Interview with Valerie, 16, White British, working class, Roman Catholic. Women, Risk and AIDS Project, Manchester, 1989. Anonymised version including fieldnotes (Ref: AYC21)

Anonymised transcript of an interview with Valerie, 16, who is working as a sales assistant through a YTS. She found college incredibly dull and monotonous, but would like to retrain as an air hostess when she's 18. Her school provided sex education through PSE lessons, in mixed sex groups, covering AIDS, contraception and heterosexual relationships, but they had not talked about STI's - she doesn't seem too worried about them. She also acknowledges sex and relationships information she gained through friends and her parents, who are both quite open. AIDS education through school covered AIDS transmission, and she learnt to use condoms and not share needles to protect against AIDS. She had seen some of the TV programmes about AIDS, which she thinks weren't too serious, but showed changing attitudes around women's sexuality and condom use. Attitudes towards virginity and pressure at her school are varied, and seems to be linked with popularity or status within peer groups. She is having sex with her current partner, who is the only person she has slept with. They use condoms, but to protect against pregnancy rather than AIDS. Her boyfriend doesn't like using condoms, and she is considering using the pill instead - she would go to her doctor rather than a family planning clinic, as it would offer more privacy. She considers condom use to be both her and a partner's responsibility, but would not feel comfortable carrying her own condoms in the future for casual sexual encounters. Valerie doesn't think she is at risk of AIDS, as she isn't aware of anyone she knows having contracted it, but if she did then this would change her view on risk.

AYC21/O

Career

Family life

Parent attitudes

Sex Education

AIDS disease

Students (college)

Virginity

Pressure

Condom use

Pill

Family planning clinic

Risk

Relationships

First sex

Responsibility

White British

Working class

Roman Catholic

Catholicism.

03/07/1989

Women, Risk and Aids Project (WRAP, 1989-90)

The Reanimating Data Project

Text

1989

Greater Manchester, UK

CC BY-NC 4.0

1

AYC21 M/1423/RT
A: 16.
QU: 16. So what's your date of birth? So the .. can work it out.
A: ……72.
QU: So you're 16 in ... . So do you live at home or what?
A: Yeah I live with my Mum and Dad. And me sister.
QU: How old are they?
A: Me Mum and Dad?
QU: No, your sister.
A: Me sister. She's 18 now.
QU: So what's she doing?
A: Nothing. She's pregnant.
QU: Has she left home?
A: Yeah. She's got her own house with her boyfriend. Very nice.
QU: So she's got it all to herself. That's pretty good. What does your
Mum and Dad do?
A: Me Mam's in catering. And me Dad's an engineer.
QU: So what do they do?
A: I dunno. (Laughter). No, he works at [NAME OF COMPANY], I know
that. You know if one of the machines breaks down.
QU: Is it a good job?
A: Yeah it is good really.
QU: That's good then. Thing's like engineers, they don't mean anything
to me.
A: They really don't to me either. … engineer that's what he is.
QU: Tell us about the job you’re going for.
A: On a Y.T.S. really. That's what it is. Sales assistant, three days a
week at the shop and two days a week at college. It's for 2 years and for
the second year you just go to college for 1 day a week and work for 4
days. But they try and get you like, the employer subsidy. I'm on £40 a
week now which is quite good for a YTS. On the employer subsidy it
guarantees me a job at the end, but they pay my wage which'll be about
£50 - £65 a week.
QU: Is that normal? Even at your age?
A: If I was working there yeah. They're pushing it at the moment. Said he
might give it me, but it wasn't 'til about June. If it comes off.

2

QU: So would you stay if you got that?
A: Oh, no. … (026)
QU: So did you leave school at 16. Did you not want to stay on?
A: No. I was bored with it. I went for an interview for a college course for
two years and I got it but I thought no. College every day. Jeez. I
thought, no, I don't want to do that.
QU: You want to get out of it. So when you took this YTS job were you
thinking of wanting to do that just for a while or of it being a permanent
job?
A: I was thinking of doing it really just because there was nothing else to
do. Only college courses I don't want to do.
QU: Is there anything that you've always really wanted to do? That you
fancied at school...
A: Air hostess.
QU: Air hostess. Have you applied for that?
A: No. You've got to be 18. I'll do that when I'm 18.
QU: What sort of qualifications do you need for an air hostess?
A: Well I've been told you don't really need qualifications, it's just
experience.
QU: How do you get experience? (Laughs.)
A: English, French, Spanish, all languages. You need some experience
with them. You need to talk. I don't know you just have to go to them.
You have to have like a … . (044)
QU: So did you want to travel and things?
A: Yeah, .. I'll be travelling like the adverts, shooting to New York, all
places like that, Spain.
QU: So do you want to get out of Manchester?
A: I don't know. I'd still like to live in Manchester but like travel about.
QU: Something to look forward to. I don't blame you. So what did you do
at school? What exams and things? what did you come out with?
A: I did um.., English, maths, French, Spanish, chemistry, contemporary
studies which is all like politics, abortion, all different things mixed into
one.
QU: Was that good?
A: It was alright but it was all coursework, I don't like coursework so.. I
didn't get a very good mark in that because I didn't do a lot.
QU: Were you the first year of GCSE?

