The cultivation of a specific vocabulary of suspense and foreshadowing that is granted meaning from the context in which it is situated is a phenomenon present here and described in reader-response theory.Following Rosenblatt,we can hypothesize that the readers'past experiences with reading similarly themed tales allow her to predict the scenario of humiliation explicated in each embarrassing text.This predictability grants a certain power to the experienced reader that is unavailable to the stories'narrators;while the narrator of an embarrassing story fails to anticipate the humiliation to come,the reader fluent in the language of the text has likely foreseen the embarrassment described later.This foresight is a predictive gift cultivated by the reader as she reads,one that bestows on her a certain prescient textual power.The real life application of this reading is less agential;with the literal narrative absent in her living world,the teen reader learns to edit her own movements in anticipation and avoidance of the outcomes described in the embarrassing stories.
Although the embarrassing stories can be categorized by subject or anecdote,a less granular approach to analysis reveals three primary themes discussed throughout the columns:Behavior with Boys,Body Function,and Intimate Exposure.“Behavior with Boys”is discussed and analyzed at length in these columns;heterosexual relations are characterized as fraught with potential hazards.Embarrassing anecdotes of“Amorous Errors”include,in an issue of Seventeen,a tale of a welded-together pair whose braces and lip jewelry linked together nearly inextricably.Getting caught in a clinch(by parents,brothers and sisters,or teachers)is the source of much humiliation,as is showing too much interest in a member of the opposite sex.Stories dealing with the functions of the body centered mainly around menstrual period disasters,with YM devoting an entire month's column to menstrual stories.Stories falling under the“Intimate Exposure”category include both accidental nudity and the exposure of or mention of a narrator's underwear.The mere mention of or glimpse of the underwear proved embarrassing,even if the underwear was unworn,that is,viewed in a drawer or backpack.These three general categories can be easily mapped onto Elias's(per Scheff)primary sources of shame:“the body functions”(mapped to“Body Functions”),one's appearance(mapped to“Intimate Exposure”),and one's emotions(mapped to“Amorous Errors”).While Scheff and Elias may argue that their thematic categories are universal,as the categories are recalled in the pages of adolescent girls'magazines,their treatment becomes distinctly gendered.
Thematic Categorization of Embarrassing Stories
Approximately half of the scenarios described in YM and Seventeen involved some kind of social or corporeal control.The reader learning from(and laughing with)these texts may absorb the socializing shorthand present beneath the text.If feminine success is measured by the avoidance of humiliations as great as those published,the social lessons taught in the magazines'columns involve decreasing participation in events that could lead to the outcomes depicted.A certain social paranoia may emerge in the reader who absorbs the identity of the watchful woman who must be ever vigilant,guarding her intimate apparel from view,avoiding revealing clothing,and maintaining the secrecy surrounding menstruation or any bodily function.Luise Eichenbaum and Susie Orbach identified these ideas of self-denial and feminine presentation in their 1982 book Understanding Women:A Feminist Psychoanalytic Approach.According to Eichenbaum and Orbach,the exhibition of the edited self is learned in childhood observation:“The little girl absorbs the idea that to get love and approval she must show a particular side of herself.She must hide her emotional cravings,her disappointments,and her angers...She must hide her self.She comes to feel that there must be something wrong with who she really is,which,in turn,must mean there is something wrong with what she needs and what she wants.”Eichenbaum,Luise,and Orbach,Susie,Understanding Women:A Feminist Psychoanalytic Approach,p.49,New York:Basic,1983.
The teen magazine may further this concept with its embarrassing stories;based on their exploitation of social“don'ts,”the female reader may learn to associate some of her natural inclinations(menstruation,sexuality)with inappropriateness.The irreverent and genuinely humorous content of these columns of embarrassing stories attracts readers,while the use of developmentally appropriate language and topical subject matter furthers an agenda of social control.
The eventual outcome of the internalization of these rules may already have been predicted by Eichenbaum and Orbach:“Slowly(the girl)develops an acceptable self,one that appears self-sufficient and capable and will receive more consistent acceptance.”Eichenbaum,Luise,and Orbach,Susie,Understanding Women:A Feminist Psychoanalytic Approach,p.49,New York:Basic,1983.Taylor L.,a teen writing of a regifting humiliation for Teen's embarrassing stories page,illustrates the discomfort resulting from the false fronting:“I pretended to laugh(with the other students laughing at me),but deep down,I felt like barfing.”
