How can I lose my shyness…? The exploration of self-knowledge through peer mediated articulations

Abstract

The chapter focuses on how adolescent girls actively explore different forms of self-knowledge in relation to their sexual selves. Specifically, the chapter analyses numerous graffiti writings written on the female toilet doors of a postsecondary school in Malta, which revolved around the girls’ doubts, struggles, perplexities and hopes related to their described sexual desires and encounters. Through these writings some girls have tried to find ways of how to resolve personal issues related to their described shyness, lack of self-confidence and feelings of rejection and loneliness, which resulted from their perceived inadequacies in relation to their body image. Through their correspondence with their ‘toilet mates,’ some girls seemed to have empowered themselves to articulate their fears, vulnerability and anxieties. In foregrounding possible interpretations of the voices behind these writings, this chapter discusses issues related to complexities surrounding the possible, multiple understandings and representations of the texts written by the informants. In my attempts at making the girls’ voices more visible, I aimed at giving prominence to a discourse of openness and inclusion. This contrasts with the marginalised, subversive, deviant and transgressive settings, in which the writings have occurred. The act of graffiti writing is understood as being positioned within personal and public boundaries, which collide and are juxtaposed against various discourses operating within the broader social community (Cassar, 2007a). The analysis of these writings highlights the girls’ reflexivity and regards it as an important factor in gaining self-knowledge and in counteracting the invisibility and non-representation of sexuality education in the curriculum.