3

A: Yeah.
QU: Was that difficult?
A: I don't know really because I don't know what the other exams was
like, do you know what I mean?
QU: Did it feel disorganised?
A: Yeah it did.
QU: I feel really sorry for you. It's like being guinea pigs.
A: The teachers didn't even know what they was doing properly.
QU: Did you get any sexual education? I don't know what you call it
here. At my school it was sexual education. PSE or..
A: PSE yeah. You don't get an exam in that.
QU: But you had classes in that.
A: Yeah. We had classes.
QU: And what sort of things did you go through in that?
A: Um.., we went through AIDS and contraception, um.., I don't know
really. How boys react to girls and how girls react to boys. How they
grow up.. .
QU: Was that in mixed classes?
A: Yeah. It was in your own form and I was in mixed school so..
QU: What was it like?
A: I don't know.. We didn't start doing it til the third year so that we knew
our class, we didn't feel embarrassed. If we'd started in the first year it
would have been more embarrassing because we didn't know them.
QU: I'm sure. Did you learn things there, or the things you learnt there
did you already know?
A: Well I learnt things at school and I'd learnt the same things outside.
You learn them all over really. Like off your parents.
QU: Around AIDS for example. What did they tell you about AIDS when
you were at school, can you remember?
A: Um (laughs). Just the basics really. They didn't really go into it all, just
don't use anybody else's needles and use condoms, just things like that.
They didn't really go into it.
QU: But they told you about other things like contraception. So anyway,
the things that you know now. Where did most of that come from?
A: Friends mostly because like girls talk and parents really.
QU: Do your parents talk to you about these sorts of things?
A: Yeah. They talk about all things like that.

4

QU: Is that your Mum or your Dad?
A: Both of them.
QU: That's pretty impressive. Have they always been like that?
A: Yeah. They've brought us up like so that we'll come to them if we've
got problems.
QU: So do they tell you about sex and contraception? When did they tell
you that?
A: Um.. I don't know when it was. When I started going out more. Going
out with lads. They told me, ‘be careful, watch what you're doing.’ You
know, things like that. I was about 14,15.
QU: What's their attitude towards those sort of things?
A: Well me Dad.. is a bit old fashioned really. Me sister's just got
pregnant and he doesn't like it. He's not taking it out on her but he's
more protective of me now. He doesn't like.. you have sex now before
you get married nowadays don't you, and me Mum and Dad didn't. I was
only talking about it last night actually to me Mam. I asked if she had sex
before she was married, and she said no. I said, ‘you didn't’, so she
went, ‘well, when we was engaged but not before we was engaged’. You
know they're like more old fashioned now.
QU: But do you see it as fine to have sex before marriage?
A: Yeah. I do.
QU: I think it's.., I don't know what it's like for you but when I was at
school, 4 or 5 years ago, the attitude was to lose your virginity quickly,
you know, as quick as you could lose it was the best thing. Whereas I
reckon probably 5 or 6 years before then or 10 years before, it would be
the opposite way round. If somebody... What was it like for you at
school, there's always a general attitude isn't there?
A: Just that it happened when it happened. You get some of the girls,
‘yeah, I've done it,’ and all this, and you get some of the girls who are
dead shy about it all. It varies really, I think it's a bit of both.
QU: At school it's all closed in. Do people know who had and who
hadn't?
A: Me and me friends, yeah.
QU: Keep a count. (Laughs.)
A: I remember a girl. Who was really, really, ‘Oh, I've done it,’ she was
chuffed with herself but she didn't want to show that she was. It was
really funny.

