A New York Times Bestseller Award-winning Vanity Fair writer Nancy Jo Sales crisscrossed the country talking to more than two hundred girls between the ages of thirteen and nineteen about their experiences online and off. They are coming of age online in a hypersexualized culture that has normalized extreme behavior, from pornography to the casual exchange of nude photographs; a culture rife with a virulent new strain of sexism; a culture in which teenagers are spending so much time on technology and social media that they are not developing basic communication skills. The dominant force in the lives of girls coming of age in America today is social media: Instagram, Whisper, Vine, Youtube, Kik, Ask.fm, Tinder. Provocative, explosive, and urgent, American Girls will ignite much-needed conversation about how we can help our daughters and sons negotiate the new social and sexual norms that govern their lives.

After the gardener spanks her bottom and a nun at her elite finishing school seduces her in the catacombs, Bella realises that sex was what she was born for. She adores wearing a dildo and deflowering virgins just as much as she adores indulging the roguish Christian Thomas with his addiction to fruit salads and bondage. Then Bella's world comes tumbling down. She learns that her beloved Ickham Manor doesn't belong to her, it belongs to her wicked stepfather. Sex has been fun. Now it is the weapon she uses to put her world back together again. Bella entraps her stepfather in a lewd act on video. She stars in a porn flick and, as her song on the soundtrack makes her a tabloid celebrity, Bella is at the beginning of an erotic ride into the showbiz world of pain and perversion, of domination and glorious submission.

From playground games of " chase and kiss" to rough-and-tumble soccer games, from slumber party stripteases to romantic fantasies behind closed doors, author Sharon Lamb coaxes out girls' true stories with uncommon sensitivity and focus. The result of more than 125 fascinating interviews with pre-teens, teenagers, and adult women, The Secret Lives of Girls reveals the ways that girls use their minds and bodies for private sexual play, mischief, and hidden aggression. To truly understand what little girls are made of, Lamb suggests, we must listen not only to what they say to us but also to what they don't say, taking into account their hidden selves and the lives that we adults don't see. Yes, girls are known to be " good, " but they manage to act out in decidedly ungirlish ways and, despite many parents' fears, be the better for it. What's most remarkable about Lamb's conclusions is that we needn't join the chorus of voices deploring a " girl-poisoning" culture for damaging our daughters. Instead, Lamb finds reason to celebrate girls' resilience in the face of pressures to conform -- and she does it by l

In The Secret Lives of Teen Girls, Evelyn Resh, the mother of a teenage daughter and a certified nurse-midwife specializing in the treatment of teenage girls, explores the mysterious world of female, adolescent sexuality and how parents-especially mothers-can help their daughters through this tumultuous time. Secrets divulged by teenage girls during consultation have made Resh realize that, with rare exception, most adolescents are left to develop a sexual identity without any adult guidance and often without the most basic knowledge of what is happening to them physically and emotionally. She also realized that many girls are frequently subject to criticism and shaming about their normal, adolescent behavior. Resh believes these issues are what underlie many of the problems teens face during this crucial step into becoming a fully developed adult woman capable of making good, sound, safe, and independent decisions throughout life. Through compelling, frank, and sometimes humorous stories from both Resh and her patients, The Secret Lives of Teenage Girls explains to parents just what is going on with their teenage daughters during this essential phase of their development. She discusses many of the complicated problems she's seen in practice, including not just sexual activity but also eating disorders, substance abuse, mental illness, unplanned pregnancies, violence, and STDs. She also looks at less serious but still troubling issues like under-achievement, battles with parents, and lack of emotional and social support. In this insightful book, Resh provides parents with the tools to help their teen daughters negotiate the waters of their sexual development and emerge with their strength, their sexuality, and their self image intact.

Performed by an ensemble of young women, EMOTIONAL CREATURE is made up of original monologues—and irresistible songs—about and for girls. Placing their stories squarely center stage, it gives full expression to their secret voices and innermost thoughts, highlighting the diversity and commonality of the issues they face. EMOTIONAL CREATURE is a call, a reckoning, an education, an act of empowerment for girls, and an illumination for parents and for us all. Eve Ensler’s Emotional Creature is a vehicle to empower girls and inspire their activism. V-Girls is a global network of girl activists and advocates. In the same way The Vagina Monologues built a movement on college campuses and in communities, young girls will be able to participate in V-Day’s empowerment philanthropy model, igniting their activism through V-Girls. V-Girls is rooted in youth-driven activism. A V-Girls Action Guide provides service-learning curriculum for middle and high school youth based on issues covered in Emotional Creature, with an emphasis on activism. Organizers can start a V-Girls club or incorporate V-Girls resources into an existing youth program.

When her grandmother has a stroke, Dora returns to the small town where she grew up to take over her family's vintage clothing store -- and meets a handsome contractor. Is he interested in Dora? Or is he working from a different blueprint? Dora has always taken the path of least resistance. She went to the college that offered her a scholarship, majoring in "vagueness studies," and wears whatever shows the least dirt. She falls into a job at the college coffee shop and has a crush on her flirty boss, Gary. But just when she's about to test Gary's feelings, Mimi, the grandmother who raised her, suffers a stroke. Dora rushes back to Forsyth, NC, and finds herself running her grandmother's vintage clothing store while her grandmother recovers -- andmeets Mimi's adorable contractor, Conrad. The store has always been a fixture in Dora's life; though she grew up more of a jeans-and-sweatshirt kind of girl, before she even knew how to write, Mimi taught her that a vintage 1920s dress could lift a woman's spirit. But why has Mimi started writing down -- and giving away -- stories of the dresses in her shop? Amidst personal and professional turmoil, can Dora can trade her boring clothes for vintage glamour and her boring life for one she actually wants?