Lifestyle

Laura Sessions Stepp, Who Reported on Teenage Sex, Dies at 73

Published

12 months ago

March 3, 2025

Laura Sessions Stepp, Who Reported on Teenage Sex, Dies at 73

Laura Sessions Stepp, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose reporting on teenage sex and “hookup” culture on college campuses explored in strikingly intimate detail how adolescent girls and young women think about relationships, love and bodily autonomy, 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 Washington Post, and later for her best-selling book, “Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both” (2007), Ms. Sessions Stepp immersed herself in the lives of her subjects in the Washington area and at several colleges — going to parties, hanging out in dorms and tagging along on trips to the mall.

She earned their trust with a soothing voice accented by her Arkansas roots. But most of all, she listened.

“She wasn’t judgmental,” Henry Allen, her editor in The Post’s Style section, said in an interview. “These girls would tell her these amazing things.”

In July of 1999, readers of The Post woke up to a startling front-page headline: “Parents Are Alarmed by an Unsettling New Fad in Middle Schools: Oral Sex.” Ms. Sessions Stepp had interviewed 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 were nonchalant: “What’s the big deal? President Clinton did it,” one quipped.

Others were more circumspect. “I didn’t really know what it was,” one eighth-grade girl confided about the time a boy had suggested it. “I realized pretty soon that it didn’t make him like me.”

Ms. Sessions Stepp’s 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 worried.

“I hope to encourage girls to think hard about whether they’re ‘getting it right,’ whether 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 convinces me only of how strongly they want to be attached.”

She ended the book with “A Letter to Mothers 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 adulthood.”

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 idiotic fun — e.g., streaking naked across campus, playing drinking games, throwing things out windows, hooking up with an acquaintance or a friend who, in a flush of late-night hormones, suddenly looks kind of hot.”

Ms. O’Rourke, noting that she attended college “in the early days of ‘hookup’ culture,” wrote that her “recollection, through the haze of years, was that the whole point of hookups was that they were pleasurable — a little embarrassing, sometimes, but mostly, well, fun.”

Kathy Dobie, a journalist who reviewed the book in The Post, wrote that Ms. Sessions Stepp was “conflating what the girls refuse 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 that can be tarnished by too much use.”

Ms. Sessions Stepp defended the book in interviews.

“I didn’t want to be a scold, I grew up with scolds,” 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 resulted 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 return.

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 overseeing newsroom projects. She 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. Sessions Stepp joined The Post as an editor, turning to writing four years later. She took a buyout from the newspaper in 2008.

In addition to “Unhooked,” she wrote “Our Last Best Shot: Guiding Our Children Through Early Adolescence” (2000), a well-received book that explored the struggles adolescents face with social belonging, identity, learning and independence.

“Our Last Best Shot,” published in 2000, explored the struggles adolescents face with belonging, identity, learning and independence.Credit…Riverhead

Her marriage to Robert King ended in divorce.

She married Carl Stepp, a journalist and longtime journalism professor at the University of Maryland, in 1981, and they shared each other’s surnames. In addition to Mr. Stepp, she is survived by their son, 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. Sessions 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.”

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Lifestyle

This spring, have a tea ceremony inside of an art installation and shop the latest Givenchy

Published

18 minutes ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

This spring, have a tea ceremony inside of an art installation and shop the latest Givenchy

Givenchy by Sarah Burton introduces the Snatch

Givenchy’s “The Snatch” handbag.

(Marc Piasecki / Getty Images)

Echoing the designer’s ready-to-wear sculptural designs, the Snatch from Givenchy by Sarah Burton is sensually shaped by the contours of the person who carries it. Its supple leather, fluid silhouette and three sizes allow it to slip effortlessly and intimately into the hand, over the shoulder or across the body. Now available. givenchy.com

Guess Jeans opens new L.A. store

In a move familiar to many millennials these days, Guess Jeans has returned home in its 45th year. The new flagship store in West Hollywood is both a return to its California roots and an envisioning of its future still ahead. While the brand may be an established icon, the store boldly reimagines the retail space as a living laboratory for design, craftsmanship and collaboration, with dedicated workshop and customization spaces. 8700 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles. guess.com