5

QU: So do you think that people aren't doing it out of pressure, you
know, having sex for the first time because they feel that they need to
keep up with everyone else?
A: I think some do, but not a lot. I don't think a lot really. If you're in with
one of the top girls and they have, I suppose you feel like they're
laughing at me. I think that's when they're influenced.
QU: When you're at school and that there's different sets of girls. The top
girls, would they be a set of girls that's more experienced?
A: Yeah. They might just say they're experienced but they're not.
QU: But it makes you top girl. It hasn't changed at all. (Laughs.) So were
you one of the top girls when you were at school?
A: Not really, no. In between.
QU: Safer. If you're in the top girls you've got to keep it up and it’s a bit
of a pressure. So then, to go back to things like AIDS, did you see all the
television programmes that were on?
A: Some of them.
QU: What did you think about those?
A: They may be good, but they tried to make it a laughing thing as well,
on one of them you know, they was laughing about condoms and
holding them and showing them about. I don't know, I think it was a good
thing in a way, but not in another.
QU: Do you think they made condoms more acceptable, through doing
those sorts of things?
A: Yeah, they do, I mean like... I don't know really. The way they was
messing about with them and everything and like when they'd got the
coloured ones on they was laughing and joking about them, but other
people, you know, might be thinking, ‘oh, that's a bit rude’, and it might
make people think, ‘oh. AIDS, it's just a laughing matter’. But I don't
know, I enjoyed watching them.
QU: It was also dead unusual to see something like that on television
anyway. Did it have a sort of impression on people? I know that people I
knew at the time it was all on TV, it had quite an impression, you know,
just people showing you how to put a condom on, on television. It
shocked me because I've never seen anything like that so public before.
A: No I hadn't, not so public. Things like saying the girl should put it on a
lot. I don't think it was like that years ago.

6

QU: The things they showed you, would that make it any easier for you
now, like to ask him to use a condom?
A: Yeah, yeah.
QU: You would, because you'd think he'd seen it.
A: Yeah.
QU: But would you ask a boy to use one?
A: Yeah.
QU: Have you?
A: Yeah.
QU: Why did you ask, what was the reason?
A: I weren't thinking about AIDS, I was thinking about getting pregnant
really, to use it. I wasn't taking any contraception or anything. So I asked
him to.
QU: Was this the first time that you'd slept with someone?
A: Yeah.
QU: Who was this then?
A: Me boyfriend at the moment.
QU: So how long have you been with him?
A: Since about November. But he's um.. 27.
QU: So he's a lot older than you.
A: He's a lot older. But he's a bit of a secret, because me Mum and
Dad don't know. That's one thing I've not told them, that he's an older lad
that I'm seeing.
QU: Why would they be against him being 27?
A: Well I don't think it's against him being 27, well it is.., they know him.
They've known him since he was a little kid. They know what he's got up
to and you can get up to a lot when you're 27. He asked me Dad if he
can take me out which I thought was nice, you don't get that nowadays,
but me Dad turned around and said no. That was in June at a wedding,
but I never went out with him until November.
QU: Is he the first person you've thought about sleeping with then?
A: Yeah.
QU: What made you think of him?
A: I don't know. All the boys I've been with they've all been the same age
as me or like a year older. He's like older and more mature, well he's not
(laughing), he acts about 23, but he's more mature and to me he knows
what he's doing more than what the other lads do.

7

QU: Yeah, you trusted him more. Did you want to sleep with him when
you slept with him or was it something to do with him being older. I mean
was it your choice, was it something that you wanted to do?
A: Yeah. I know it was yeah. (Laughter.) I mean like he tried before and I
said no, and he tried again and I said yes. I felt like I was ready.
QU: Did you enjoy it?
A: Yeah it was alright.
QU: Yeah, so it wasn't like a bad experience. Were you let down at all,
it's a big thing isn't it? The first time you do it.
A: Yeah. No, I enjoyed it.
QU: It's always... I remember when I first slept with someone. You’re
expecting I'll feel different afterwards. You wouldn't feel like a virgin
anymore. There'll be suddenly some transformation. I wasn't really
expecting to enjoy it or anything, it was all about changing what you
were and you didn't feel any different afterwards, it's dead confusing.
Whether you're a virgin or whether you're not. So have you ever talked
to him about contraception?
A: Um.., I've talked about going on the pill. But um..
QU: Does he want you to go on the pill?
A: Well he doesn't like using condoms he's told me he doesn't, but he
will which is fair enough. So in a way I think he wants me to so that he
doesn't have to use a condom, but he doesn't. He wouldn't force me to it,
he wouldn't say, ‘right you're going on the pill or that's it because I'm not
using them anymore’. He's told me he doesn't like them. He wouldn't
force me, no.
QU: Do you have any opinion about using them?
A: No not really, because I don't know the difference because I've
always used them. So I don't know what the difference is in using them
or in not using them.
QU: I think that a lot of the blokes make a lot of the difference, it’s a very
typical thing isn't it. A lot of them don't like using them because they think
it spoils their manhood or something - it’s a bit debatable whether it
does. So if you went on the pill then you would be protected against
pregnancy, you wouldn't be protected against AIDS. Would you take that
into account? If I hadn't brought it up, if I hadn't mentioned it to you and
you had decided to go on the pill?
A: Um, no I wouldn't use condoms, I'd just use the pill.

