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Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape Hardcover – March 29, 2016
Peggy Orenstein (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Time Top 10 Book of the Year • A San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year
The author of the New York Times bestseller Cinderella Ate My Daughter offers a clear-eyed picture of the new sexual landscape girls face in the post-princess stage—high school through college—and reveals how they are negotiating it.
A generation gap has emerged between parents and their girls. Even in this age of helicopter parenting, the mothers and fathers of tomorrow’s women have little idea what their daughters are up to sexually or how they feel about it. Drawing on in-depth interviews with over seventy young women and a wide range of psychologists, academics, and experts, renowned journalist Peggy Orenstein goes where most others fear to tread, pulling back the curtain on the hidden truths, hard lessons, and important possibilities of girls’ sex lives in the modern world.
While the media has focused—often to sensational effect—on the rise of casual sex and the prevalence of rape on campus, in Girls and Sex Peggy Orenstein brings much more to the table. She examines the ways in which porn and all its sexual myths have seeped into young people’s lives; what it means to be the “the perfect slut” and why many girls scorn virginity; the complicated terrain of hookup culture and the unfortunate realities surrounding assault. In Orenstein’s hands these issues are never reduced to simplistic “truths;” rather, her powerful reporting opens up a dialogue on a potent, often silent, subtext of American life today—giving readers comprehensive and in-depth information with which to understand, and navigate, this complicated new world.
- Print length320 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper
- Publication dateMarch 29, 2016
- Dimensions6 x 1.05 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100062209728
- ISBN-13978-0062209726
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Review
“Provocative and thoughtful.... Both an examination of sexual culture and a guide on how to improve it.... The breadth of Orenstein’s reporting ... is impressive.” — Laura Stepp, Washington Post
“Nonsensational but deeply entertaining…. A must-read.” — People, Book of the Week
“An honest and thoughtful exploration.... It would be easy to pigeonhole Girls & Sex as essential reading only for parents of female teens or preteens.... [But] this book is for anyone who cares for a girl approaching womanhood.” — Adrian Liang, Amazon Best Book of the Month citation
“A nuanced read for anyone who remembers being a young woman and anyone who is raising the next generation of girls (and boys) for whom we hope the future holds sexual satisfaction, not pain or disappointment.” — Rebecca Traister, More
“I’m not going to tell you to go right now and buy a copy…. I’m going to tell you to buy two copies: One for yourself, and one for the teenager in your life…. Refuses to be judgmental or doom and gloom. Instead, it offers something else — a demand for education, enlightenment, and ultimately, the radical notion of equal satisfaction.” — Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon
“Thought-provoking. . .Girls & Sex is full of thoughtful concern and empathetic questions.” — Cindi Leive, New York Times Book Review, cover review
“I’m not going to tell you to go right now and buy a copy…. I’m going to tell you to buy two copies: One for yourself, and one for the teenager in your life…. Refuses to be judgmental or doom and gloom. Instead, it offers something else — a demand for education, enlightenment, and ultimately, the radical notion of equal satisfaction.” — Adrian Liang, Amazon Best Book of the Month citation
“Girls & Sex should be mandatory for anyone who cares about the present and future cultural landscape for girls, women, humans. I seriously want to quit my job and tour the country, furiously hawking Peggy Orenstein’s insightful, important book.” — Rashida Jones, actress, writer, producer
“[An] important new book.... Her writing is clear and compelling, her analysis is incisive and thorough, and her findings are downright troubling.” — Sharon Holbrook, Washington Post
“Fascinating…. A wise and sharply argued look at how girls are navigating ‘the complicated new landscape’ of sex and sexuality.” — Economist
“An intimate view of the sex lives of young women in the United States. While revealing disturbing common threads… Orenstein brings levity to this fraught topic.” — Elle
“’Girls & Sex’ may do more to change how sex education is rethought and how parents and daughters discuss pleasure and sexuality than any book since the landmark ‘Our Bodies, Ourselves.’” — Tamara Straus, San Francisco Chronicle
“If you’re going to talk about women in the 21st century, you MUST read Peggy Orenstein’s Girls & Sex. No one else is asking these questions; so no one else, then, is finding out the answers.” — Caitlin Moran, Author of How to Be a Woman
“A smart, sobering guide to the sexual lives of young women today.” — Ann Levin, Associated Press
