Girls’ Experiences of Unwanted

Intercourse and Unintentional

Adolescent Pregnancy: A
Retrospective Study
It struck me that a lot of the coverage
talked about choices. There was much
hand-wringing over the ‘poor choices’
girls were making about having sex,
getting pregnant, and keeping their
babies. In fact, after her child was born,
Bristol Palin became a spokesperson for
the abstinence movement, encouraging
teenagers to “just say no” to sex until
they are married.

Several recent media events got me

thinking about adolescent pregnancy.
First, the movie “Juno” was released in
2007 followed, in 2008, by news
coverage of the so-called ‘pregnancy
pact’ at the high school in Gloucester,
Massachusetts. At that same time, there
was a media storm over Jamie Lynn
Spears’ teenage pregnancy and, later that
summer, the uproar over Bristol Palin’s
The more I talked with other women
pregnancy.
about these stories, the more I thought
about this idea of choice. I wanted to
find out more about how much choice
“18 pregnant girls really have in these matters, even
when they are in relationships of their
schoolgirls” own choosing. My research challenges
the notion of choice, asking the question:

Do girls have meaningful choice

in matters of sexuality and
reproduction?

________________________________
_____
“US town reeling
in shame”

Sexual Choice
In the 1980s, while interviewing women
about their experiences of sexual
violence, Liz Kelly found it useful to
think about a ‘continuum’ of sexual
violence.
The concept of a continuum shows how
different sexual experiences are related;
from consensual sex to pressure, to
coercion, to force, one blends into
another. The continuum has proven
useful in at least two ways. First, it can
help women describe experiences which
don’t easily fit one description or
another; for example, when what started
as a mutually consensual experience
ended with a woman being forced to
engage in intercourse. Second, any point
on the continuum can help women
describe her specific experience. This
can be useful when a label such as rape
or even consensual sex is not a good
description of how she sees her
experience.
If you have seen my questionnaire, it
will probably be clear that my research
focuses on the point on the continuum
closest to mutually consensual sex, often
referred to as unwanted consensual sex.
Some scholars have defined this as:
sex that the girl does not desire but
feels pressured to participate in, that
does not involve either the threat of
or direct force or violence, and that
she appears to consent to or, at least,
does not obviously resist (Gavey
1992, 326; Kelly 1987, 55-58) and
that takes place within “potentially
appropriate” heterosexual
relationships; relationships that
women might choose to have with,
for example, a boyfriend, lover,
partner, or date (Estrich 1987, quoted
in Gavey 2005, 38).
Of course females can and do pressure
males to have sex. But this is less
common and tends to be different than
when males pressure females. This issue
has been, and continues to be, studied by
other researchers.
_____________
Why should we care about girls’
experiences of unwanted sex?
Some possible consequences for girls
and women are:
• Psychological and
emotional - Some girls are upset or
disturbed by these experiences.
These effects might be brief or on-
going.
• Further coercive sexual
experiences - Some research
indicates that having early
experiences of unwanted sex leads to
more experiences of a similar nature
in later life.
• Physical health –
Unwanted sex can lead to health
risks such as exposure to sexually
transmitted infections.
• Pregnancy – And, of
course, intercourse can cause
pregnancy. Importantly, some
research suggests that unwanted
intercourse more likely to cause
 pregnancy than intercourse that is
wanted.

________________________________
_____
The Girls’ Sexual Experiences Survey

So the questionnaire that you so generously answered will begin to answer some of the
following questions:

1. How many girls have experienced unwanted sex within relationships that they
chose? And what were the circumstances of those experiences?

2. Did some girls experience this more than other girls?

3. Is there a relationship between unwanted intercourse and unintentional adolescent

pregnancy? That is, were girls who experienced unwanted intercourse more or
less likely to get pregnant, when they didn’t want to, than the girls who didn’t?

4. And, of course, how might future studies be improved?

The results will be posted as soon as they are available. Please check back. They should
be ready by June.

Thanks again, so much, for sharing your experiences and supporting this project.

Sincerely,
Anita Shaw, M.A. (candidate), UNBC