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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
Parenting is hard, and it is harder when parenting something we didn't live through - such as earlier and more substantive exposure to sex and sexual material through social media, music, movies, and real life. This book helps. It paints the landscape our daughters are living in. There are many profiles of individual girls and their experiences that, combined with the less personal statistics, bring this landscape to life.
In an especially effective section, our culture is compared to the Dutch culture, where girls have candid discussions with parents, teachers, and doctors about sex, pleasure, and the importance of a loving relationship. Spoiler alert: the Dutch have lower teen pregnancy rate, lower teen abortion rate, become sexually active at an older age, have fewer sexual partners, and are more likely to use birth control.
In the last page or so of the book, the author poses many questions, including: Would you like your teenager to explore and understand her own body thoroughly before plunging ahead with partnered sex? Would you like her notion of what constitutes intimacy to extend beyond intercourse? Of course. When you put it that way, I will be sure to open those conversations. If parents don't, it's unlikely anyone else will and the chances that a girl navigating this landscape on her own will leave on the other side happy and healthy is becoming less and less likely.
In an especially effective section, our culture is compared to the Dutch culture, where girls have candid discussions with parents, teachers, and doctors about sex, pleasure, and the importance of a loving relationship. Spoiler alert: the Dutch have lower teen pregnancy rate, lower teen abortion rate, become sexually active at an older age, have fewer sexual partners, and are more likely to use birth control.
In the last page or so of the book, the author poses many questions, including: Would you like your teenager to explore and understand her own body thoroughly before plunging ahead with partnered sex? Would you like her notion of what constitutes intimacy to extend beyond intercourse? Of course. When you put it that way, I will be sure to open those conversations. If parents don't, it's unlikely anyone else will and the chances that a girl navigating this landscape on her own will leave on the other side happy and healthy is becoming less and less likely.
I didn't love it like a cant be missed book. But it could break ground on conversations with kids about sex.
Alternative title: MIDDLE CLASS WHITE GIRLS & SEX.
I don't know why I thought I would like this book when Orenstein's previous book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, made me want to slap myself, but here I go!!!
Things I liked: Final chapters on Sex Ed. Charis Denison sounds incredible, and I wish she could design a national sex education curriculum that focuses on sex in a healthy way, instead of a negative, horrifying experience that changes who you are as a person (especially your worth as a human, if you are a woman).
Things I disliked: Peggy Orenstein did not write about these issues first, and she most certainly did not write about these issues best. It's clear this book is written for other privileged white women who, despite claiming to be feminists, shudder at the idea of their precious daughters engaging in sex.
Orenstein loves to take single anecdotes from a teenager who she interviewed and use it to make an overarching claim about teens and sexuality. One girl mentions that she is pressured by porn? Apparently to Orenstein, this is on par with a nationwide epidemic of women being scarred by pornography.
Things I really disliked: Orenstein loves to write like she's fun and snarky, but in reality, she sounds like a huge bitch. She loves throwing pop culture jabs when, in reality, a lot of the times, the comments were completely uncalled for. A skewed sexual statistic "may explain...the plots of most Seth Rogan films", which is apparently a dig against someone who, as far as I know, has no real purpose for being included in this book.
In a truly disgusting section of the book, she skewers Kim Kardashian (more on this later) for her choice in men; she ends the paragraph by discussing their daughter North West, saying, "I wonder how they'll react to her first sex tape." I don't find many things more disgusting than speculating on the sex life and morals of a TODDLER.
Things I F&$KING HATED: If an alien came to planet Earth and read this book, that alien would have no clue that low income women or Women of Color exist in positive ways. Orenstein writes ONLY from a privileged, white perspective; she mentions that a few of interviewees were of Asian or Pacific Islander descent, and there might have been a single Latina interviewed. The Women of Color that she DOES discuss are absolutely ripped apart for daring to show their bodies in a way that men might objectify. Nicki Minaj and Kim Kardashian both receive a disturbing amount of ire from Orenstein; I am wondering what the two might have done to earn such vile feelings from a woman living a cozy life in Berkeley, CA. The two are not allowed to REALLY be comfortable and confident in their bodies and sexualities; they're just doing it because they know men will like it. How lucky the world is to have women like Peggy Orenstein to tell us what our true motives are. We might be lost without her!
