Lifestyle
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.
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.”
Jane Austen ready to party for her 250th birthday at the Jane Austen Society of North America’s Annual General Meeting in Baltimore.
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In her six completed novels, Jane Austen excelled at love stories: Elinor and Edward, Lizzie and Darcy, Fanny and Edmund, Emma and Knightley, Anne and Wentworth, heck even Catherine and Tilney. As her fans celebrate the 250th anniversary of her birth, they’d like you to know it’s a mistake to simply dismiss her work as light, frothy romances. It’s full of intricate plots, class satire and biting wit, along with all the timeless drama of human foibles, frailties and resolve.
Tessa Harings (left) learns English country dance at the Jane Austen Society of North America’s 2025 Annual General Meeting
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“The basic reason why Austen is still popular today is because all of her characters are people we know in the world,” says Tessa Harings. She’s a high school teacher from Phoenix and one of the more than 900 attendees at the Jane Austen Society of North America’s Annual General Meeting, held in Baltimore this year. “We all know of someone who’s shy and aloof and needs to be brought into the crowd. We all know someone who’s quite witty, naturally. We all know someone who is a bit silly and always looking for attention.”
Colin Firth, properly memed from the 1995 BBC miniseries. His Darcy is a big favorite with the JASNA crowd.
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Shy and aloof? That could be Darcy. Naturally witty? Lizzie Bennet. Silly and looking for attention? Take your pick: baby sister Lydia or maybe the haughty Caroline Bingley or the unctuous Mr. Collins, all creations from what might be Austen’s most popular novel, Pride and Prejudice.
Her characters have permeated modern pop culture, even among people who’ve never opened her books. Harings says that’s one reason her students want to read these Regency-era novels. They want to understand the jokes in all those short videos and memes, like Mr. Collins making awkward dinner conversation.
He wants a wife, he compliments the potatoes. In Mr. Collin’s head, it makes sense.
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Her students enjoy the tension between Darcy and Lizzie: he’s very rich, so besotted by her against his will that he can hardly dance, glower and talk at the same time. Lizzie initially cannot stand him and refuses his first proposal, as shown in this soggy scene from the 2005 movie adaptation.
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Harings says Lizzie is her favorite Austen character. “She has such sharp, sarcastic wit and she’s so self-confident, despite the fact that she’s constantly being put down by the people around her for her supposedly lower position in life as the slightly less pretty of the mother’s two oldest daughters.”
Milliner Dannielle Perry (right) and her assistant Mia Berg of Timely Tresses in their Regency-era togs.
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“When I was a teenager, I loved Lizzie and I wanted to be Lizzie,” says milliner Dannielle Perry of Oxford, N.C. She’s read and reread all of Jane Austen’s books and she loves how they change for her as she’s gotten older. She’s now more sympathetic toward Mrs. Bennet, Lizzie’s mom: a woman desperate to get her five daughters married, least they be penniless since they can’t inherit their father’s estate. “I feel sorry for her in a way I never did before,” Perry says. “She is sort of silly, but she’s lived with a man for 20 years who largely dismisses her and thinks she’s frivolous.”
Doctoral student Katie Yu, of Dallas, has this analysis of Mrs. Bennett and her husband, who seems mentally checked-out at best: “He’s not a great father. He’s always putting his wife down in front of his daughters, he’s putting his daughters down in front of his daughters.” Yu says Mr. Bennet married Mrs. Bennet because she was pretty, treats her as an inferior, and often ignores her. This is why Mrs. Bennet goes on about her nerves and “has the vapors” whenever she’s stressed: she’s trying to get his attention.
“But,” says Tessa Harings, “she still has a level of street smarts that she has to get her daughters married. And yes, she’s sincerely concerned about their future … she actually, of the two of them, is the more concerned and involved parent.”
Tom Tumbusch explains 19th century dance moves to JASNA members.
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Dance instructor Tom Tumbusch, of Cincinnati, says men can learn a lot from Austen. “Modern men struggle to find good role models,” he says. “Reading Austen’s works can help them see the places where men can go wrong.” Mr. Bennet, for example. Or the libertine George Wickham who lies and runs off with the flighty Bennet sister, Lydia. Or maybe Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility, who leads Marianne Dashwood on, ghosts her and is later revealed to have abandoned an unmarried woman who gave birth to his child.
Oh, Marianne, he’s so not worth it!
On the other hand, Tumbusch says Jane Austen’s heroes can show men “how to be masculine in a constructive way,” like owning mistakes, taking responsibility and treating women with respect. It’s not just Darcy, who works behind the scenes getting Wickham to marry Lydia, it’s also Captain Wentworth from Persuasion. Tombusch says Wentworth does what men of his station should: he uses his own resources to help someone less fortunate, the poor, partially disabled widow Mrs. Smith. And in Sense and Sensibility, there’s the steadfast Col. Brandon. Hoping to make Willoughby’s rejection of Marianne less devastating to her, he exposes the libertine’s behavior. He rides hours to retrieve her mother when Marianne is near death. He patiently, oh-so-patiently, waits for her young, broken heart to mend.
