From the NY TIMES to Netflix: Schoolgirl Sleepover Sex Stories (Part 5)

 

In the film Miller’s Girl (2024) [Lionsgate], during a sleepover, Cairo (Jenna Ortega) and Winnie decided to sext Mr. Fillmore - their high school’s physics teacher. In the sext, the schoolgirls were engaged in girl-on-girl kissing and “measuring the depths of our sexuality”, which, per Winnie, is what all schoolgirls do when they’re alone at night.

"Miller’s Girl" (2024) | Cairo and Winnie Sext Mr. Fillmore

Cairo said to Winnie, “You should tell him [via sext] you’re with me. And that we’re doing what all girls do when they’re alone at night.”

Mr. Fillmore texted: And what might that be?

Cairo said to Winnie, “[Tell him] [w]e are measuring the depths of our sexuality within the safe confines of our friendship.”

Consequently, in addition to sex, sexting can occur during schoolgirls’ sleepovers as well. In American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers (Knopf, 2016), Nancy Jo Sales wrote about a number of instances of schoolgirl sexting during sleepovers. 

As an example of how much, in general, teen sexting occurs, Sales referenced Kassondra Cloos and Julie Turkewitz’s New York Times piece “Hundreds of Nude Photos Jolt Colorado School” (Nov. 6, 2015). The article is about a “large sexting ring” at Colorado’s Cañon City High School, which had over 300 nude pictures of over 100 different students that included not only Cañon City High students but “eighth graders from the middle school” as well.

Cloos and Turkewitz wrote that George Welsh, the superintendent of the Cañon City school system, said that: “a significant percentage of the student body at Cañon City High School had participated, with boys and girls involved in seemingly equal numbers.”

And Cloos and Turkewitz related that, in general, “sexting among children is a rampant problem”, which is very true. Take the ABC News report “Police Bust Virginia Sexting Ring Involving More Than 100 Teens: Explicit photos of underage girls posted to Instagram account.” (April 5, 2014) ABC News reported on a “teenage "sexting" scandal in [Louisa County] Virginia, involving more than 100 teens and more than 1,000 photos of underage girls posted to a[n] [IG] social media account.”

(Pre) teen sexting is so rampant that Cloos and Turkewitz wrote that Amy Adele Hasinoff, a University of Colorado Denver professor and author of Sexting Panic: Rethinking Criminalization, Privacy, and Consent (2015, University of Illinois Press), opined that adults should stop “demanding that students abstain from sending risqué images” but that schoolgirls need “guidance in “safer sexting” with trusted partners.”

Let’s look at some specific examples from schoolgirl sleepover sex and sexting from American Girls:

Sales described Riley, a 13-year-old middle-school student in Montclair, New Jersey, as “a green-eyed girl with dark blond hair”. (“Riley’s parents were writers.” #relatable) As Riley exited her middle school, she received another request, via Snapchat, for nudes. Since Riley had allegedly performed oral sex on Danny, whom she “had been dating for about six months”, Riley’s classmates assumed that she would be more open to sending nudes.

Riley and Danny had “hooked up for the first time” at “a house where the parents weren’t there; such parties took place in the afternoons when parents were at work”. In addition to “weed and vodka”, there was “making out, blowjobs, [and] handjobs”.

Subsequently, Riley hooked up with Danny in his bed during sleepovers. Danny’s parents even provided the middle-school couple with breakfast in bed! Riley said,

“We went over to each other’s houses. I had sleepovers at Danny’s house. His parents made up breakfast and brought it up to his room.”

Victoria, a 13-years-old “brown-haired and freckled faced” schoolgirl, added that she, “[…] heard some moms at a bat mitzvah talking about their kids having a boy-girl sleepover.” Victoria said that the moms thought heterosexual sleepovers were “so cute”. And Sophia, “tall, with straight black hair”, said that parents do it because “it’s being ‘feminist”’, and the parents want to be considered “cool” by their daughters.

Unlike the dad in the New York Times THE ETHICIST piece, who let his mid-teen daughter have girl-on-girl sex during sleepovers with her best friend, because there are no penises involved, Riley, Victoria, and Sophia said that they: “heard of parents who allowed their daughters to have sleepovers with a boyfriend.”