Louis Vuitton’s new Color Blossom collection

Taylor Swift’s sky may be opalite, but the starry blue hues in the new jewels of Louis Vuitton’s Color Blossom collection belong to sodalite. Rarely used in jewelry, the dark navy of sodalite adds an unexpected layer of depth to Color Blossom’s existing luminous gemstone lineup. Sun and star motifs rendered in gold enhance the gem’s night sky coloring, while the classic flower designs celebrate the 130th anniversary of the Louis Vuitton Monogram. Sodalite pieces available March 6, entire collection available April 4. louisvuitton.com

Loro Piana debuts Library of Knits

L.A.’s (many) winter showers bring spring wildflowers, and a bouquet of Loro Piana’s new Library of Knits fits right into the vibrant spectacle. The exquisitely soft cashmere pieces in classic styles now come in over 20 shades inspired by Sergio Loro Piana’s personal wardrobe. With a spectrum ranging from blues and greens to corals and creams, it’s hard to choose just one for a frolic in the fields. Now available. loropiana.com

Margesherwood X Peanuts

Love is famously in the air this time of year, apparently even for cartoon characters. This enduring love is illustrated (literally) in the Margesherwood X Peanuts collaboration. Inspired by the heart-fluttering love letters Sally writes to Linus, the designs feature instantly recognizable motifs that marry the Peanuts’ charm with Margesherwood’s refined silhouettes. The zig-zag of that famous yellow shirt winkingly graces a crescent baguette, while the black stripes of Linus’s red red shirt wrap around a slouchy shoulder bag. For the true heads and lovers, there’s even a petite hobo emblazoned with Sally’s pet name for Linus: “FOR MY SWEET BABBOO.” Now available. margesherwood.com

Ryan Preciado at Hollyhock House

Ryan Preciado's site-responsive "Diary of a Fly" at Hollyhock House features Oaxacan-woven textiles.

Ryan Preciado’s new site-responsive installation at Hollyhock House, “Diary of a Fly,” is titled after a late-1930s musical composition by Béla Bartók that imitates the frenzied pace of a fly — a fitting name since his show reconceptualizes the experience of the springtime pest flitting around a house. Instead of hovering around overripe fruit or stalking a trash can long neglected, however, viewers are invited to take in Preciado’s Oaxacan-woven textiles and brightly colored sculptures situated throughout the city’s only UNESCO World Heritage Site. Open through April 25. 4800 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles. hollyhockhouse.org

Veronica Fernandez at Anat Ebgi

Veronica Fernanadez's "Prey" filters childhood memories through experience and emotion.

In the figurative paintings of Veronica Fernandez’s first solo exhibition, “Prey,” the artist’s childhood is recalled through dreamlike and fantastical scenes, with memories filtered through experience and emotion. Many of her works place a child at the center of the scene among family, friends and caretakers, who usually appear shadow-like at the edges of the paintings. As a kid, Fernandez endured periods of homelessness. But rather than depict a childhood of adversity, her paintings empower the kids within them to claim their own space, imbuing her memories with strength and light. Open through April 4. 6150 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. anatebgi.com

Dior launches J’Adore Intense

Florals for spring can be groundbreaking, especially when they’re created with none other than Rihanna as their muse. Dior’s J’Adore Intense captures the scent of solar flowers — jasmine, ylang-ylang, rose, violet — right before they burst into fruit. The result is a warm, bold, addictive fragrance that drips with sensuality and femininity, down to the curves of its signature gold and glass figure-eight amphora. In other words, it’s Rihanna in a bottle. Available now. dior.com

Rocky’s Matcha X Oscar Tuazon at Morán Morán

Rocky's Matcha hosts Japanese tea ceremonies in an ensō-inspired tea house from Oscar Tuazon at Morán Morán.

