A Coming-of-Age in Bev Marshal’s ‘Saturday Confessions’

I appreciate the author’s attempt to fully submerse herself back into an adolescent mindset in order to understand the complex issues of masculinity, sexuality and gender

Joyce Carol Oates’ “Life After High School” is a story of masked identity, which the one of the main characters, Zachary, experiences. Society’s views on sexuality and what was perceived as “right” or “wrong” influence how each character develops, but as the story progresses, the characters evolve and “shed” their masks. The descriptions Oates uses for each character’s persona are crucial in order to sway the reader’s perceptions on the evolution of the character. In Zachary’s case, he hides his true sexuality. This is shown through the use of diction, imagery and symbolism.

This novel “is a book that truly speaks to adolescents in contemporary language and with teenage characters about adolescent sexuality” (Kaplan 27). Katherine is learning about her sexuality in the novel.

In an essay written by Amy Schalet, titled “The Sleep Over Question,” the author provides data from a research experiment she conducted regarding teens sexual behavior and their relationship with their parents about it. Schalet, interviews 130 white, middle class, Netherlanders about their sexual openness with their parents and how their parents react and feel toward their sexual activity. Schalet uses many crucial forms of logos, pathos, and ethos in her paper to better explain the outcomes of teens and their parents being open about sex.

Amy Tan’s short story, Fish Cheeks, outlines the general idea of self-acceptance. As the narrator, fourteen year old Tan declares her love for her minister’s son, Robert, who unlike herself, is “as white as Mary in the manger” (Tan 1). This crush is anything but healthy, primarily because Tan is reluctant to reveal her true self to him. This hesitance she portrays is strikingly recognizable in the teenagers of today’s world. Amy Tan 's story, "Fish Cheeks," is significant to the adolescents of today 's society through the overall structure, quality, and applicability of the piece as the struggle to accept oneself as an individual is still as present as it ever was.

In Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl,” the narration of a mother lecturing her daughter with sharp, commanding diction and unusual syntax, both affect the evolution of a scornful tone, that her daughter’s behavior will eventually lead her to a life of promiscuity that will affect the way people perceive her and respect her within her social circle. As well as the fact that it emphasizes expectations for young women to conform to a certain feminine ideal of domesticity as a social norm during this time and the danger of female sexuality.

The other reading of the story might be based on the maturing of a young woman. As it is probably the most important period in every adolescent's life, when they keep searching for their own identity, it should by strongly influenced by their parents. If it is not, a teenager starts looking for directions outside their home, and sometimes has difficulties with distinguishing what is good and evil. They are very often affected by

Childhood is a crucial time in a person’s life and it needs to be kept innocent and pure for the child’s well-being later in life. The most important recurring theme in the novel Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill is the loss of innocence at a young age and the profound complications later in life. The complete loss of innocence is built-up with multiple different experiences over time. For Baby, these experiences are: when she is first exposed to drug use, when she spends time in foster care and when she becomes engaged in prostitution.

This story speaks of a young teenage woman who, amid the civil rights’ movement and sexual revolution of the 1960s, is rebelling against the conservative morals and values of the 1950s and exploring her individuality and sexuality with a sense of egotism and inexperience that eventually gets her into harm’s way. Looking back, the Civil Rights movement may have been the most emotionally charged movement of the 1960s (Anderson). No other movement in United States history defines a change in culture better than the movement of the 1960s. Issues such as women’s rights, war, civil rights and the sexual revolution greatly influenced the American youth. Conservative family morals and values that predominated the 1950s were beginning to be questioned. Oates

Sexual transgression and sexual exploration is one of the most highly talked about topics in today’s society. The path to sexual liberation within society begins with experimentation and exploration, followed by personal acceptance, and finally, although not always, societal acceptance. Although we have come a long way on the path of acceptance of different sexual transgressions, the stories of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Tennessee Williams’ “Vieux Carre,” and Lyle Saxon’s “The Centaur Plays Croquet” show that this type of acceptance has not always been the case. Each story plays an integral role when looking at the steps on the path to societal acceptance. Chopin 's story dives deep into the area of experimentation and exploration, whereas Saxon 's story looks more at the areas of personal acceptance, and Williams ' story lies more along the area of societal acceptance, and whether or not acceptance is always the end result.

