Customer Reviews

Understanding Guys: A Guide for Teenage Girls (Plugged In)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As an adult woman, married for 16 years, I found that this book explained 98% of the arguments I have had with my husband. The author has excellent insights about the differences between males and females--such as those caused by hormones and brain structure. (He is careful to say that not all males or females align to the characteristics he describes.) The author travels into territory that will be controversial, but I think he is right on. For example, while he makes it clear that no one should ever be violent, he is one of the few authors to talk about the role females play in date and domestic violence--even if they don't hit. (And he notes that females often do slap their partners). Three quarters of the way through the book I was ready to hand it out on street corners, because if read and understood it could help to prevent so much of the pain and violence couples experience. However, at the end of the book, he suggests sexual practices for those protecting their virginity. While I absolutely concur with the author that we need to "get real" about how kids will act on their sexuality, I expect this will keep me from using the book in the schools (unless those pages are removed). I do intend to have all my friends with girls or husbands read this book.

I am surprised some of the other reviewers did not like this book. As a father of two teen daughters, I think it is a helpful perspective. OK, the cave man analogy goes a bit far, but hormones do influence our thoughts and behavior and teen males are driven (somewhat crazy) with massive doses of testosterone. I clearly remember my obsessions with aggression and sex when I was a teen. The author has plenty of experience with teens of both sexes, and his opinions should be considered by teen girls of the present era. They should be encouraged to consider multiple perspectives, IMHO.

This book in no way will help a teenage girl,it will only cause her to feel more different and polarized from males and become more ashamed of any sexual needs she may have,because the book tends to carp on only the male having monster hormones and thinking about sex.What happens to the girl who has just as strong needs,she is not helped,she is thought of as a freak by society. Women rarely get the help they need in the area of temptation that men do.Women are told they will want romance and love,but they never hear what they need to hear about sex drive and how it affects the indiviual.All this book will do is cause more misunderstandings and relationship problems,because the female being a sexual being as well is overlooked.

Please, whatever you do, DON'T buy this book for your daughter or any other woman. It is incredibly off-base about a lot of things. Testoterone isn't what makes boys boys, and estrogen doesn't make girls girls. 90% of boys don't abandon their pregnant teenage girlfriends cause they lack the hormone to bond with a baby. Men's bodies and brains and speech patterns were not built specifically to accomodate hunting. Men's bodies are not biologically inferior to women's emotionally. Men do not repress emotions cause "it's a better way to survive" if ancient men didn't cry when their buddies were killed by a lion. The author talks about our primitive ancestors as if there are records showing how men & women culturally treated each other, but we have no records of that cause there are no surviving written testamonies. His comment that "for millions of years it didn't matter if males didn't 'feel' as much as females" is beyond preposterous because human beings have only inhabited the Earth for about 10,000 years and there are no records about what prehistoric men felt.

Pure nonsense, atrocious reductionist science...STAY AWAY!