Fifteen women, all mothers of girls, were interviewed about their own adolescent sexual experiences. Not all of these mothers consented to have their daughters interviewed, so the second stage of the study involved interviews with 12 adolescent girls who were not related to the 15 mothers. Each of the girls read and responded to one of the mothers' descriptions of their adolescent sexual experiences. In addition to being interviewed about their adolescent sexual experiences, the mothers were asked whether they had shared their own adolescent sexual experiences with their daughters. If such sharing had occurred, the mother was asked how this sharing was received by her daughter. If a mother had not shared her own adolescent sexual experiences with her daughter, the mother was asked to explain her reasons for not sharing them. The "would-share" mothers tended to have adolescent sexual experiences that were more evocative, violent, and tragic and pertained to surviving abuse and humiliation. The "would-not-share" mothers had adolescent sexual experiences that were more about budding sexual feelings and innocent sexual exploration. Among the adolescent girls who read the mothers' stories, some girls would want to know about the experiences if it was their mother, and other girls did not. Reasons for sharing included wanting to learn from the mother's own victimization experiences and the development of an honest relationship with her mother. Reasons for not sharing included embarrassment and fear of undermining the existing comfortable mother-daughter relationship. Implications are drawn for clinicians and educators who work with adolescent girls. 23 references