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WHAT MATTERS
AMONG BEST FRIENDS THE HITE REPORT Byline: SHERE HITE Almost all girls say that they have a special relationship with another girl, writes SHERE HITE . In this extract from her new book, The Hite Report on the Family, some of the 3,000 respondents to the author's questionnaire discuss the essence of a good friendship. FORTUNATELY, if most girls can't talk to their parents, they do have friends, or usually a "best friend", to whom they can confide everything. Almost all girls say that they had a special relationship with another girl, a great relationship they love to describe. One respondent said: "We talked on the phone every day for hours, about everything. Some of our most open talks were at 3am. We spent hours on the phone or out on the beach under the sun, especially when the guys we had our eyes on were there. We also had lots of fun roller-skating. We discussed how to ask a guy to wear a condom and how to get out of taking drugs guys offered us without looking uncool." Another said: "My best friend was even closer to me than my boyfriend. We talked every night on the phone about guys, sex, and being fat - although we weren't fat | We baked cookies at least three times a week and gossiped over the bowl of dough. We were inseparable: we snow-mobiled, skied, swam, explored the woods, drove, sunbathed and got drunk together (when we had a crisis, like flunked an exam, dented the car, had to make a trip to the dentist). It was wonderful." Almost all girls, describing their relationship with their best friend, say that with her they feel important, self-confident, and able to express themselves fully, express themselves more than at any other time. Of course, girls' friendships are not always a bed of roses. Sometimes there can be painful betrayals and break-ups. Often these happen when one or both of the girls feel pressure, sometimes subtle, to choose between a"boyfriend" and the "best friend". It is notable that many of the things girls enjoy doing with their best friends are pleasurable because they are very sensual. This includes trying on clothes together and looking at each other in them, sewing and mending clothes together and talking about where they will wear them and what others will think, sampling make-up and putting make-up on each other, and fixing each other's hair, talking about their "weight" (their bodies), and their skin -almost the same things that their mothers often enjoyed doing with them during those twilight years of close physical intimacy of late childhood. These are some of the few ways women are "allowed" to touch each other by a society that is terrified that women might "like each other too much". As one girl describes it: "It was a wonderful time when I first began getting attention from boys. I was very happy. My friends and I spent hours talking about clothes, experimenting with make-up and going places where we knew we'd see boys ... Those were my favourite relationships. I'm always trying to get one back." Should girls break off their friendships with their best friends in order to focus on boys? The assumption is that "mature" women should turn their allegiance and love towards men exclusively. Yet why should women break off these marvellous friendships with each other? The evidence of the research presented in this book suggests that there is no "heterosexual sex drive" that asserts itself at "puberty" separately from the strong social pressures to direct one's sexual feelings and desire to have sex at members of the opposite sex. Therefore most people focus their feelings in that direction. Many times this has a happy result: it is not that these feelings are false or "bad", rather that they are a response to social pressure - sexuality is being directed in a certain way. It could have been more fluid. If we were living in a different "social order", it very well might be. The evidence of this research demonstrates that there is a multitude of affections, sensualities and personae latent in almost all children and adults, but that to fit the social system these feeling are directed and channelled, especially at "puberty", to fit the patriarchal (father-ownership) model of the family and world. In psychological terms, this means that all eyes must be trained to focus on the male; all emotional, psychological, and sexual attention must be fixed on the father, with one exception: boys must be made to see girls as sexual objects of desire (reproductive objects of desire). Statistically it is quite rare for girls as best friends to become lovers, while it is relatively common for boys. One young woman describes having had a sexual relationship with her best friend: "l had a best friendship in high school which turned into a sexual relationship and lasted about two years. Over the years, we have managed to keep in touch, but on rare occasions. She is a lesbian, and I am not. At one time, this part of my past disturbed me a great deal, but now I consider it a fairly usual, but private, part of growing up." We have seen that the great majority of teenage girls have a best friend with whom they share their feelings, experiences and plans for the future. Although it is a small minority who have a physical, sexual relationship, these are usually very loving friendships and mean a lot to the girls involved. Of course, no-one has to have a best friend. Approximately 10 per cent of girls who answered do not have a close or "best" woman friend. But since most girls and women seem to enjoy these friendships so much, it may be something worth trying. ------------------------------ Publication: Sydney Morning Herald - Publication date: 3-3-1994 - Edition: Late - Page no: 9 - Section: News and Features - Sub section: Agenda |
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