Unveiling desires : adolescents' hidden graffiti about sexualities and romantic relationships in schooled settings

Abstract

This paper focuses on a number of adolescent girls’ writings as they occurred in the form of graffiti written on the toilet doors of a postsecondary school in Malta. These graffiti texts are concerned with how their authors try to make sense of their gender identity and involvement in sexual activity and romantic encounters. They highlight the ways through which the acquisition of sexual and erotic knowledge occurs informally outside the formal curriculum, through spaces created and struggled over by students, who negotiate, contest and challenge their differences. This study documents the graffiti as subversive processes of learning, which reproduce and resist dominant discourses of sexuality and sexual conduct. It discusses the invisibility, voicelessness and non-representation ofsexuality education issuesin the curriculum. It challenges the silences, secrecies and taboos that besiege the area of postsecondary sexuality education and which afford very limited opportunities for adolescents to hear each other’s voices and to give and receive support regarding sexuality issues. The unveiling of adolescent perspectives on sexualities and romantic relationships point to the need for a deeper understanding of the emotional and overall wellbeing of teenagers with respect to gender, romantic relationships and sexual desires.