All this while wearing a flannel waistcoat because he’s on the “wrong side of five and thirty” and needs to keep those ancient bones warm.
Before he rocked worlds as Snape, Alan Rickman made the earth move for viewers of the 1995 movie adaptation of Sense and Sensibility.
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JASNA president Mary Mintz, of McLean, Va., says though Jane Austen is largely known for her marriage plots, it’s really the human need for connection that grounds her stories. “She writes about the relationships between parents and children, between siblings or among siblings, she writes about relationships with friends. And she is really insightful. When you combine that with her knowledge of human psychology, it’s a great formula for success.”
Mintz is fascinated by Emma’s pivotal character, Miss Bates. She’s a spinster and member of the gentry class who lives with her elderly mother on an extremely limited income. She’s also a nervous chatterbox, “someone who can’t stop talking,” says Mintz. “I’ve known a lot of Misses Bates in my lifetime… people who seem insecure and feel as though they have to fill up silence, but are really good-hearted people.”
When Emma is rude to Miss Bates, she’s firmly chastised by her neighbor, Mr. Knightley. It becomes a turn-around moment in the story. Humbled, Emma apologizes. She also sees how she’s been wrong to meddle in the love life of Harriet Smith, a pretty teenager whose parents are unknown.
Mintz says there’s an interesting link between Bates and Harriet, if you put two and two together.
“In Jane Austen’s actual life, mothers and daughters often share the same name,” she explains. That pattern can be seen in many of her novels. “We don’t know who Harriet Smith’s natural mother is, but at one point Miss Bates is referred to as ‘Hetty,’ which could be a diminutive for ‘Harriet.’ “
That’s the first clue. The second clue occurs during that scene where Knightley sets Emma right. He says of Miss Bates, “she has sunk from the comforts she was born to.” He then draws a contrast between the spinster’s current station and her former one: “You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had seen grow up from a period when her notice was an honour…”
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Emma’s father is quite wealthy, so why would Miss Bates’ notice have once been so esteemed? Mary Mintz asks, “Is because she had a child out of wedlock?”
And could that child be… Harriet Smith?
The mind: it boggles! A Jane Austen Easter egg! It’s just one example of how multi-dimensional her novels are and why so many people will continue loving, analyzing and discussing her work well into the next 250 years.
Jacob Fenston and Danny Hensel edited and produced this report.
Rob Reiner And Wife Michele
Throats Slit By Family Member
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Updated
Rob Reiner and his wife Michele had their throats slit by a family member, possibly after an argument inside their Los Angeles home, leading to their tragic deaths … TMZ has learned
It’s unclear what exactly triggered the violence, which went down Sunday afternoon in Brentwood … but we’re told one of Rob’s daughters found her parents dead and told police a family member had killed them. PEOPLE reports the couple’s son, Nick, is being questioned in connection with the murders.
Our sources also say the daughter told police the family member “should be a suspect” because they’re “dangerous.”
TMZ broke the story … Rob and Michele suffered lacerations consistent with knife wounds and LAPD’s Robbery Homicide Division is investigating the case.
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Dispatch audio captures a firefighter calling for backup to the Brentwood mansion around 3:30 PM … though it doesn’t provide any further information about the circumstances in the abode.
Rob was 78. Michele was 68.
Sunday Puzzle
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On-air challenge
I’m going to read you some sentences. Each sentence conceals the name of a major U.S. city in consecutive letters. As a hint, the answer’s state also appears in the sentence. Every answer has at least six letters. (Ex. The Kentucky bodybuilders will be flexing tonight. –> LEXINGTON)
1. Space enthusiasts in Oregon support landing on Mars.
2. Contact your insurance branch or agent in Alaska.
3. The Ohio company has a sale from today to next Sunday.
4. The Colorado trial ended in a sudden verdict.
5. Fans voted the Virginia tennis matches a peak experience.
6. I bought a shamrock for decorating my house in Illinois.
7. All the Connecticut things they knew have now changed.
8. Can you help a software developer in Texas?
Last week’s challenge
Last week’s challenge came from Mike Reiss, who’s a showrunner, writer, and producer for “The Simpsons.” Think of a famous living singer. The last two letters of his first name and the first two letters of his last name spell a bird. Change the first letter of the singer’s first name. Then the first three letters of that first name and the last five letters of his last name together spell another bird. What singer is this?
Challenge answer
Placido Domingo
Winner
Brock Hammill of Corvallis, Montana.
This week’s challenge
This week’s challenge comes from Robert Flood, of Allen, Texas. Name a famous female singer of the past (five letters in the first name, seven letters in the last name). Remove the last letter of her first name and you can rearrange all the remaining letters to name the capital of a country (six letters) and a food product that its nation is famous for (five letters).
If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it below by Thursday, December 18 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle.
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