The single, uninhibited brushstroke of the ensō, the circular form in Zen art, serves as a record of a moment. Commissioned by Rocky’s Matcha, Oscar Tuazon’s “Circle House” at Morán Morán shares both the ensō’s form and its call to mindfulness. In the artist’s tea house, constructed from cardboard, wood and tatami mats, architecture is inseparable from ritual: visitors will soon be able to partake in a Japanese tea ceremony inside the installation, thereby participating in a choreography of attention not unlike the act of gliding an ink brush across a sheet of washi. Open through December 31. 641 N. Western Ave. Los Angeles. Subscribe to rocky’s newsletter for tea ceremony information. rockysmatcha.com and moranmorangallery.com

Celebrate Mr. Wash’s new book, “Artists in Space”

Celebrate the launch of Mr. Wash's new book of studio visits and interviews with other L.A. artists.

Make your first BBQ of the season a meaningful one at the Art By Wash Studio & Community Center, where Compton artist and criminal justice advocate, Mr. Wash, will celebrate the release of his book “Artists in Space.” Proceeds from the book, which features interviews and studio visits with 20 Angeleno residents, go toward establishing the new community center where individuals returning home from incarceration will have access to art classes, creative residencies and housing. Mr. Wash will be in conversation with Patrisse Culllors and Evan Pricco (co-publisher and founder of the Unibrow) as well as displaying new works. The event is on March 7 from 2-6 p.m. 15 W. Rosecrans Ave., Compton. artbywash.com

Lifestyle

‘Hamnet’ star Jessie Buckley looks for the ‘shadowy bits’ of her characters

Published

11 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

‘Hamnet’ star Jessie Buckley looks for the ‘shadowy bits’ of her characters

Jessie Buckley has been nominated for an Academy Award for best actress for her portrayal of William Shakespeare’s wife in Hamnet.

Kate Green/Getty Images

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Kate Green/Getty Images

Actor Jessie Buckley says she’s always been drawn to the “shadowy bits” of her characters — aspects that are disobedient, or “too much.” Perhaps that’s what led her to play Agnes, the wife of William Shakespeare, in Hamnet.

Buckley says the film, which is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, offered a chance to counter a common narrative about the playwright’s wife: that she “had kept him back from his genius,” Buckley says.

Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes in Hamnet.

But, she adds, “What Maggie O’Farrell so brilliantly did, not just with Agnes and Shakespeare’s wife, but also with Hamnet, their son, was to bring these people … and give them status beside this great man. … [And] give the full landscape of what it is to be a woman.”

The film is nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best actress for Buckley. In it, she plays a woman deeply connected to nature, who faces conflicts in her marriage, as well as the death of their son Hamnet.

Buckley found out she was pregnant a week after the film wrapped. She’s since given birth to her first child, a daughter.

Lewis Pullman and Danielle Brooks announced the 2026 Oscar nominees early Thursday morning in Beverly Hills, Calif. The 98th Academy Awards ceremony will be held on March 15.

“The thing that this story offered me, that brought me into this next chapter of my life as a mother was tenderness,” she says. “A mother’s tenderness is ferocious. To love, to birth is no joke. To be born is no joke. And the minute something’s born into the world, you’re always in the precipice of life and death. That’s our path. … I wanted to be a mother so much that that overrode the thought of being afraid of it.”

Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes and Joe Alwyn plays her brother Bartholomew in Hamnet.

Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features

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Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features

Interview highlights

On filming the scene where she howls in grief when her son dies

I didn’t know that that was going to happen or come out, it wasn’t in the script. I think really [director] Chloé [Zhao] asked all of us to dare to be as present as possible. Of course, leading up to it, you’re aware this scene is coming, but that scene doesn’t stand on its own. By the time I’d met that scene, I had developed such a deep bond with Jacobi Jupe, who plays Hamnet, and [co-stars] Paul [Mescal] and Emily Watson, and all the children and we really were a family. And Jacobi Jupe who plays Hamnet is such an incredible little actor and an incredible soul, and we really were a team. …

The Real 'Hamnet' Died Centuries Ago, But This Novel Is Timeless

The death of a child is unfathomable. I don’t know where it begins and ends. Out of utter respect, I tried to touch an imaginary truth of it in our story as best I could, but there’s no way to define that kind of grief. I’m sure it’s different for so many people. And in that moment, all I had was my imagination but also this relationship that was right in front of me with this little boy and that’s what came out of that.

