[Politics of Intimacy: Mona and Theresa 1]

This is raw footage of an interview with teenagers Theresa Joyce and Mona Gustafson recorded for THE POLITICS OF INTIMACY. Mona and Theresa are close friends. They are romantically and sexually inexperienced. Mona is the younger sister of director Julie Gustafson. She has long blonde hair and is, in their description, more stereotypically “feminine” than Theresa, who has short curly hair.

00:10Copy video clip URL A man holds his cat up as the camera zooms into his face. 

00:34Copy video clip URL Mona describes not being interested in anyone romantically at the moment, and her problems with a potential partner being inattentive or seeming not to be interested. 

03:21Copy video clip URL Mona says that she has “kinda” had a boyfriend before. He was older and they made out a lot, but they could only see each other on weekends and she felt like he was domineering and that she was being manipulated for his happiness. She thinks it would be better to have dated someone her own age. 

8:03Copy video clip URL Mona talks about the difficulties of communicating with her ex, who was never very interested in talking or in getting to know her. He was just interested in fooling around. 

11:39Copy video clip URL Mona talks about the pressure she felt to kiss someone before she was 16. She feels inferior to not have a boyfriend. 

13:05Copy video clip URL Teresa talks about how she felt when Teresa started going out with a boy before she did, and how she would feel about going out with a boy.

16:30Copy video clip URL Teresa talks about her romantic experiences with an older man named Jim, who she was not particularly interested in but who showed interest in her. 

22:03Copy video clip URL Mona talks about wanting to get to know boys better so that she can care about them more and be more attracted to them sexually. 

22:59Copy video clip URL Teresa tells more about her experience with Jim and about her lack of interest.

27:39Copy video clip URL Teresa talks about her sexual relationships. Her first was with an African American boy named Pepi, who was very attractive and funny but immature. There were some difficulties dating someone who was Black. 

31:30Copy video clip URL Teresa says that she and Pepi did not have intercourse but that they kissed a lot, because that was his favorite thing. She is less interested in kissing.