Innocence turns to compulsion and can’t stop. In the Shadow of Sin: The Confessions of a Sex Addict is a novel tackling the elephant in the room in 2017. Sexual addiction is THE addiction of the 21st century. Many people doubt it is real. After reading this book, you’ll have no doubt as you watch Tom’s descent into Hell. Tom Raines, a shy boy from a small Southern town, grows up in a fundamentalist church filled with hatred and hellfire. Something goes very wrong. At age fifteen, he is rescued by an older woman who shatters his concept of sex and love to the point where sex becomes love. All he wants in life is for someone to love him unconditionally, but he finds himself in many relationships, searching for a woman who won’t knock him off

In the story, Munro wrote, “He put the cake away carefully and sat beside me and started those little kisses, so soft, I can’t ever let myself think about them, such kindness in his face and lovely kisses, all over my neck and ears, all over….and we lay back on the cot and pressed together, just gently, and he did some other things, not bad things or not in a bad way.” Edie unquestionably liked Chris and made her believe she was an adult because he liked her in return. Similarly, in James Joyce’s Araby, the young boy who isn’t identified, has a crush on a girl that is around his age. However, Chris is much older than her and is aware that he’s twice, if not three times her age. In addition, Edie even admits that, “I (she) had only kissed a boy on a dare before, and kissed my (her) own arms for practice.” For that reason, Edie has never experienced anything other than a meaningless kiss and isn’t knowledgeable of the situation she is in. In the same way, the boy from Araby is inexperienced with girls and tries to impress her by going to the bazaar she wasn’t able to attend. Nevertheless, at a young age, teenagers are naive and ignorant about the process of growing up and soon enough learn from their mistakes. For instance, Mrs. Peebles tells Edie, “Calm down. Don’t get hysterical. Calm down. Stop crying. Listen to me. Listen. I’m wondering, if you know what being intimate means. Now tell me. What did you

The transitional space of adolescents, often allows for behaviors that, in adults, would be considered deviant. To reach maturity adolescents must shed these non-normative actions, and embrace the heteronormative ideal of western society. In both Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson, 1994) and Foxfire (Annette Haywood-Carter, 1996) portrayal girls exploring the deep intimacy of homosocial relationships driven by isolation and misunderstanding from the peers and families. In Heavenly Creatures, the intensity of the relationship consumes the girls, and they are trapped, unable to arrive at true adulthood and emotional maturity. However, in Foxfire the girl’s escape from the intensity homosocial world and successfully ‘grow up’.

YGY is an interesting teenage comedy take on what it is to be first exposed to sex for teenagers in a conservative catholic setting. The concept and plot are good takes on the superficiality of 90’s catholic high school morality. The idea that none of the kids think of or engage in sexual acts, coupled with the manner in which gossip spreads is quite stereotypical in the script, but necessary for the comedic aspects of the project. The characters are appropriate given their personalities, and really make the story fit into its time period, and emphasize why Alice is so uncomfortable with the sexual changes she experiences. The judgments that she faces from Tina, and Laura, despite her urges being normal, make the audience empathize with her

The mothers have an enormous duty to play in teaching their daughters the morals that are expected of them as members of their respective societies. In Wild, Ms. Strayed’s mother succumbed to cancer at the age of 45, leaving her barely 26 years old. As a result of her mother’s untimely death, she completely changed lifestyle. From an independent point of view, she completely lost her sense of morality as a result of her grief over the loss of her mother. She started sleeping around with random men. The author introduces humor to show that she realized she had slept with too many men that counting them would be a