Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape

According to the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, LGBTQ teens experience three times the amount of cyberbullying as straight teens do. Nonetheless, many queer teens find their communities online, especially if they aren’t out in real life. More than 10% of queer teens come out online before they do to people they know in real life.

Amber created male avatars in the games Second Life and The Sims as a kid, and then began talking to and flirting with girls in the games. Orenstein observes that sexual orientation isn’t just about sex, but about social and emotional relatedness and connection. Amber got this from her male game avatars, and she also created a MySpace account where she posed as a boy and flirted with girls online.

In her real life, though, Amber felt like she was posing as a girl. She wound up with a boyfriend who initiated sexual activities she didn’t want to do at all, but she didn’t say no, and he misinterpreted her passivity as consent. Many of the queer girls Orenstein met had a history of trying to pass as straight. Eventually, Amber met her girlfriend Hannah when she looked online for a lesbian community.