“Eloquent…. [A] compact, polished, and readable… cris de coeur.” — Julia M. Klein, Boston Globe
“With compassion and insight, Peggy Orenstein holds a mirror not only to girls’ experiences but to our own judgments. No less than the emotional health and physical safety of our daughters (and of our sons, by the way) depends on the kind of insight Girls & Sex provides.” — Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes
“Deeply reported, passionately argued.” — Isaac Chotiner, Slate
“Peggy Orenstein sheds light on an important and too often misunderstood topic. Her reporting shows how a healthy and direct approach to sexuality is a key component of gender equality.” — Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and founder of LeanIn.Org
“An enlightening, sad and shocking look into the minds of teenagers and their views on casual sex, love and relationships.” — Aimee Blanchette, Minneapolis Star Tribune
“A sequel of sorts to Orenstein’s ‘Cinderella Ate My Daughter’…. Sketches a sobering portrait.” — Oliver Wang, L.A. Times
“Orenstein has compiled an eye-opening study of the way that girls and women in America think, feel, and act regarding sex…. The abundant information she provides will give parents and young girls the power to make informed decisions regarding sex.” — Kirkus
“Eye-opening…. Orenstein draws powerful, humane portraits of her interview subjects, self-reliant young women who find themselves trapped by sexist stereotypes about women’s bodies and women’s pleasure. [A] smart, earnest, and timely assessment.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Accessible prose and narrative style will bring the work of many thoughtful experts to a wider audience…. Young adults, parents, educators, and activists alike will find this passionate work a timely conversation starter.” — Library Journal
“Sex and teenagers have always gone together, but parents reading Orenstein’s frank exploration of current trends may still be in for a shock…. This isn’t a comfortable book to read (Orenstein herself admits twinges a few times), but it’s an important one.” — Booklist
“Orenstein is such a breezy, funny, writer, it’s easy to forget she’s an important thinker too.” — People, four stars, on Cinderella Ate My Daughter
From the Back Cover
The author of the New York Times bestseller Cinderella Ate My Daughter offers a groundbreaking picture of the new sexual landscape girls face in the post-princess stage—high school through college—and reveals how they are negotiating it.
A generation gap has emerged between parents and their girls. Even in this age of helicopter parenting, the mothers and fathers of tomorrow’s women have little idea what their daughters are up to sexually or how they feel about it. Drawing on in-depth interviews with over seventy young women and a wide range of psychologists, academics, and experts, renowned journalist Peggy Orenstein goes where most others fear to tread, pulling back the curtain on the hidden truths, hard lessons, and important possibilities of girls’ sex lives in the modern world.
While the media has focused—often to sensational effect—on the rise of casual sex and the prevalence of rape on campus, in Girls & Sex, Orenstein brings much more to the table. She examines the ways in which porn and all its sexual myths have seeped into young people’s lives, what it means to be “the perfect slut” and why many girls scorn virginity, the complicated terrain of hookup culture, and the unfortunate realities surrounding assault. In Orenstein’s hands, these issues are never reduced to simplistic “truths”; rather, her powerful reporting opens up a dialogue on a potent, often silent subtext of American life today, giving readers comprehensive and in-depth information to understand and navigate this complicated new world.
About the Author
Peggy Orenstein is the New York Times bestselling author of Boys & Sex, Don’t Call Me Princess, Girls & Sex, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Waiting for Daisy, Flux, and Schoolgirls. A contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and Afar, she has also been published in New York, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and other publications. Her TED Talk has received over five million views. She lives in Northern California with her husband and daughter.
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Product details
- Publisher : Harper (March 29, 2016)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0062209728
- ISBN-13 : 978-0062209726
- Item Weight : 1.1 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1.05 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #288,704 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #67 in Teen Health (Books)
- #610 in General Sexual Health
- #611 in Parenting Teenagers (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Peggy Orenstein is the New York Times bestselling author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Waiting for Daisy, Flux, and Schoolgirls. A contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, she has been published in USA Today, Parenting, Salon, the New Yorker, and other publications, and has contributed commentary to NPR’s All Things Considered. She lives in Northern California with her husband and daughter.