Savannah, who wore “short shorts and halter tops that showed “side boob”, ruled her Brooklyn, NY middle school. Savannah had a “famous dad” who was “someone in the news”, she had a nanny, and an additional house in the Hamptons with a pool. Savannah’s parents let her boyfriend “stay over at her house all night sometime”. Savannah shared with Sales that her parents didn’t want to “repress” or “control her sexuality”. Consequently, Savannah’s classmates considered her and her parents to be “cool”.

(Of course, some parents don’t condone sex during sleepovers. After a parent learned that, for clout, content from salacious sleepovers gets posted on social media, the parent asked, “And lying in bed together and putting their hands in each other’s pants. They’re sixteen years old and they’re grabbing each other’s crotches! Where are these parents? What room and what bed are they lying in?”)

Michelle, a 17-year-old blond from Boca Raton, said that she got her first “[…] dick pics in the sixth grade.” Michelle’s mother: “had her own business and her father was an engineer.” Michelle was distraught, because after she had sex with Kyle, whom she described as “really sexy”, Michelle found out that Kyle, “[…] had a girlfriend named Morgan.” The news was extra upsetting, because Kyle and Michelle were “hooking up” during a sleepover at Michelle’s house the night before she found out about Morgan. Morgan shared with Sales,

“Like that weekend Billie sent me the picture of him [Kyle] and his girlfriend [Morgan], he had stayed over at my house the night before. So he was hooking up with me and then posting ‘couples’ pictures with her. So he’s been hooking up with me and her […]”

Consequently, during school, Michelle showed Morgan Kyle’s “dick pics” that were saved in her phone.

Virtual Schoolgirl Sleepover Sex

Lastly, sometimes (pre) teens are involved in sexual activity during what I refer to as “virtual sleepovers”. Recall that Lola Kirke and Chelsea Handler were involved in teen group masturbation sessions. Connectedly, Kim Goldman, the director of the Santa Clarita Valley Youth Project, told Sales that at one of Santa Clarita junior high schools, “[…] kids were having an online [masturbation] orgy. They all signed in to a video chat room.”

A 25-year-old New Yorker told Sales that when he was in the 7th grade, he participated in orgiastic webcam shows on MSN Messenger, and that the nude shows were so exciting that middle-schoolers were having orgasms. Sales wrote:

When webcams came out, kids started putting on shows for each other and participating in mutual masturbation, live. “We did webcam shows on MSN,” says a young man in New York, age twenty-five, referring to the now discontinued instant-messaging service MSN Messenger, which appeared in 1999. “It started in seventh grade. You’d show your weiner in the webcam. We played strip poker. It was always about playing games. But then it would get too exciting and somebody would bust a nut.”

And Julie, a 13-year-old from Boca Raton, shared with Sales that a visiting schoolgirl wanted to, “[…] video chat with some boys on FaceTime - naked. She came out of the closet [in my bedroom] naked, ready to answer the call […] She wanted to be naked in front of the boys.”

In the end, what may be just as interesting as these schoolgirl sleepover sex stories is the answer to the question: Why were these salacious stories shared? We learned that they were shared for attention (e.g., likes, followers, comments, “social clout”, etc.), and money (e.g., YouTube subscribers, Netflix streams, memoir\(non-fiction) book sales, etc.). And per Jones and Miller, as they opined in their Bestseller, another consequence of these revealing stories is that they efficiently exemplify the “myth of innocence”.

From the NY TIMES to Netflix: Schoolgirl Sleepover Sex Stories (Part 1): Becca Moore, Miley Cyrus, Jessica Simpson and Julia Fox

From the NY TIMES to Netflix: Schoolgirl Sleepover Sex Stories (Part 2): Lola Kirke, Chelsea Handler, and Lena Dunham

From the NY TIMES to Netflix: Schoolgirl Sleepover Sex Stories (Part 3): Restless Virgins | Zoe, Isabel, Annie, and Whitney

From the NY TIMES to Netflix: Schoolgirl Sleepover Sex Stories (Part 4): Camp Cabins