'Normal' teenage girls and the position of the fortnight: adult recollections of teenage magazine reading

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‘Normal’ teen girls & the position of the fortnightAdult recollections of teenage magazine reading

Elizabeth LovegroveSchool of Arts @ejlovegrove



Age of respondents27-3940-4950-5960-69



Gender of respondentsFemaleOther



Gender of respondents‘I think I first encountered the concept of transgender from that genre of magazines - at the time, I'd read articles, think “maybe I'm like that, some of that's familiar… no, not really likely” and forget about it. Actually exploring this had to wait for a decade or two.

(Your gender question: I was assigned male at birth, present mostly but not exclusively as male, and tend to freeze up like a rabbit in the headlights when asked what I _am_).’



Gender of respondents

‘Later, I gave my collection to a girlfriend (a trans woman who felt she'd missed out on a proper girlhood).’



Which magazines?

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25

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75

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J17 More! Mizz Bliss Sugar 19 Jackie Shout Blue Jeans Minx



• Did you ever write in to the problem page or letters page in any teen magazine?

• What was your letter about? Did you get an answer, either in print or by post?

• Was there anything particular you learnt from reading magazines?

• Do you remember anything about agreeing or disagreeing with content presented in magazines?

• Did you share your magazine reading with friends or family members?

• Is there anything else you'd like to say about your teenage-magazine-reading experience?



Writing letters to magazines

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No detailsLetters (implied) not publishedPublished on problem pagePublished on letters page



Writing letters to magazines

• ‘[I sent] a drawing of Jarvis Cocker. It was published.’

• ‘I wrote in when my parents were considering fostering, and I had an answer in print.’

• ‘[A letter about] A crush on a female teacher. It was printed along with a reply.’



Was there anything particular you learnt from reading magazines?



Sex and relationships• Just Seventeen: ‘To be sussed is a

must, but sex under 16 is illegal’

• More! ‘Position of the fortnight’

More! magazine 23 May 1995



What I learnt…

• ‘How to kiss well (honestly!), which I learned from an article about your first kiss; I think it was in Just Seventeen.’



What I learnt…• ‘Loads of naughty things to do in the

bedroom with your boyfriend.’ • ‘I learnt the word ‘orgasm’ in magazines,

and an awful lot of tips for pleasuring boys. Disturbing considering the age bracket…’

• ‘Some basic stuff about sex, and at the time I thought I was gaining an insight into how ‘it all worked’ - though it also sort of scared me… now I think that I was being indoctrinated with a particular view of sex :-(’



What I learnt…• ‘Just Seventeen in particular shaped a lot of

my thinking about sex and boyfriends. There was a huge emphasis on the idea that it's never OK for someone to pressure you to have sex.’

• ‘Lots of sex ed, especially the mantras about ‘waiting until you were ready’ and going to the Brook Advisory Clinic [although] I was often frustrated by the content not being useful to me. In particular, there was no Brook Advisory Clinic in my neighbourhood.’



No other source of information



What I learnt…• ‘A lot about safe sex and healthy relationships. I

never got anything like that from my parents or school so it was really invaluable.’

• ‘Far, far more about sex and relationships than I would otherwise have known; safe sex, healthy relationship advice that no-one else was giving.’

• ‘That pretty much every teenager has questions they don't know the answers to, and it's easier to read a magazine than ask parents, especially when it comes to questions about sex!’



How to be normal



What I learnt…• That I don't have much in common

with most teenage girls.

• That I wasn't really the target audience. For example I remember advice for period pain in Just 17 being to get your boyfriend to rub your back. I would be 17 before I had a boyfriend.



What I learnt…• How to be cool. How to be a socially

acceptable girl.

• Basic knowledge of pop culture so I could pretend to be cool, how to do makeup, basic social skills

• Ideas of what it's like to be a teenager before I was one. How to pass as straight!



‘Cool’ = ‘normal

• ‘I knew it was fairly fake, but I liked looking at the models. I think I would have agreed back then that the models’ bodies were representative of what most people’s bodies look like. Now I am astonished to have thought that.’



What I learnt…• That it was ok to be myself and not

succumb to peer pressure.

• I loved reading the letters page and getting advice about issues and concerns that I felt were similar to my own.

• Most teenagers have very similar issues and problems



Agreeing and disagreeing



• Not particularly encouraging reading for an obese teenager grappling with her lesbian identity...

• Heteronormativity. No representation of disability. • Sugar did a model search and picked just one

semi-nonwhite girl - I thought this was disappointing as the girl could have passed for an Italian vs being visibly nonwhite. Didn't like the fact all the girls looked v.similar - white, conventionally attractive, tall, obviously heterosexual, no piercings or tattoos.

• I found the fashion pages faintly ridiculous, and, as a chubby teen, rather alienating.

• I found the emphasis on getting a boyfriend, makeup and pop music rather depressing - I enjoyed reading and wasn't very interested in boys and the magazines didn't really reflect that.



• ‘Unfortunately, critical examination came much, much, much later.’

• ‘I didn't really know how to read this critically, I just absorbed everything.’

• ‘I just took it all as gospel, which is a bit horrifying when I look back.’



Sharing with friends



Sharing with friends

• ‘We all loved spending our pocket money on them and poring over them at school break times!’

• ‘On the school bus we used to swap magazines, boys also especially used to want to look at the ‘older’ ones.’



Sharing with family• ‘My mum had an open mind but sometimes

thought the content of Mizz and More! were a little adult for a 13 or 14 year old, but she still didn't stop me reading and expected I'd judge what was right.’

• ‘My mum always wanted to read them butIi was sometimes embarrassed to know she was reading what I had read about sex, and the pictures in More! magazine of sex positions! I used to tear those pages out before she read them which sounds ridiculous now.’



Not sharing with family• ‘Not family, who would have been horrified

at the content.’

• ‘No, not after my mother spotted Position of the Fortnight in More! when I was about thirteen!’

• ‘No, because my father actually didn't want me to read them. He thought I would learn unhealthy things from them. (He was right.)’



• ‘A pub near me has wallpapered the ladies’ toilets with issues of Just Seventeen I remember reading. It was amazing to read the articles back: they seem so naive and hopeful. The style advice was dubious and the how to talk to boys tips even worse but the warm feeling rereading was amazing.’


'Normal' teenage girls and the position of the fortnight: adult recollections of teenage magazine reading

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