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Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape Paperback – March 7, 2017
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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 length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Paperbacks
- Publication dateMarch 7, 2017
- Dimensions0.76 x 5.31 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100062209744
- ISBN-13978-0062209740
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Editorial Reviews
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
A generation gap has emerged between parents and their girls. 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 more than 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.
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 frequent contributor to the New York Times, she has written for The Washington Post, The Atlantic, AFAR, the New Yorker, and other publications, and has contributed commentary to NPR’s All Things Considered and The PBS NewsHour. She lives in Northern California.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper Paperbacks; Reprint edition (March 7, 2017)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0062209744
- ISBN-13 : 978-0062209740
- Item Weight : 9 ounces
- Dimensions : 0.76 x 5.31 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #46,019 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #89 in Parenting Teenagers (Books)
- #106 in Popular Culture in Social Sciences
- #142 in Sex & Sexuality
- 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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Will you enjoy reading it? Honestly, it made liberal-hearted me a bit squeamish as it covered all the bases: hook-up culture in both high school and college, including the demand on girls that they give guys whom they don’t even know blow jobs (because the current generation of teens has a mantra that this isn’t real sex)--and the need for these girls to get pretty drunk in order to allow themselves to think this was OK/normal; the culture of ‘purity pledges’ that has come as a backlash (and the research that shows that the purity pledges don’t work/that teens who take them are more likely to get pregnant than those who don’t); date rape; rape on college campuses; binge drinking and rape; sexist images and stereotyping of female bodies; pornography that degrades and objectifies women as one of the only sex education tools that teens use because they are getting ‘abstinence only’ education at school; the negative to disastrous sexual encounters that result from ‘porn-ed’ and’ abstinence-only-ed’ (painful, humiliating sexual encounters modeled after porn and tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money poured into abstinence with virtually no resulting decline in teen sex); the bizarre and very public tightrope walk girls must take between frigid prude and social-media-shamed slut.
Yes, the issues are so vast and numerous, it makes you spin. While there is discussion in the book of LGBTQIA issues (and interviews of lesbians girls), the book is largely about cisgender teens, about how girls and boys see themselves relating to one another sexually; about discomfort in challenging norms and about how to be assertive in taking back authority for one’s own body and one’s own pleasure.
Orenstein navigates the charged environment of high school and college sexual practices by interviewing over 70 girls about their experiences; she attends purity balls; she attends abstinence-only sex ed classes and classes where the discussion of sexuality is much more frank and without any judgment. Her research is eye-opening. By the time she arrives at her final chapter, which includes some suggestions for supporting girls and young women to be assertive about their sexual needs, even the faint-hearted will be agreeing with her. As she discusses the much more open and frank education that teens in Holland are given, we wish for the same for our own children. Yes, the conversations are difficult, even embarrassing for some adults (who had their own very lousy sex education as teens--so this is not a blame game). But when teens--boys and girls--are told the truth about their desires and then encouraged not to subvert them into a hook-up culture, but to form loving, respectful partnerships, everyone benefits. As it now stands--and as Girls and Sex makes very clear--the sexual culture for girls is one where girls are coerced into giving sexual pleasure to boys (often by somehow ‘owing’ oral sex to boys because they ended up at the same party) without getting any sort of sexual pleasure in return. So, uncomfortable as it is to discuss, the sexual pleasure of girls must be addressed.
Orenstein summarizes very well in her final paragraph:
“I want sexuality to be a source of self-knowledge and creativity and communication despite its potential risks. I want them to revel in their bodies’ sensuality without being reduced to it. . . . I want them to be safe from disease, unwanted pregnancy, cruelty, dehumanization, and violence. If they are assaulted, I want them to have recourse from their school administrators, employers, the courts. . . . We’ve raised a generation of girls to have a voice, to expect egalitarian treatment in the home, in the classroom, in the workplace. Now it’s time to demand that ‘intimate justice’ in their personal lives as well.”
High school housekeeping: While this is an adult book--and a very frank one--the discussions with the interviewees are about real life in high school and on college campuses. It would be sad to force you to navigate this craziness alone--but that’s what adults are doing when they hide the frank conversation and the possible solutions from you. So--I recommend that all high school students read this. Yes, boys, you need to read it, too. It will help you to understand why having sex with a passed-out girl (or boy,as in one case in the book) is rape. And it will help those of you who would never consider such a thing to understand how to talk to girls about what they want and need. So, yes, read it.
(Note: This review is mirrored on my blog "School Library Lady.")
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.
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