Flirting with Danger: Young Womens
Reflections on Sexuality and
Domination (Qualitative Studies in
Psychology) by Lynn Phillips
An Important Book
In Flirting with Danger, Lynn M. Phillips explores how young women make
sense of, resist, and negotiate conflicting cultural messages about sexual
agency, responsibility, aggression, and desire. How do women develop
their ideas about sex, love, and domination? Why do they express feminist
views condemning male violence in the abstract, but often adamantly
refuse to name their own violent and exploitive encounters as abuse, rape,
or victimization? Based on in-depth individual and collective interviews
with a racially and culturally diverse sample of college-aged women,
Flirting with Danger sheds valuable light on the cultural lenses through
which young women interpret their sexual encounters and their
experiences of male aggression in heterosexual relationships. Phillips

makes an important contribution to the fields of female and adolescent
sexuality, feminist theory, and feminist method. The volume will also be of
particular use to advocates seeking to design prevention and intervention
programs which speak to the complex needs of women grappling with
questions of sexuality and violence.
Personal Review: Flirting with Danger: Young Womens
Reflections on Sexuality and Domination (Qualitative Studies in
Psychology) by Lynn Phillips
Lynn Phillips has written a marvelously important book! One of the most
salient reasons why my young women students reject the label "feminist" is
because they associate it with victimhood. The desire to not be a victim,
but to be a powerful agent, is enormously strong among all of us -- but it is
particularly pointed among today's college-age women.Phillips bases her
book on a series of interviews with an ethnically, culturally, economically
and sexually diverse group of female college students. Her book provides
extended quotations from these young women on the subject of sexuality,
desire, and victimhood. The overriding point is that these young women
are forced to embrace some profound contradictions: to be both "good
girls" (demure, pleasing to men and/or families) and "together women" (in
control of their own sexualities, autonomous, and definitely NOT victims).
These young women often report longing for emotional intimacy, physical
pleasure, and connection -- but the sexual encounters they recount rarely
provided that for which they were searching. Despite living in an age of
liberation, a generation removed from the 1960s, these young women,
according to Phillips, are profoundly ambivalent about their sexual
freedom. The ambivalence is rooted in a couple of areas: first, a "damned
if you do, damned if you don't" mentality; they are convinced that no matter
what sexual choices they make, they will disappoint someone. Secondly,
Phillips notes that these young women often report with pride their
"mastery of the male body". But most are aware that there is a colossal
distinction between developing a skill set that enables them to "soothe"
men sexually, and actually enjoying sex with these young men for its own
sake.A sure-fire discussion starter, this book is excellent for use in gender
studies or sexuality courses.
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