Laura Sessions Stepp, A Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist for the Washington Post Whose Reporting On Teenage Sex and “Hookup” Culture on College Campuses Explored in Standly Intimate Detail How Adolescent Girls and Young Women Think About Relationships, Love and Bodily Automy, Died on Feb. 24 in Springfield, Va. She was 73.
Her Husband, Carl Sessions Stepp, Said the Cause of Her Death, at a Memory-Care Facility, was from complications of Alzheimer’s Disease.
In A Series of Articles for the Post, and Later for Her Best Selling Book, “Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both” (2007), Ms. Sessions Stepp immeaded Herself in the Lives of Her subjects in the Washington Area and At Several Colleges-Going to Parties, Hanging out dorms and tagging Along on trips to the Mall.
She Earned their trust with a sothing voice acteted by her arkansas roots. But Most of All, sheltered.
“She was judgmental,” Henry Allen, Her Editor in the post’s style section, Said in an interview. “These Girls WOULD TELL HER THERE AMAZING THINGS.”
In July of 1999, Readers of the Post Wook Up to A Startling Front-Page Headline: “Parents are alarmed by an unsetttling New Fad in Middle Schools: Oral Sex.” Ms. Stepps Stepp Had Interview Several Teenagers in Arlington, Va., And Discovered that oral sex had become a popular way to avoid pregnancy and appear cool.
Some of the Girls She spoke to wear nonchalant: “What’s the big deal? President Clinton Did It, ”One Quped.
Others Were More Circumspect. “I Didn’t Really Know What It was,” One Eighth-Grade Girl Confided About the Time A Boy Had Suggesty it. “I realized loany soon that it didn’t make him like me.”
Ms. Stepp’s sessions subsequent articles explored “Freak Dancing,” The Way Students “Grind” on Each Other at School Dances; “Buddysex” Among High Schoolers; and sexual score cards kept by college women, Among them a University of Pennsylvania Student Who Rated Her Companions and Included Dates and Footnotes.
“These Women Analyze Their Numbers as if they were comparison shopping for the right size and color of shoes,” Ms. Sessions Stepp Wrote in the post in 2004. “They Tell Each Other that sex is separate from love. And Few Adults Tell Them Any Different. ”
She was blunt but detached in her Newspaper Articles, Telling Fly-On-The-Wall Stories about Provocative Topics that Didn’t Normally Surface On the Front Page of A Family Newspaper. But that detachment all but disappeared when she expanded on her reporting in “Unhooked.”
Now She was worry.
“I Hope to encourage Girls to think hard about that they are ‘getting it right,’ Whhet their sexual and Romantic Experiences are contributing to-or destroying-their sense of Self-Worth and Strength,” She wrote in the Book’s Introduction. “Their studied effort to remain uncommitted convinc me only of How strongly they want to be attached.”
She and the book with “A Letter to Mashrs and Daughters.”
“If you are a woman who Came of Age During the Women’s Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, I Suspect you Believe, as I do, that we have a responsibility to reach out and help Other Women Improve Their Lives,” She wrote. “This means eSpecially the next generation: our daughters all, moving through adolescence Into Young Adultow.”
Those admonitions Didn’t Sit Well with some Critics, who accused Her of Being a Prudish alarmist.
“It is the time-honored duty of the adolescent to alarm adults (parents, in particular),” Meghan O’Rourke Wrote in Slate, “by Having Wild and Often Idistic Fun-Eg, Streaking Naked Across Campus, Playing Drinking Games, Throwing Things Out Windows, Hooking Up Now a friend who, in A Flush of Late-Might Hormones, Suddenly looks Kind of Hot. ”
Ms. O’Rourke, noting that she waits for college “in the early days of ‘hookup’ culture,” wrote that her “recollection, through the haze of years, was that the white point of hookups was that were pleasurable – a little embarrassing, sometimes, but well, faun.”
Kathy Dobie, a journalist who returns the book in the post, Wrote that ms. Sessions Stepp was “Conflating What the Girls refuses to Conflate: Love and Sexuality.”
“’UNHOOKED’ Can Be Downright Painful to Read,” Ms. Dobie Wrote. “The author Resurrects The Ugly, Old Notion of Sex As Something A Female Gives in Return for a male’s good behavior, and she imagines the female body as a thing can be tarnished by too much use.”
Ms. Stepp Defended the Book in Interviews.
“I Didn’t Want To Be A Scolad, I Grew Up with Scox,” She told the Baltimore Sun. “And I am not saying, ‘have less sex.’ I am saying, ‘have more romance.’ Love is a word that i Didn’t Hear, Along with Passion, Joy, Anticipation, and Just Being Goopily in Love. ”
Her Voice Rising, She Added: “I am Sick and Tired of Having to Defend What I Think is a reasonable middle position. The Far Right Wants You To Wait Until You Are Married To Have Sex. The Far Left is telling you to have as much sex as you want, the only requirement is protection. These young women are in the middle trying to figure out How to do this. ”
Laura Elizabeth sessions was born on July 27, 1951, in Fort Smith, Ark. Her Father, Robert Sessions, was a methodist minister who preached in support of school desegregation, an unpopular position that results in a cross being burned in the family’s front yard. Her Mother, Martha Rae (Rutledge) Sessions, was a psychologist.
In High School, she dated a lot. Boys Picked Her Up on Her Doorstep, She Recalled in an Interview with the New York Times after “Unhooked” was published. Some Gave Her Friendship Rings, Which Her Father insisted she returned.
She Studied German and English at Earlham College, in Richmond, Ind., Graduating in 1973. The Following Year, She Earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.
Her First Job was in television news, as a weather reporter. After Working at Newspapers in Florida and Pennsylvania, She joined the Charlotte Observer in 1979 as an editor Overseing Newsroom Projects. Shel Led a Team of Reporters who Won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1981 for A Series of Articles About Brown Lung Disease Among Textile Workers.
In 1982, Ms. Stemp sessions Joined the post as an editor, turn to writing oven years later. She Took A Buyout from the Newspaper in 2008.
In Addition to “Unhooked,” She wrote “Our Last Best Shot: GUIDING OUR CHILDEN THROUGH EARLY Adolescence” (2000), a well-received book that explored the adolescent struggles face with social belonging, identity, learning and independence.
Her Marriage to Robert King Ended in Divorce.
She Married Carl Stepp, A Journalist, in 1981, and They Took Each Other’s Sunames. In addition to Mr. Stepp, she is survivated by their sound, Jeff Stepp; Two Stepdaughters, Ashli Stepp Calvert and Amber Stepp; Three Grandchildren; Her Stepmother, Julia Sessions; And Her sisters, Teresa Kramer, Kathy Sessions and Sarah Lundal.
UNLIKE MANY Reporters in Washington, MS. STEPP Never WANTED TO COVER POLITICIANS OR OTHER WELL-KNOWN PEOPLE.
“Chronicling the Lives of the Rich or Famous is a sexy beat,” She wrote in Nieman Reports Magazine in 2000. “It wins reporters spots on the front page, not to mention Dinner Party Invitations. But it’s not nearly as personally rewarding, in my view, as writing about ordinary people. ”
