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Max Martinez
Amelia Duffy-Tumasz
Expository Writing 101
22 September 2014
Exploring Female Sexuality
Exploring ones sexuality as a young woman in todays world can be an exciting yet
confusing time. It is a time for women to begin exploring their own sexuality in how they dress,
talk, and act. For most women however, it is a very confusing time. Women are taught by society
that it is acceptable for them to put off starting a family because they have an equal opportunity
to pursue a career. This is something that would have been unheard of forty or fifty years ago.
According to Leslie Bell in her essay, Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox
of Sexual Freedom, she describes the confusion that women face when they are trying to
embrace their sexuality. Bell talks about many young women and the struggles they faced when
embracing their sexuality.
Bell begins her essay by talking about one of her patients, Claudia, who had just had a
one night stand and was clearly embarrassed. I wish I werent so horny, stated Claudia in a
conversation with Bell. I wish I could take a pill to kill my desire. (Bell 25) Claudia is a
twenty-eight year old student who is on the verge of getting her Ph. D. There is no reason why a
woman with such potential be embarrassed for trying to satisfy a physical need. However,
society makes her feel like she is promiscuous, or a slut, a widely used term that describes

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women who have multiple sexual partners. Her upbringing, which is one of a Mexican-Catholic
background, has taught her that having multiple sexual partners is wrong, and something to be
ashamed of. Claudia was afraid of what her sexuality was going to bring her, a lifetime of
meaningless sex and hollow relationships with men. Bell continues her analysis of that
conversation with Claudia by stating, This is not the outcome Claudias feminist foremothers
dreamed of for her Their [women] twenties ought to be a decade of freedom and exploration.
(26)
Bell continues to talk about The Paradox of Sexual Freedom. She talks about how
women have to mature from children and teenagers into full blown adults, with real world
problems, such as economic struggles, education, and sexuality. Instead of feeling free, twentysomething women are weighed down by vying cultural notions about the kind of sex and
relationships they should be having in their twenties. (26) In this quote, Bell is describing how
women are confused by all the stereotypes they are exposed to in the world. Be assertive, but
not aggressive. Be feminine, but not too passive. Be sexually adventurous, but dont alienate
men with your sexual prowess. Be honest and open, but dont overwhelm someone with too
much personal information. (26) Women are equal to men, but culture teaches them that
although they may have a college degree, they should still eventually settle down and become a
housewife.
Strategies of Desire, as described by Bell, are the way that a woman can act upon their
desire for sex. There are three types of strategies as described by Bell: The Sexual Woman, The
Relational Woman, and The Desiring Woman. Each of these strategies depends on each

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individual woman and how they were raised, as well as past experiences. The Sexual Woman is
confident in the fact that she knows what she is looking for sexually, but is afraid of commitment
and that getting into a relationship will make her lose her sense of identity. The Relational
Woman, unlike the sexual woman is uncomfortable with her sexuality. She is afraid that if she
tells her partner how strong her sexual desire is, she will make her partner uncomfortable. But
she knows perfectly what she wants with a relationship. The Desiring woman knows exactly
what she wants out of both relationships and sex. She is comfortable expressing her desire for
both. (30-31)
Leslie Bell studies women through interviews as well as through her psychology practice.
In a passage of her essay, she writes about a woman named Jayanthi, The Bad Girl. Jayanthi is
in the category of Sexual Women. She uses sex to rebel to her family, who had very strong
feelings that Jayanthi should be married at a young age to conform to her familys beliefs.
However, Jayanthi, being a Sexual Woman, was afraid of losing who she was if she was in a
relationship, so she constantly reverted to being the Bad Girl. This left her with feeling
played by men and empty. (31) Bell states: I found that the real-life experience of being the
bad girl was often not so much fun. Instead, this approach sometimes left the women I studied
feeling unhappy and numb. (31) This proves that The Sexual Woman approach to life, although
may be easier for women, is not always the best choice for ones self-esteem.
Sexuality is a big part of any persons life. Whether they want to dress in tight clothing,
or conservatively. It can bring about many confusions in a young persons life. Who they want to

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be, what type of relationships they choose to partake in, or even as simple as to what type of
clothing they wear. Actions dictate how one wants to be perceived by others; however that may
be. If someone wants to be perceived as conservative, they may instead of dressing in tight,
bright colored clothing, they may dress in darker colors that are not as revealing. Jayanthi, for
example, was a very exorbitant woman. She spoke very fast and seems to be very passionate
about what she holds dear in her heart. Bell stated that she felt surprised when Jayanthi revealed
to her that she, Jayanthi, the woman who presented herself as a very confident woman, was
worried about having a relationship. (32) She goes on to state that her first physical and
emotional connection with a man turned out to be very bad. Jayanthi, stated once again that she
felt played by the man who she was with. (32) This experience left Jayanthi scarred, because
she was taught that when she is eighteen, she should experiment with relationships and sexuality,
yet she still had her heart broken. And to top it all off, Jayanthi still had pressure from her entire
family that she should follow tradition and get married. This caused Jayanthi a great deal of
confusion, and eventually caused her to burn out and she began what Bell described as a
sexual frenzy. Jayanthi eventually found herself maturing however, and became what Bell
calls, a bad girl in control. (36) This however did not mean that she entered a meaningful
relationship, she instead became the player. Jayanthi began using men just like they had
previously used her, making the sex she was having more pleasurable for her, but still not a real
emotional relationship.
Being a Bad Girl is not the answer to balancing sex and relationships, but neither is
being a Good Girl. (37) Bells example of a good girl, was a woman named Alicia. She tried

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being a good girl in order to escape troubles that had plagued her family for years. Like Jayanthi,
Alicia sought to rebel against her family and what was expected of her. But unlike her Bad
Girl counter-part, she was a rebel by being a good girl. She put off having sex in order to buy
time to get an education and more meaningful relationships. (37) Bell describes Alicia as
spunky. This is because she was petite, pretty, and full of energy. In order to help her, Alicias
father did not allow her to date during high school. (39) However, Alicias parents did not only
try to help her, they set her back too. Alicias father abused her, both physically and sexually,
probably causing Alicia to have a skewed sense of what sexual relationships with men should be.
She was also a victim of date-rape in college, even further expanding on the idea that sex with
men are bad. She finally engaged in sexual intercourse at the age of twenty-five, until then, even
though her previous unwilling sexual experiences, she considered herself a virgin. (40) Alicia is
the epitome of a Relational Woman, who knew and was comfortable with relationships, but
uncomfortable expressing her sexuality with people, afraid that she either was going to get hurt,
or make her partner uncomfortable.
Before she began her research, Leslie Bell assumed that when interviewing women, they
were going to describe the good times they had had while in their early twenties. She was wrong
however. She quickly realized that most women face a conflicting sense of self when it comes to
sex. Many women know what they look for in sex, while most do not. They do not know if they
are looking for a quick fling, or a steady partner. This is a conflict that many young women
today face. Bell through interviews and research came to the conclusion that The Desiring

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Woman is the type of approach that should be taken when it comes to sexuality and relationships.
Women have to figure out a way to be able to feel confident and comfortable in relationships and
in sex, as they are both vital parts of any young persons life.

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Works Cited
Bell, Leslie C. Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom. 5th
ed.
Stamford: Cengage Learning, 2014. Print.