The XX Factor : friday night lights

The Teen-Sex Talk That Wasn't

Samantha Henig — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:55:00 GMT

Hanna , you said you tear up remembering Tami's sex talk with Julie from Friday Night Lights . But the television teen-sex talk that always gets me is the one that wasn't. In a truly spectacular episode of My So-Called Life , Angela, under pressure from...(read more)

Is the Teen Sex Talk Different for Sons and Daughters?

Jessica Grose — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:31:00 GMT

Hanna , I think you hit the nail right on the head. Most modern moms are profoundly ambivalent about their daughters' sex lives (sons too, but we'll get to that in a second). I would find it incredibly creepy if a mother told her barely legal daughter,...(read more)

Teen Sex, In Defense of the Mixed Message

Hanna Rosin — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:22:00 GMT

Emily , Jessica , I'd like to stand up for inconsistency. There are many questions that would be settled if the American political dialogue only allowed a box for inconsistent, or ambivalent, or contentedly hypocritical. Abortion, for example. Polls show...(read more)

Scripting the Great Teen Sex Talk

Emily Bazelon — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:38:00 GMT

Great points, Jessica , about the many and complicated ways in which teen sex plays out. Agreed that broader questions, like whether kids can imagine good futures for themselves, can matter more than what parents say to them about sex per se. Still, I...(read more)

Getting in on the Friday Night Lights Game

Ann Hulbert — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 02:01:00 GMT

At the risk of an overdose of Friday Night Lights fandom here at Slate , I'd like to link up to the great FNL " TV Club ." And what could be more fitting here on XX than leaping to a defense of Tami in her dealing with the JumboTron drama. I don't see...(read more)

Friday Night Lights, in verse

Hanna Rosin — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 03:45:00 GMT

Emily, Meghan and I have been conducting a dialogue in Slate for fellow Friday Night Lights addicts. One of my entries discussed the house of Tim Riggins. It inspired this poem "in the style of Billy Collins" from Ann Scanlan, a reader in Ireland. The...(read more)