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I listened to the Author's reading on 6 compact discs, which was clear and well-paced, but with an almost-calculated quality. No one knows more about the puddle than she! A veteran of the Sexual Revolution herself who now has a teen-aged daughter of her own, she interviewed over seventy girls from college and high school who responded to an invitation to discuss these matters, and she read some studies. She begins with a survey of the "hook-up" culture, wherein sexual experiences precede relationships. These experiences may simply be "grinding" on the dance floor, or oral sex, or intercourse. Surveys report something like 10% of middle school girls, 40-50% of high school girls and 75% of college women having had "sex." A significant number report some of the experiences as regretted, a majority reporting that the way in which they gave up their virginity was a disappointment (or worse). About half of the above report experiences that may qualify as rape: I say "may" because the respondents themselves are confused in their own minds and do not always accept the legal definitions. Our Author notes the role of alcohol in obscuring boundaries and excusing the participants from responsibility for what happens. I am not sure of her theory here, that girls drink in order to excuse themselves from responsibility for their choices; I believe it is part of the adventure, part of the ritual, and, in part, an anesthetic.
In all the conversations reported, not one mentions girls who became pregnant and subsequently had an abortion, or gave birth. These topics were mentioned in passing, usually as possibilities or perhaps a statistic, but not in any of the "portraits," descriptions of interviewees and dialog which are the strength of this book, putting human faces on the experiences reported. The real focus of concern is the distressing fact that 4 times as many boys as girls report satisfaction with their sexual encounters. She contends that education is needed so girls may understand how their bodies work and advocate for their own pleasure in all this. It is interesting that boys appear able to achieve satisfaction without such specialized education.
The reported experience of lesbian girls is much more positive in this regard, and the achievement and acceptance of alternate sexual identities is advocated. But as a true feminist, our Author is uncomfortable with the trendiness of transgenderism, based as it is on cultural stereotypes of what it means to be male/female. She reports the family which recognized their infant son as really a girl because it preferred the pink blanket to the blue blanket at 4 months. Our Author dryly notes that infants cannot distinguish color at that that age.
Our Author does not approve of hypersexualization but cannot really explain why. Miley Cyrus is shocking, but maybe that is not so bad. Expressing oneself is a good thing, after all ( unless you are a male remarking on her legs). Our Author recognizes provocative words but not provocative clothing.
She does not approve of restricting girls' freedom, unless they make the wrong choices, then they need education. She objects that left "on their own" teens develop a culture that pressures girls to sexual performance for others rather than satisfaction for themselves. She blames a lot on the entertainment media (and recognizes too late that Tipper Gore was right) for molding expectations of girls. However, our Author appears to regard hyperfemininity as a greater evil than hypersexuality. This is one of those wrong choices that require education.
If you are a social conservative, prepare for some disdain in the course of this read. She scorns abstinence education and all the government money spent on teaching things that "aren't true." She notes the relatively high pay a particular abstinence advocate receives, but not that of the California masturbation advocate who is described in terms reminiscent of a folk hero. She backhandedly acknowledges that the cultural investment of mothers in guiding/supervising kids, i.,e., staying home until children left the home, had an effect in discouraging sexual activity among them, but is not going there. She advocates Fathers involved but objects to patriarchy; apparently fathers are to support their children in whatever they want to do, regardless. She declares that virginity and purity have no markers that are not arbitrary, and their only function is to cause shame. The same might be said of "age of consent" laws/assumptions, but again, she is not going there.
Our Author "discovers" the ambiguity of sexuality but doesn't know what to do about it. Many of her interviewees report dressing provocatively and feeling good about it until something, perhaps a change of mood, or rude remark, causes her great embarrassment. The college campus "walk of shame" is described, as when girls glammed up go to a fraternity party, walk home after spending the night there the next morning, seen in evening clothes by everyone who knows they got drunk and knocked up. Many of her subjects report being blamed for being a prude and for being a slut. Her conversations with groups of kids reveal deep disagreements and confusion about what constitutes consent, which goes to the heart of ambiguity, and whether the conscious choice to seek sexual experience, subject oneself to peer pressure, drink illegally/irresponsibly, etc. has anything to do with meaningful consent.
I was fascinated in retrospect by the overall 1960's shape to our Author's thinking. Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir's comment on the 1967 Haight Ashbury "Summer of Love" is strikingly applicable to our Author's views of sex in this book: " It was about exploration, finding new ways of expression, being aware of one's existence." Elements of her thinking include: 1) individual choice (autonomy) trumps conformity to a standard; 2) technology changes everything, enabling more choice, more autonomy, and therefore progress; 3) youth conditioned and at home with the new technology are more attuned to progress and are the authorities whose lead we should (or can't help but) follow. Given these beliefs, parents and conservatives are regarded as obstacles to progress.