8

QU: Had you thought about AIDS or HIV as being any risk to you?
Individually?
A: No, not to me individually, no.
QU: I mean do you know about its’ history?
A: I know quite a bit about its’ history. I know he's terrified of AIDS.
QU: Is he?
A: He's absolutely terrified of AIDS. I mean like he wouldn't sleep
with any Tom, Dick or Harry.
QU: Does he talk about it then, about AIDS, does he mention it to
you?
A: Not actually to me personally, in a group he's talked about it. Not
actually when we're on our own.
QU: Why not?
A: I don't know. It's just never come up. But he's terrified of AIDS.
QU: Is he doing anything about it or is he just scared?
A: Um, I don't know. Like he's away this week. I said to him, ‘take plenty
of condoms.’ You know messing about, and he went, ‘I won't need
them what do you take me for?’ So I says I'm only messing and he says,
‘I know you're only messing but you know I won't go around and just
sleep with anyone’. So I don't know.
QU: Do you trust him? Are you sure that he won't?
A: I trust him that he won't sleep with anyone but seeing somebody I
don't know. Like he'll meet someone but I don't think he'll sleep with
them.
QU: But it all becomes.. it would be important in terms of your
relationship, it’s difficult to think about it in terms of AIDS as well.
A: I don't know. It's not like as if AIDS was never heard of. I don't know,
he might. With him being a lot older as well, I mean if he was younger
and I was having a relationship and he went away and there was the
same closeness I don't think he would, but with him being older and him
going away, you know what that's like, so because of his age as well..
QU: Does it feel important to you that he's that much older and more
experienced? Does it matter that there's a gap with you being less
experienced?
A: No, it doesn't matter.

9

QU: It doesn't make a difference. I’m interested in contraception again.
So you haven't been to a Family Planning Clinic or anything like that?
Did you buy your condoms?
A: No, he bought them.
QU: Would you go and buy some? Have you ever done that?
A: Um, I don't know that I would at a chemists, but they sell them in
toilets now don't they. I would there. I don't know that I could go in and
buy them.
QU: It’s not easy is it. Would you be prepared, if you don't stay together
with him, in the future to carry them around with you? If you went out and
there was the possibility that you were going to cop off or something was
going to happen. You would be able to do that?
A: Not if I wasn't seeing anyone. If I was going out with somebody and I
was older myself I think I would have some on me if I was seeing
someone, but not the first night, no.
QU: Do you see contraception as being your responsibility or of the boy?
A: Both. I don't think it’s on one person.
QU: If you’re taking the pill though that changes it around a bit, using
condoms you both can see what you’re doing. When you’re on the pill
does that make a difference to the way you feel about it?
A: Well it’s our responsibility when we're on the pill because we're the
one that's got to take it. I don't know, um.., yeah in that sense I think it’s
the woman's responsibility. If a woman's doing something about it it’s her
responsibility, but, like, condoms they do it together, it’s different really, I
don't know.
Q: I think the way it feels is a lot to do with your age as well. I don't
know, the type of relationship you're in plus the age you are. I think
people change the type of contraception they use as they get older.
From the people I've talked to, people use condoms when they're first
having sexual experiences quite a lot but they seem to drop that after a
while. I mean one thing about condoms is joint responsibility. So how
long do you see this relationship lasting?
A: I don't know. It depends really if it lasts longer. I want it to last as well
but with my parents and that I know it won't last. We have actually
finished it because of my parents.
(The tape is turned off here. 438)