Who DOES get positive feedback from our intrepid author? White women. Amy Schumer and Lena Dunham, AKA White Feminism's poster children. It's okay, apparently, for Lena Dunham to show her body, because she "wasn't trying to be hot. Quite the opposite: she is dough-bellied and soft-chinned, with natural, lop-sided breasts". So much for body positivity. Orenstein also promotes a miserable, disturbing sex scene from Dunham's Tiny Furniture as a "real" example of sex. So basically, Peggy Orenstein is Candace from Portlandia in the journaling skit if you replace "journaling" with "sex". THE END.
This novel was brought to you by Summer Vacation.
I don't know why I thought I would like this book when Orenstein's previous book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, made me want to slap myself, but here I go!!!
Things I liked: Final chapters on Sex Ed. Charis Denison sounds incredible, and I wish she could design a national sex education curriculum that focuses on sex in a healthy way, instead of a negative, horrifying experience that changes who you are as a person (especially your worth as a human, if you are a woman).
Things I disliked: Peggy Orenstein did not write about these issues first, and she most certainly did not write about these issues best. It's clear this book is written for other privileged white women who, despite claiming to be feminists, shudder at the idea of their precious daughters engaging in sex.
Orenstein loves to take single anecdotes from a teenager who she interviewed and use it to make an overarching claim about teens and sexuality. One girl mentions that she is pressured by porn? Apparently to Orenstein, this is on par with a nationwide epidemic of women being scarred by pornography.
Things I really disliked: Orenstein loves to write like she's fun and snarky, but in reality, she sounds like a huge bitch. She loves throwing pop culture jabs when, in reality, a lot of the times, the comments were completely uncalled for. A skewed sexual statistic "may explain...the plots of most Seth Rogan films", which is apparently a dig against someone who, as far as I know, has no real purpose for being included in this book.
In a truly disgusting section of the book, she skewers Kim Kardashian (more on this later) for her choice in men; she ends the paragraph by discussing their daughter North West, saying, "I wonder how they'll react to her first sex tape." I don't find many things more disgusting than speculating on the sex life and morals of a TODDLER.
Things I F&$KING HATED: If an alien came to planet Earth and read this book, that alien would have no clue that low income women or Women of Color exist in positive ways. Orenstein writes ONLY from a privileged, white perspective; she mentions that a few of interviewees were of Asian or Pacific Islander descent, and there might have been a single Latina interviewed. The Women of Color that she DOES discuss are absolutely ripped apart for daring to show their bodies in a way that men might objectify. Nicki Minaj and Kim Kardashian both receive a disturbing amount of ire from Orenstein; I am wondering what the two might have done to earn such vile feelings from a woman living a cozy life in Berkeley, CA. The two are not allowed to REALLY be comfortable and confident in their bodies and sexualities; they're just doing it because they know men will like it. How lucky the world is to have women like Peggy Orenstein to tell us what our true motives are. We might be lost without her!
Who DOES get positive feedback from our intrepid author? White women. Amy Schumer and Lena Dunham, AKA White Feminism's poster children. It's okay, apparently, for Lena Dunham to show her body, because she "wasn't trying to be hot. Quite the opposite: she is dough-bellied and soft-chinned, with natural, lop-sided breasts". So much for body positivity. Orenstein also promotes a miserable, disturbing sex scene from Dunham's Tiny Furniture as a "real" example of sex. So basically, Peggy Orenstein is Candace from Portlandia in the journaling skit if you replace "journaling" with "sex". THE END.
This novel was brought to you by Summer Vacation.
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I have had this on my shelf for a few years, as a gift from my mom. I love Peggy Orenstein's writing style and her honest approach to gender violence in American society. She encourages readers to follow through with solutions she offers throughout the book, but only after telling stories of young women going through dating scenarios of all kinds, as well as navigating college social situations.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
The name of this book may be Girls & Sex, but I encourage all parents to read this one. This generation of teens are inundated with one-sided images of sexuality - all the while dealing with peers who give them incorrect information and parents who give them none. The author takes us on her journey through schools, purity balls, camps - speaking one on one with teens frankly about their sex lives and it's compelling. Girls & Sex is an honest look at teenage sexuality in the 21st century. You will gasp, laugh, and find yourself on the verge of tears when you read her findings - and that's good. God bless Orenstein for blowing the lid off of this taboo subject. Great read!
emotional
informative
sad
fast-paced
This book has a terrible title. The people who most need to read it if anything is going to change are parents of BOYS!!! My husband called it scarier than any Steven King book. If you have a kid above 10 you must read this book.
informative
reflective
medium-paced