Sexuality Research and Social Policy: Journal of NSRC , Vol. 2, Issue 4, pp. 4-17, online ISSN 1553-6610. © 2005 by the National Sexuality Research Center. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permissions to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, http://www .ucpress.edu/journals/rights.htm 4 December 2005 Vol. 2, No. 4 Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Deborah L. Tolman, Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality, San Francisco State University, 2017 Mission Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94110. E-mail: dtolman@sfsu.edu ; Celeste Hirschman, E-mail: celeste_amor@hotmail.com ; Emily A. Impett, E-mail: eimpett@sfsu.edu Sexuality Research & Social Policy Journal of NSRC http://nsr c.sfsu.edu There Is More to the Story: The Place of Qualitative Research on Female Adolescent Sexuality in Policy Making Deborah L. Tolman, Celeste Hirschman, Emily A. Impett Abstract: Individual testimonials have an unprecedented currency in policy making about adolescent sexuality. While highly problematic as grounds for making policy, the current deployment of testimo- nials as evidence may in fact provide an unexpected opportunity for qualitative researchers to capitalize on the power of stories to influence policy makers’ decisions. Qualitative research combines the power of stories with methodological rigor, providing policy makers with important information about the complexity of problems and suggesting possible solutions. In this article, we use the case of sexuality education policy making, which, in 1996, shifted to fund abstinence-only programs exclusively. By intro- ducing key findings from qualitative research on female adolescent sexuality about gender inequality, we demonstrate the ways in which the sexuality education debate has left out central developmental and interpersonal aspects of girls’sexuality. We then discuss the ways in which the findings from these qualitative studies can be used to inform sexuality education policies and practices. Key words: abstinence-only education; comprehensive sexuality education; adolescent sexuality; female adolescence At a special hearing of the U.S. Senate on abstinence- only education in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Committee on Appropriations United States Senate, 2004), Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) questioned a panel of young people who had received or had taught abstinence- only education in their public school classrooms. Jennifer Bruno, a youth board member and student at Lehigh Valley High School in Pennsylvania, described the fol- lowing experience: I was at a party and I was with my friends, and all of us had a boyfriend. So most of the girls that were my friends were like going to rooms and kissing and everything. And two of my best friends decided that they were going to go with their boyfriends downstairs and they asked me if I wanted to go, and I said no because I knew what was going to happen. So after the party was over, I went to the performing arts school and they went to Liberty. And I didn’t see them for like 3 months. I recently found out that both of them had babies. And I was proud of the decision that I had made that I chose to stay abstinent. (p. 32) In response to this testimonial, Senator Specter, a strong supporter of abstinence-only education, declared, “That’s pretty persuasive proof I’d say” (Committee on Appropriations United States Senate, 2004, p. 34). With this statement, Senator Specter ensured that the intended purpose of Bruno’s statement was clear: This isolated, decontextualized, and unanalyzed testimonial by a single individual was meant to count as “proof” that abstinence- only education works. Throughout the hearings, sup- porters of abstinence-only education punctuated their presentation of statistical data with adolescents and authoritative advocates telling their stories. Such stories included excerpts from student letters and personal observations about changes in young people’s behavior, including Reverend Kenneth Page’s assertion that “students have become more open to talking about