‘Serious girls’, prostitutes and ‘whores’. Calling genders to order

Abstract

The sexual representations and the sexual experiences of individuals are marked by the gender they belong to, which induces social roles and differentiated ideals and determines behaviours, namely those that concern the body and sexuality. The speeches of young people questioned in an ethnological investigation on sexual representations in the Eastern suburb of Paris, denounce the opposition between feminine and masculine values, and show the difference between the representations and behaviours of young males and females. The speeches of young people denote a distinction between the ‘serious girl’, the prostitute and the ‘whore’, which marks a hierarchy of moral values, in relation to their behaviour in general and to their sexual behaviour in particular.