Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

By December, the PTS’s no longer use their secret names at meetings, and they’re about ready to give up on the Boy Books. The rankings never change; Margaret, Janie, and Gretchen all keep Philip Leroy at the top of their lists. Margaret wonders if the other girls list Philip first because they like him, or if, like her, they’re ashamed to write who they actually like.

One day, Gretchen sneaks out Dr. Potter’s anatomy book. The girls meet in Margaret’s room, barricade the door, and open the book to the male body. Janie wonders if Philip Leroy looks like that naked, and she says the veins are ugly. The next page is a picture of the male reproductive system. The girls study it silently until Nancy says that Evan looks like that; she knows because he used to walk around naked. Gretchen says that her dad recently stopped walking around naked, while Janie shares that her aunt spent last summer at a nudist colony. Her aunt insisted it's peaceful, but Janie declares that she’s never going to walk around naked in front of anyone—even her future husband.

Nancy declares Janie a “prude” and insists that she’ll change her mind. Eventually, when she looks like the girls in Playboy, she’ll want everyone to look at her. Janie has never flipped through a Playboy, so Margaret says that Dad gets it. Nancy sends Margaret to find a copy. Margaret feels odd about it as she searches the house. She doesn’t think showing her friends Playboy is wrong (Dad wouldn’t get the magazine if it was), but she doesn’t want to ask Mom where it is. She also realizes that Dad has recently started hiding them. Finally, Margaret finds a copy tucked in Dad’s night table.

Once Margaret returns with the magazine, Nancy opens it up to the naked girl in the middle. The girl is only 18, and Nancy squeals that they only have six years to go before they’re all that age. Janie notes that the girl’s breasts are huge, and Gretchen asks if they’ll really look like that when they’re that age. Margaret insists the girl looks “out of proportion.” Janie wonders if Laura looks like the girl in Playboy, and Nancy says probably not yet. They end the meeting with 50 rounds of “We must—we must—we must increase our bust!”