PRUDE AWAKENING: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF RECENT PRESCRIPTIVE ABSTINENCE TEXTS by ERIN E. WRIGHT B.A., Truman State University, 2000 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Society, Culture, and Politics in Education) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) July, 2009 © Erin E. Wright, 2009 ii ABSTRACT In the last few years, a number of abstinence-oriented, secular, popular press prescriptive texts focusing on young women’s sexual practices have been published. Using Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis, I analyze discourses of sexuality present in these texts and explore how these texts converge and diverge with the broader U.S. abstinence movement. My analysis demonstrates that the prescriptive texts mirror a version of sexuality associated with both the abstinence movement and the Christian Right: one that is biologically- or spiritually-based, natural, gendered, oppositional, heterosexual, powerful, fixed, and in women only, virtually unable to overcome without negative effects. In this view, sex is dangerous and damaging to young woman as individuals and to society as a whole. The prescriptive texts diverge from the abstinence movement in important ways, primarily through their embrace of Girl Power discourses. The ways in which Girl Power is used reveal engagements with feminism absent from the abstinence movement, and also highlight neoliberal dimensions of subjectivity and success similarly missing from the wider abstinence movement. The prescriptive texts’ authors use neoliberal Girl Power discourses to link young women’s sexual practices with success, which allows the authors to construct abstinence as an empowering intervention in young women’s lives. This is in tension with the abstinence movement, where abstinence is a matter of avoiding harm rather than achieving good. I conclude that these divergences suggest the books constitute a distinct trend within the movement, which I call “New Victorianism.” Other scholars have used New Victorianism to refer to a post-World War II shift in social relations in which women returned to the private sphere of the home, essentialized as wives and mothers, and I argue that the New Victorian books similarly construct girls in the 21st century as iii “mothers-in-waiting.” However, I also use the term to signal the New Victorian authors’ use of neoliberal Girl Power discourses that allows them to celebrate girls’ achievements and advocate for a conservative, individualist agenda at the same time. iv Table of Contents Abstract........................................................................................................................................ii Table of Contents........................................................................................................................iv List of Tables...............................................................................................................................vi Acknowledgements....................................................................................................................vii Chapter One: Introduction.........................................................................................................1 Research Questions.......................................................................................................................3 Contextual Notes...........................................................................................................................4 Thesis Structure...........................................................................................................................10 Chapter Two: Theoretical Orientation and Methodology.....................................................12 Theoretical Orientation................................................................................................................12 Critical Discourse Analysis....................................................................................................12 Discourse and Social Life..................................................................................................14 Girls’ Studies..........................................................................................................................18 Reviving Ophelia...............................................................................................................18 Girl Power.........................................................................................................................23 Methodology................................................................................................................................27 Qualitative Document Analysis..............................................................................................27 Analytical Processes...............................................................................................................31 Chapter Three: Echoes of Evangelicalism..............................................................................37 Evangelical Christianity and the U.S. Teen Abstinence Movement...........................................38 Christian Abstinence Programs..............................................................................................40 Secular Abstinence Programs.................................................................................................42 Leaders...................................................................................................................................44 Convergences Around Sexuality.................................................................................................46 Sex..........................................................................................................................................46 Sexuality.................................................................................................................................49 Male Sexuality........................................................................................................................50 Female Gatekeeping...............................................................................................................51 Female Sexuality....................................................................................................................54 Gender Roles..........................................................................................................................61 Heterosexuality.......................................................................................................................63 v Chapter Four: Engagements with Feminism..........................................................................67 Overview.....................................................................................................................................67 Authors’ Relationships with Feminism..................................................................................67 Feminist Alternatives..............................................................................................................72 Text Analysis...............................................................................................................................73 From Unhooked......................................................................................................................73 From Prude.............................................................................................................................77 Chapter Five: Neoliberal Discourses and Subjectivities........................................................82 Abstinence and Neoliberal Success.............................................................................................82 Subject Characteristics in the Prescriptive Texts...................................................................85 Text Analysis...............................................................................................................................88 From Unhooked......................................................................................................................88 From Girls Gone Mild............................................................................................................95 Chapter Six: Conclusion.........................................................................................................102 New Victorianism......................................................................................................................102 Future Research Directions.......................................................................................................107 References................................................................................................................................109 Appendix A...............................................................................................................................119 Appendix B...............................................................................................................................120 Appendix C...............................................................................................................................122 Appendix D...............................................................................................................................124 vi List of Tables Table