“The new ideology is that sex is good and good sex means orgasm”: Richard V. Lepe, “What About the Right to Say ‘No’?,” New York Times, September 16, 1973. Referenced on pp. 111–12 of Forever.

“Not that I don’t identify with Katherine”: Weidt, Presenting Judy Blume, p. 53.

“be careful”: Judy Blume, Forever, p. 37.

“Sometimes it’s hard for parents to accept the facts”: Ibid., p. 119.

“There were double standards then”: Ibid., p. 83.

Three years later in 1939, Tampax was featured: Details about the Hall of Pharmacy found in the New York Public Library’s digital World’s Fair 1939 and 1940 collection. Accessed online: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/search/index?utf8=%E2%9C%93&keywords=pharmacy#.

“that a tampon took up no more room than a standard nozzle”: As quoted in Joan Jacobs Brumberg’s The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), p. 161.

“of the time that Erica taught me how to use tampons”: Judy Blume, Forever, p. 129.

In a TikTok from 2022: https://www.tiktok.com/@singinraisin/video/7180450325726285102.

“This is really rough”: Judy Blume, Forever, p. 27.

“soft mattresses are good for making love”: Ibid., p. 41.

she’s not “mentally ready… a person has to think”: Ibid., p. 50.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a tease”: Ibid., p. 51.

“Sometimes I want to so much,” she admits: Ibid., p. 52.

“I was thinking, I love you Michael”: Ibid., p. 66.

“I didn’t tell them that with Michael and me it’s different”: Ibid., p. 91.

“In my whole life nothing will ever mean more to me”: Ibid., p. 134.

they don’t have to “do anything”; they can “just talk”: Ibid., p. 96.

“when we were naked, in each other’s arms, I wanted to do everything”: Ibid., p. 102.

“I’m thinking about getting pregnant”: Ibid., pp. 102–103.

“Still, I can’t help feeling let down”: Ibid., p. 107.

Chapter Eleven

Pleasure

“Can we do it again?”: Judy Blume, Forever (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Bradbury Press, 1975), p. 141.

“Our old ethic is, like Venice, sinking imperceptibly into the sea”: John Money, “Recreational—and Procreational—Sex,” New York Times, September 13, 1975.

which had more than doubled between 1963 and 1975: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports Series P-20, No. 297, “Number, Timing and Duration of Marriages and Divorces in the United States: June 1975” (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976).

she answers, “Does it matter?”: Judy Blume, Forever, p. 120.

“I’d rather take the Pill”: Ibid., p. 128.

“Katherine absolutely wants it and is in touch with her own desire”: RL to RB, November 8, 2023.

Michael describes his mom and dad as “a little stuffier”: Judy Blume, Forever, p. 142.

“We don’t have to do anything…”: Ibid., p. 136.

he “use[s] more junk” than she does: Ibid., p. 138.

“Do you ever put it on your balls?”: Ibid., p. 139.

“I grabbed his backside with both hands”: Ibid., p. 140.

“I thought how nice it would be if we could go upstairs”: Ibid., p. 143.

“Any way you want,” Michael answers: Ibid., p. 174.

“I thought, there are so many ways to love a person”: Ibid., p. 175.

“We both think you could use a change of scenery”: Ibid., p. 151.

“So they’ll find out that separating us won’t change anything”: Ibid., p. 158.

“What’s forever supposed to mean?”: Ibid., p. 187.

“There’s another guy, isn’t there?”: Ibid., p. 203.

actually he “screwed [his] way around North Carolina”: Ibid., p. 206.

“I’ll never regret one single thing we did together”: Ibid., p. 208.

Chapter Twelve

Paperbacks

“We’d all whisper and certain pages would fall open”: Telephone interview with Lauren Harrison, October 25, 2022.

“Labeling it an adult book… was our way of saying”: Weidt, Presenting Judy Blume, p. 59.

She told School Library Journal that seeing the book described that way: Roger Sutton, “An Interview with Judy Blume, Forever… Yours,” School Library Journal, June 1996, pp. 25–27.

“Dick told me, ‘Judy Blume is our big author’ ”: PS to RB, May 27, 2022.

“a kind of heroine to the kids who read and re-read her books”: Best Seller List, New York Times, August 15, 1976.