Among her helpful suggestions, embedded among others which guarantee rejection by social conservatives, is decision-making skills. These skills are applicable to all areas of life- identifying what is at stake, what values are at play, what alternatives are, and cost/benefit analysis. That these should be applied to sexual decisions as well as to any other significant decision, goes without saying. Communication skills, distinguishing between passive, assertive, and aggressive modes of responding to others, is another helpful measure toward addressing the problem. (These are already mandated in some form or another in most state curricula, but teaching them effectively is the challenge.)
So, what does our Author not "get"? First, she is indifferent to several dysfunctional aspects of adolescent behavior. First is dishonesty- lying to parents, refusal to be accountable to authority. Our Author actually celebrates acts of defiance, the "slutwalks," etc., as praiseworthy. Deliberate evasion of law in alcohol use by minors is passed over. Drug use also is passed over for moral condemnation. It is not only in matters of sex that adolescents lack restraint.
Related is the often uncritical acceptance of peer influence. While "society" may be condemned for its stereotypes, and consumerism responsible for sexual exploitation of women's bodies, the hook-up culture is not condemned, but accepted as a given to which we (our children and our policy) must adapt.
Perhaps the most fundamental point of disagreement, is in the Author's sundering of the connection between sex and reproduction. Just as food is pleasurable but this pleasure needs to be subordinate to nutrition, so sex has as its purpose human reproduction. Traditional families provide the best homes for children in public health studies (whether measured by birth weight, academic achievement, self-esteem, economic standing, reported happiness, suicide rate, etc.), so there is more than ample grounds for regarding this as the normative model for public policy.
A strange lacuna in this discussion of adolescent sex is the matter of risk-taking. This is what makes the hook-up culture exciting, the fact that there is risk. The predominant philosophy for educators in general and feminists like our Author, is to affirm risk-taking. This, along with that defiance of authority which our Author also implicitly endorses, leads directly into the sorry state of sexual inequality and dissatisfaction bemoaned in this book.
Although one of her interviewees states that sex is about the most personal thing there is, the implications of this insight are not worked out. Since sex is so personal, it ought to be shared only with those whom one can trust, one you can communicate with, one who you have influence over. In fact, it tends toward monogamy. Flaunting one's sexuality is so contrary to this, inviting strangers to appraise and judge. It involves the thrill of risk-taking, which turns on the ambiguity of sex both socially and personally. This private nature of sex, and the dysfunctional practice of making the private public, is another aspect overlooked by our Author.
Our Author is shocked to see the pattern emerge whereby once a girl has had sex with a guy, she is expected to continue consenting there after. What she does not realize is that sex is not a discreet act so much as a relationship. Just as gifts create relationship of mutual obligation between people (and why you should not accept gifts from strangers), so sex creates intimacy and familiarity which is not easily withdrawn. Our Author reports a kind of monogamy emerging within this hook-up culture whereby feelings of possessiveness and their social accommodation restrict the freedom of girls to be available to others.
The final point which our Author doesn't get is that boys and girls, men and women, are different. Males are much more visual and respond to provocative clothing; females enjoy attention and do that which gets attention. According to her own reporting, the girls are concerned to please their partners, while the boys are out to please themselves. What she fails to acknowledge is the greater need boys have which gave rise to the social expectation that women control ("civilize") their men. An old saying is that women trade sex for love. In the hook-up culture, created by segregating adolescents and allowing them to structure their own interactions, women are the losers, as documented by our Author's own findings. She has identified the puddle, but has no clue how to fix the leak.
A lot of girls are simply swearing off sex. University surveys known to me have revealed figures in the range of 20 minutes a day for "romantic activities." (Versus 7 to 8 hours for classes and studies.) So it seems like the alternative to partying is nothing, or nearly nothing. I hope this is wrong....
We as a society really have to go against the pop trash, whether it's porn, gangsta rap, other pop music, or the other horrors these days, and get the message to the kids (boys as well as girls) that sex is about love and relationships, AND can be a lot of fun, but it can't be done by conformity, least of all with porn--it has to be developed as an art in itself.
Top reviews from other countries





If not for anything but to open up the discussion table and get you talking to her. I barely got a few pages in before we started! A lot of topics are not directly about sex, but good warm up conversations. I’d go back and then pick another topic and work my way into getting her talking with me. Fantastic book.