Introduction
Today's teenagers are caught in the throes of a startling and dynamic sexual revolution. Sexual subjects which were once considered taboo in American society are now openly and frankly discussed. Exponents of free love, gay-liberation movements, and champions of sexual equality bombard the confused teenager from all directions. Today's X-rated movies are explicit in their treatments of conventional and unorthodox sexual practices. Both heterosexual and homosexual relationships are dealt with in vivid detail. Television programs, advertisements, and publications have greatly relaxed their sexual codes and censorship is rapidly fading as the once-forbidden subjects involving various sexual techniques and practices, and their resultant carnal pleasures, are freely discussed in today's more relaxed sexual climate.
This new candor and emphasis on the joys of sex has the modern teenager trapped in a web of confusion. The impact of this new frankness and explicitness of hitherto unmentionable topics is often staggering in its intensity. Swept up in a time of change and uncertainty, of altering and often ambiguous moralistic codes and values, today's teenage girl is faced with problems that often prove overwhelming in their magnitude.
Unlike the young girls of generations past, the modern teenage girl has no sharp delineation of what is right and wrong to which she can turn to for guidance. She is forced to find solutions for sexual problems that did not exist for those before her. In years past, the difference between acceptable and unacceptable sexual behavior was clearly defined and society ostracized those who broke the rules. Loss of virginity before marriage was severely condemned and girls who failed to remain chaste paid dearly for their alleged misconduct.
But that was yesterday and despite the fact that many are shocked by the changing climate prevalent in modern times, we cannot turn back the hands of time. Today's sexually enlightened teenagers are not the unsophisticated innocents of yesteryear.
Medical research and scientific gains have stripped away the fear of unwanted pregnancy. Many forms of contraception are easily obtained and readily available. The legalization of abortion in many states offers an added margin of safety for the uninformed or careless sexually active female. A teenage girl no longer pays the former price for engaging in pre-marital intercourse. Should she not wish to terminate an unexpected pregnancy, she does not suffer the social stigma of generations past. Even celebrities conceive out of wedlock and thrust their swollen bellies proudly.
Today's young girls, therefore, undergo enormous pressures from within and from without. No longer able to use the fear of pregnancy as an excuse to refrain from sexual experimentation, enticed by the lure that sex is the panacea for all frustrations, they are forced to decide what is morally right for them as individuals. Some teenage girls indulge in sex out of curiosity but others do so for more complex reasons.
Teenage girls sometimes permit sexual liberties in the hope of gaining newfound popularity with the opposite sex. Others turn to sex for far different motives. Feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, and loneliness are common causes. Sexual promiscuity is often an unconscious way of rebelling against the pressures of today's society or lashing out, in secret retaliation, at parents or guardians who have hurt them.
Some girls indulge in sexual experimentation, then go on to achieve healthy satisfying adult relationships with the opposite sex. Others, however, are not so fortunate. Some girls become sexually promiscuous from neurotic compulsion. Motivated by deep-rooted feelings that they are unaware of, they seek sexual partners voraciously and indiscriminately. Driven by inner forces over which they have no control, they engage in a never-ending, compulsive quest for sexual gratification, but their true needs go unsatisfied.
Often striving, desperately, to compensate for a lack of parental love, they search for that which was denied them with every sexual encounter. Because the sexually promiscuous teenage girl is seeking to fulfill an emotional need through a physical act, her frantic quest goes on. Only when she is able to come face-to-face with her true need-the desire to be loved-will that which constantly eludes her be attained.
It is the hope of the publisher that this new novel, A Babysitter's Hunger, by famed author Andrea Michaels, will shed new light on this growing problem in today's society, that it will enlighten you, the reader, to the tremendous pressures facing today's teenagers. Unfortunately, promiscuous behavior is often condemned instead of understood. Perhaps the story of Bonnie Mae Owens will enable you to look upon the promiscuous teenage girl as a tormented individual driven by forces that she can neither comprehend nor control, to see her as she really is ... an unhappy girl who needs not censure but compassion and understanding.
--The Publisher