Reviews - Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity

validated the anxiety i have as a mom raising a boy in the day and age of fragile masculinity. i feel better equipped to approach these topics with my son. this book had components that felt like a call to action and components that felt like a cautionary tale. appreciated the discussion on race, trans visibility, and LGBTQIA+ representation.

sorrastar's review against another edition

3.0

I really liked that in the book it’s clearly stated this was not a therapist,This was just a reporter writing stories but I feel that this was also the down side of the book. Maybe I just need a different book but I feel like a lot of the missing parts of the story the boys told or the writer wrote about was lost???? I think a deeper dive into what things could mean or represent would be interesting but once again I probably need a different book

hoblin's review against another edition

4.0

I read her other book from the female perspective and could only feel complete if I also read this book. I appreciate that she spoke to many young men of varying ages, as well as varying gender and sexual orientations. The message I take away is that we have to do better for our youth. We've thrown them out into the world with little to no information on navigating mutual pleasure, consent, and healthy relationships. Same with young women. We need to have more conversations and arm teens with knowledge and understanding.

arogersiv's review against another edition

5.0

If you love a man, whether he's a husband, son, father, brother, friend, you need to read this book.

blairewithane's review against another edition

4.0

3.5 stars. She notes at the beginning that her sample is skewed. While she does talk to Lgbtq teens and Black and Hispanic teens it is still primarily focused on white college or college bound kids from the upper middle class. It was interesting to read teenage boys own perspectives on masculinity, sex, and how they view society’s expectations of them. It was depressing in the sense that not much seemed to have changed from when I was a college student in the “no means no,” as opposed to the “yes means yes” era. I appreciated their candor in speaking with Orenstein. Some takeaways were obvious - Greek life puts pressure to engage in hookup culture, boys may desire relationships but feel the need to be or act casual. The most interesting parts were the boys grappling with when they may have crossed lines or how to stand up and be an ally. Also the impact of porn not only on perceptions of women but on how they should act in relationships. Liked the advice on the end on how to have these conversations.

Also it seemed clear that if they discussed these things in depth with anyone it was with their moms but that they wanted their dads to be more open about the complexity of love and sex and relationships.

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