Did You Hear About the Girl Who ...? Contemporary Legends, Folklore, and Human Sexuality. (Book reviews: "let me tell you about my cousin's best-friend ...": sexual values, urban legends, and educators).

Did You Hear About the Girl Who ...? Contemporary Legends, Folklore, and Human Sexuality. Marianne H. Whatley and Elissa R. Henken. New York: New York University Press, 2000, 211 pages. Cloth, $24.95.

Reviewed by Christina A. Clark, Ph.D. Candidate, New York University, Department of Health Studies, Professional Program in Human Sexuality, 3 Washington Square Village, #8-O, New York, NY 10012-1805; e-mail: [e-mail].

Many of us have heard a story at some point in our lives about a friend's brother's roommate who had some sexual misadventure. Perhaps he took a casual acquaintance home one evening and had unprotected intercourse, only to wake up the next morning to a message, written on the bathroom mirror, detailing how the acquaintance had AIDS. Or, perhaps someone told a story about their aunt's coworker's daughter who had to go to the hospital because she was masturbating one evening with a carrot (or was it a hot dog?) and it got "lost" in her vagina and she needed trained medical personnel to extract it. Most likely, you looked at the storyteller with some combination of incredulity and astonishment. That didn't really happen! Or did it?

Most likely, the answer to that question can be answered with a resounding "NO!," yet these stories are told with such conviction that a person might be swayed otherwise. These and other such stories, known as urban legends, are the focus of the book written by Whatley and Henken. Specifically, these authors focus on urban legends that pertain to various aspects of sexuality and discuss how these tales are passed on, not to import facts and knowledge, but rather to offer admonitions against "bad" behavior and to describe the resultant negative consequences that may occur if the warning goes unheeded.

One might assume that a book on urban legends would be too pop-culturish to be of value to serious sexuality educators and students, but one would be wrong. To fully understand the sexual mores of a culture, one must consider urban legends and folktales as one source of relevant data. In so doing, Whatley and Henken have written a book that is as intelligent as it is interesting and funny.

Chapter One sets the stage by explaining the phenomena of folklore, folk beliefs, and legends. The authors describe folklore as the "unofficial culture" of a group that is transmitted informally via aural presentation, observation, and the practicing of customs. Folklore "always serves a function, whether of education, social control, expression of attitudes and emotions, or strengthening of social bonds" (p. 6). Urban legends, then, are narratives that describe the "fears and anxieties of a group and serve as warnings about potentially dangerous situations, behaviors, and assumptions" (p. 2). After setting the stage, Whatley and Henken dive into describing the variety of sexually oriented urban legends in contemporary American culture.

Whatley and Henken described legends from various categories, including those that pertain to birth control and pregnancy, menstruation, sexually transmitted diseases (particularly AIDS), homophobia and homosexuality, negative representations of female sexuality, incest, and other medical misfortunes that occur in the context of a sexually explicit scene. As a young person who is less than a decade removed from high school, I was astounded at the sheer number and variety of sexual urban legends I myself had in fact heard atone point or another without realizing what they were. For example, I recall hearing stories about a girl in my class who was caught masturbating with a hot dog, and another girl (a friend of the first girl no less) who had her German Shepard lick her honey-covered vulva. After these stories circulated, no one wanted to associate themselves with either of these young women. It is difficult to imagine the experiences these two young women must have had trying to defend themselves in this no-win situation. Fortunately, Whatley and Henken seem to understand. To this end, they propose that sexuality educators use the book to help expose these type of stories for what they are: stories whose accuracy and truth take a backseat to the moral lesson they are trying to impart.

After reading chapter after chapter of urban legends, I was left wondering how one could possibly take the steam out of these legends and expose them as utterly false or, at least, not very likely. Thankfully, Whatley and Henken end their book with a chapter devoted to helping health and human sexuality instructors recognize "new" urban legends and how to distill their impact on students. They propose that educators first elicit legends from students by asking, "What have you heard about ...?" or "When you were younger, what did you or your friends hear about ...?"

After eliciting the legends, the educator's role is to lead students through a process of critical examination. First, the students are charged with ascertaining whether a particular legend is even medically/physically possible. For example, one urban legend suggests that young girls need to be wary of swimming in pools with boys because if one ejaculates in the pool, the sperm will swim through the water and enter a hospitable vagina. Of course, many older students will laugh at this statement, but younger and more naive students are more easily persuaded that sperm are miraculously robust and ultra-vigorous swimmers. The goal would be to relieve younger students' fear by assuring them that this sort of immaculate conception is not physically possible.

A second goal noted by Whatley and Henken is that of getting students to critically think about why someone might believe and/or promote a legend. What purpose does it serve to believe or cause others to believe an urban legend? This question taps into the underlying moral values that are being transmitted with the legend. After identifying the value, students are asked to reflect on whether the legend is harmful or helpful and in what way. Most likely, there are beneficial and detrimental elements to any legend. This kind of exercise would help students learn that precisely because urban legends are powerful, extremely persuasive forms of communication, insinuating that someone is an active participant in one can have deleterious psychological consequences. Additionally, persons attempting to engage in some of the behaviors described in the legends could harm themselves physically or cause harm to someone else.

A third objective Whatley and Henken propose is that of having students determine why a particular legend exists in its current form in a given culture. What are the cultural or social mores that allow this legend a fertile ground to grow? What purpose does this legend serve in maintaining status quo? Why does any given culture continue to see the propagation of a particular legend in one form or another?

Once students have a better understanding of these sexually oriented urban legends, Whatley and Henken suggest that students be charged with the task of determining how to dispel them. As the book was written with health educators in mind, I have a suspicion that this task may be difficult. Many health educators and sexuality educators have not studied any social psychological or communications theories on how we process information, and are perhaps not as well equipped as they might like to be with regard to dispelling legends. If I had to point to one weakness of the book, it would be the lack of any kind of reference to social psychology, social cognition, and the topic of persuasion and persuasive messages.

It seems fairly intuitive that urban legends have such enormous impact because they are so persuasive. If we consider the stratagems of persuasive communication proposed by Pratkanis and Aronson (2000), we can easily see how counteracting legends may be a difficult task. Sexual legends are often told by credible sources (i.e., one's friends or family); the message is focused on sexuality, which garners attention as the punch line points to the moral dilemma presented; and the sexual legends often evoke strong emotions such as fear, anxiety, disgust, and shock. If Whatley and Henken revise their text, it might be interesting to include a discussion of how communications or social psychological theories might inform attempts to counter these persuasive legends. In fact, an instructor of social psychology or communications who has an interest in sexuality might find this book useful in the classroom for illustrating those more general theories of persuasion.

While it seems that this text will be most useful when dealing with high school and young college students, the authors provide tips and insight that will be of use to those who teach at the junior high level as well. To this end, Whatley and Henken have achieved the goal they set: to develop a resource that could be utilized by educators in an attempt to promote a clearer understanding of sexuality in a variety of disciplines.

Students and educators alike will find this book to be an easy, enjoyable read and it will likely spark excited discussion in the classroom. The book will surely provide the opportunity to correct misunderstandings about sexuality in a nonthreatening manner and also promote critical thinking skills that will help students evaluate stories they hear in the future. I heartily recommend this book for use in the health and sexuality classroom, and I recommend it as an enjoyable, "heads-up" kind of read for other professionals.

REFERENCES

Pratkanis, A., & Aronson, E. (2000). Age of propaganda: The everyday use and abuse of persuasion (Rev. ed.). New York: W. H. Freeman and Co.