10

QU: Get back to it now. If you wanted to go on the pill or whatever,
would you be going to go to your Family Planning Clinic or going to your
doctor or what? Have you thought about that?
A: I've thought about it and I'd go to me doctor.
QU: Why would you make that decision?
A: I don't know, I think it's more private when you go to your doctor. At
Family Planning there's more people there and they can see you. If you
go to your doctor and you're sat in the waiting room, people don't know
what you're there for.
QU: And would you be embarrassed if people did know what you were
going for?
A: Some people, yeah. I mean like there's all people that you know,
nearly everybody there (laughs). They'd say, ‘oh aye, what's she doing
here? and the kind of the relationship I'm having it'd be difficult.
QU: Keep it secret. .. (459). From the AIDS education that you've been
given already, you said that you'd been told the basics, what do you
mean by that? Don't use needles, use condoms?
A: Yeah.
QU: But are there any things that you haven't been told, that you're
unsure about?
A: No not really.
QU: Let me give you an example, something like oral sex, you may not
be having oral sex, are you, out of interest?
A: No.
QU: Would you know whether that was a risky thing to do?
A: No, I don't know if it would be.
QU: I think a lot of people know condoms and they know needles but
there's more shades than that. The education that you were given, did
they explain where the virus is in the body and that type of thing?
A: Blood and stuff.
QU: Yeah, so do you know how it’s actually passed?
A: Sperm like, needles again, blood transfusions, a very large amount of
saliva...
QU: Pints. (Laughter).
A: That's all I know really.
QU: Have you ever met or do you know of anybody who has got AIDS?
A: No.

11

QU: Nobody. Not in the neighbourhood or anything that you know of.
A: No.
QU: Do you think that's got an influence on how you feel about it, that
you don't see it as a risk?
A: Yeah because if you knew somebody you'd think, ‘oh, I live near her
or I live near him, what have they.., where've they been’. Yeah, I think
your reactions are different if you know of somebody. Definitely.
QU: Yeah. Do you think you'd feel difficult with somebody if they told you
they had AIDS?
A: No. Not like friendship like.
QU: You wouldn't be scared of them. Do you think that's how most
people of your age think?
A: No. ‘Eh look, you've got AIDS, I'm not going near him’. But I think if I
was sat here and you told me now that you'd got AIDS I'd shiver. But I
mean, I'd just, it wouldn't mean anything to me.
QU: You wouldn't be scared?
A: No.
QU: When they told you at school about AIDS did they tell you about
other sexually transmitted diseases, other venereal diseases?
A: No, they didn't really go into things like that.
QU: So you're not worried about getting a sexually transmitted disease?
A: I've never really thought about it.
QU: Did they tell you anything about cervical cancer?
A: No they didn't.
QU: Do you know anything about it?
A: I know you can get it from having sex too long. That's all I know. You
can get that.
QU: But you don't know what it is that...
A: It's um.., the womb isn't it?
QU: Yeah it's the cervix, just inside it. It's just that using a condom as
well as protecting you from pregnancy, protects you against sexually
transmitted diseases. It also can protect you against cervical cancer, it's
one of the things that can cut down your chances...
A: No I didn't know that.
QU: They keep these things quiet don't they. (Laughter). So there's
nothing else that you would want to know, until I bring these things up, I
mean if someone came along who could tell you anything you want to

12

know about AIDS? There's nothing else that you'd thought about and
weren't sure about?
A: No not really.
QU: Do you think if you did need to know, do you feel that you could find
it out. Would you know where to go to find things out?
A: Um...
QU: You wouldn't know who to ask?
A: I think I'd ask me Mam.
QU: Your Mum. It seems like you've got a good relationship with your
Mum. Do you get on well?
A: Yeah.
QU: Good. The last thing, have you heard of a Well Women clinic?
A: Yeah, you give me a leaflet.
QU: If you had a choice between going to your doctors and going to a
Well Women's Clinic that was for young women, do you think you would
like to have something like that?
A: It depends what you're going for. If I was going for me pills I think I'd
go to the doctor, if I was going for something else I think I would go to
the Well Women's Clinic.
QU: Is that because you would want to keep privacy?
A: Yeah.
QU: Do you feel happier talking to a woman doctor? Have you had a
woman doctor?
A: No, I've never had a woman doctor.
QU: Would you want a woman doctor if you went for the pill?
A: No, it wouldn't bother me.
QU: I don't know what you girls talk about but when I was your age the
big thing was knowing that if you went on the pill you had to have an
internal. And that's what we..
A: You don't have to have them, or you do?
QU: I think you still do, yeah.
A: Do you?
QU: That was one of the things, it was quite a big block for a lot us you
know, going to do that. Does that worry you?
A: No, because I mean... The doctor's is all private isn't it, he's seen it
all.
QU: Yeah. I'm sure, millions of them. Okay, great. (581)

13
1

AYC21 Valerie
RT 7.3.89
VALERIE turned up to the youth club after not appearing the week [missing]. ..
interview for a modelling job. She was very full of this and the modelling agency, had
been on a training course that day. Very .. some glamour in her life, if she couldn't be
a model then she w[missing] young woman, dressed in a ‘feminine’ way, tights,
heels, jewelry .. [missing]ail there and she wasn't that strong a personality. Got
some [missing] with parents, she didn't have terribly strong views on things whi
[missing]

1