boys.
``I've been pimping,'' Mia said. ``I've got dudes who give me money every day.''
A lot of adults may not want to believe it, but these and other teenage girls are adopting some stereotypical ``male'' attitudes toward sex, according to reports from a national research firm and interviews with girls and officials who work with them.
They're not only casual about having sex or ``hooking up'' with multiple partners; they're proud of it, referring to themselves as ``pimps'' and ``players'' and bragging about their exploits. These girls see themselves as using sex to assert their power over boys (and girls), while liberating their gender from the stereotypical categories of virgin and whore.
But many are stripping themselves of femininity, true happiness and the ability to have healthy relationships in the process, said Deborah Hoffman, a sex education teacher and author of ``Sex and Sensibility: The Thinking Parents Guide to Talking Sense about Sex.''
Planned Parenthood says that promiscuity is helping fuel the rise of sexually transmitted diseases among teenagers -- diseases that can rob girls of the ability to bear children. There's also evidence the trend is turning dangerous in other ways, with girls sexually harassing and even assaulting boys.
``This is truly a disaster,'' Hoffman said. ``This is in no way liberation. It's dehumanizing if you're allowing people to treat you like objects, and you're treating other people like objects.''
Kieran Sawyer, executive director of the TYME OUT Youth Center, a Catholic organization in Waukesha County that runs teen programs that focus on relationships, agreed.
``Using your sexual power to use people is simply not being a good human being,'' she said.
The rise of the female player was documented in a report released in January by the marketing research firm Motivational Educational Entertainment Productions. The firm conducted 40 focus groups of 280 black teens and young adults in 10 cities, and interviewed numerous experts on sexuality, the media and public health.
``Everything is flipped,'' said a New York boy quoted in the report. ``We used to bag chicks; now they're baggin' us. Chicks got scorecards now.''
This behavior has been seen in girls from all backgrounds, according to Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, which recently completed analyzing more than a year's worth of focus groups of white, black and Hispanic youths in Milwaukee and Madison.
``Across all ethnicities, girls are trying to redefine the imbalance of power in relationships. They have this attitude of: `I'm gonna get mine, and I'm gonna dog you,''' said Lorraine Lathen, Planned Parenthood's vice president of community education.
``It's a defense mechanism,'' Lathen said. ``They want to pre-empt getting hurt first.''
Female players range from girls who have casual ``hook-ups'' that don't necessarily involve sex to those who have multiple sexual partners whom they call on regularly.
Girls who call themselves pimps have sex or simply flirt with multiple boys with the intention of getting cash, car rides or other favors from them. These girls draw satisfaction from making the boys think they are the sole recipient of their affection.
They talk openly about their conquests and the importance of satisfying their physical needs.
``I guess if you heard it, you'd probably be a little shocked. It sounds like stuff boys in a locker room would say,'' said Dan Baran, director of Professional Services, an organization that runs youth programs in Wisconsin's Kenosha, Milwaukee and Racine Counties.
``They talk about it because they think they're better or cooler for having sex,'' said Angela, a 14-year-old from Milwaukee.
Some girls even wear their attitudes on their clothing.
Sammy Rangel, a youth counselor in Racine, Wis., recalls scolding a girl who had scrawled the word pimp on her shoes.
Mia, the 14-year-old from Racine, is partial to a popular shirt and sweat pants combination that's part of a line of clothing line put out by the rapper Nelly. The shirt says: My apple bottom looking right, I know you want a bite. On the seat of the pants are pictures of two apples.
Nelly is among the male rappers who promote the player image among men. In recent years, female rappers have seized the image and made it their own.
Perhaps most prominent is the vulgar vixen Lil' Kim, who raps in graphic detail about her male conquests. Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera are among other female performers who, on stage and off, have made sexually charged behavior acceptable in the eyes of girls and boys alike.
Alecia, a 16-year-old from Neenah, said she wants to act like the male players she sees on TV because they seem powerful and in control.
``You see it on TV,'' Alecia said. ``Boys who are players have it made. Girls want to be just like that.''
But sexual activity without intimacy has left many girls feeling hollow or emotionally damaged, said Hoffman, who works with teens across the country.
Many are depressed and have no idea how to have a healthy, romantic relationship. The same goes for boys with casual and detached attitudes toward sex, she said.
``They've given away parts of themselves before they can become secure,'' Hoffman said. ``Some may never recover.''
Teenagers themselves suspect that these aggressive girls are not what they seem.
``Outwardly, there's this attitude of `I don't care, I'm having fun, too,' '' said Bridget, 18, of Milwaukee. ``But there's always a pause afterward. I think they really want more than being a player. I think they want a committed relationship.''
And boys on the other end can end up feeling used by girls, said Austin, a 16-year-old from Racine.
``If you're the guy who is not her boyfriend, you don't mind,'' he said. ``If you're dating the girl, it's not cool.''
Plus sexually active girls can still get slapped with the slut label, no matter how bold and brazen they act, Bridget, Austin and other teens said.
There are also the health risks that come with promiscuity.
The teen pregnancy rate is down across the country, but teens ages 15 to 19 who have had sex have the highest rates of sexually transmitted disease of any age group in the country. The highest rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia -- diseases that can cause infertility -- are found among girls ages 15 to 19, according to a report released in February by the University of North Carolina's School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
In certain cases, sexual aggressiveness is escalating into sexual harassment. School officials say they see more and more girls groping boys in the hallways and classrooms.
Rangel runs workshops in middle schools throughout Racine. At each school, he asks principals and assistant principals about the issues facing students.
``One hundred percent of the schools now say that girls' sexually harassing boys is the No. 1 problem,'' Rangel said.
In extreme cases, boys are getting hurt.
The Milwaukee County district attorney's office never used to see cases of teenage girls sexually assaulting boys. In the last two years, it's handled at least five such cases, assistant district attorney Lori Kornblum said. ``We're seeing more girls doing very intrusive things,'' Kornblum said.
Last year, she successfully prosecuted a 16-year-old girl who had forced a 10-year-old boy to lie down, then rubbed against him. The girl was sentenced to intense rehabilitative services, including sex offender treatment.
To counter these aggressive attitudes, Planned Parenthood is reworking the teen workshops it runs in schools and churches and through other community organizations to place greater emphasis on the importance of healthy relationships. The workshops will force girls who act like pimps and players to examine why.
``We want to ask girls who play boys: `What was the value? What do you get out of this?''' Lathen said. ``We want to help girls understand and reject the stereotypes the media projects of them so they can make positive, healthy decisions about their bodies.''
But don't expect girl players to disappear any time soon.
``What a lot of boys and a lot of adults don't understand is that the door swings both ways,'' said Lisa, 18, of Brookfield, Wis. ``It's not just boys who sometimes want something purely physical. Girls have needs too.''