On what inspired her to pursue singing growing up

I grew up around a lot of music. My mom is a harpist and a singer and my dad has always been passionate about music, so it was always something in our house and always something that was encouraged. … Early on, I have very strong memories of seeing and hearing my mom sing in church and this quite intense mercurial conversation that would happen between her, the story and the people that would listen to her. And at the end of it, something had been cracked between them and these strangers would come up with tears in their eyes. And I guess I saw the power of storytelling through my mom’s singing at a very young age, and that was definitely something that made me think I want to do that.

On her first big break performing as a teen on the BBC singing competition I’d Do Anything — and being criticized by judges about her physical appearance

I was raw. I hadn’t trained. I had a lot to learn and to grow in. I was only 17. I think there was part of their criticism which I think was destructive and unfair when it became about my awkwardness, or they would say I was masculine and send me to kind of a femininity school. … They sent me to [the musical production of] Chicago to put heels on and a leotard and learn how to walk in high heels, which was pretty humiliating, to be honest, and I’m sad about that because I think I was discovering myself as a young woman in the world and wasn’t fully formed. … I was different. I was wild, I had a lot of feeling inside me. I could hardly keep my hands beside myself and I think to kind of criticize a body of a young woman at that time and to make her feel conscious of that was lazy and, I think, boring.

On filming parts of the 2026 film The Bride! while pregnant

I really loved working when I was pregnant. I thought it was a pretty wild experience, especially because I was playing Mary Shelley and I was talking about [this] monstrosity, and here I was with two heartbeats inside me. Becoming a mom and being pregnant did something, I think, for me. My experience of it, it’s so real that it really focuses [me to be] allergic to fake or to disconnection.

Since my daughter has come and I know what that connection is and the real feeling of being in a relationship with somebody … as an actress, it’s very exciting to recognize that in yourself and really take ownership of yourself.

I’m excited to go back and work on this other side of becoming a mother in so many ways, because I’ve shed 10 layers of skin by loving more and experiencing life in such a new way with my daughter. I’m also scared to work again because it’s hard to be a mother and to work. That’s like a constant tug because I love what I do and I’m passionate and I want to continue to grow and learn and fill those spaces that are yet to be filled — and also be a mother. And I think every mother can recognize that tug.

On the possibility of bringing her daughter to travel with her as she works

I haven’t filmed for nearly a year and I cannot wait. I’m hungry to create again. And my daughter will come with me. She’s seven months, so at the moment she can travel with us and it’s a beautiful life. And she meets all these amazing people and I have a feeling that she loves life and that’s a great thing to see in a child. And I hope that’s something that I’ve imparted to her in the short time that she’s been on this earth is that life is beautiful and great and complex and alive and there’s no part of you that needs to be less in your life. You might have to work it out, but it’s worth it.

Lauren Krenzel and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.

Lifestyle

‘Evil Dead’ Star Bruce Campbell Reveals He Has Cancer

Published

12 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

‘Evil Dead’ Star Bruce Campbell Reveals He Has Cancer

Bruce Campbell
I’m Battling Cancer

Published
March 2, 2026
6:15 PM PST

Bruce Campbell has revealed he has cancer, but says it’s a type that’s treatable, though not curable.

“The Evil Dead” actor shared the news Monday in a message to fans, writing, “Hi folks, these days, when someone is having a health issue, it’s referred to as an ‘opportunity,’ so let’s go with that — I’m having one of those.” He continued, “It’s also called a type of cancer that’s ‘treatable’ not ‘curable.’ I apologize if that’s a shock — it was to me too.”

bruce campbell cancer announcement

Campbell said he wouldn’t go into further detail about his diagnosis, but explained his work schedule will be changing. “Appearances and cons and work in general need to take back seat to treatment,” he wrote, adding he plans to focus on getting “as well as I possibly can over the summer.”

As a result, Campbell says he has to cancel several convention appearances this summer, noting, “Treatment needs and professional obligations don’t always go hand-in-hand.”

bruce campbell evil dead everett 2

He says his plan is to tour this fall in support of his new film, “Ernie & Emma,” which he stars in and directs.

Ending on a determined note, Campbell told fans, “I am a tough old son-of-a-bitch … and I expect to be around a while.”