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Boys & Sex
Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity | Peggy Orenstein
9 posts | 11 read | 25 to read
The author of the groundbreaking New York Times bestsellers Girls & Sex and Cinderella Ate My Daughter now turns her focus to the sexual lives of young men, once again offering both an examination of sexual culture and a guide on how to improve it (Washington Post). Peggy Orensteins Girls & Sex broke ground, shattered taboos, and launched conversations about young womens right to pleasure and agency in sexual encounters. It also had an unexpected effect on its author: Orenstein realized that talking about girls is only half the conversation. Boys are subject to the same cultural forces as girlssteeped in the same distorted media images and binary stereotypes of female sexiness and toxic masculinitywhich equally affect how they navigate sexual and emotional relationships. In Boys & Sex, Peggy Orenstein dives back into the lives of young people to once again give voice to the unspoken, revealing how young men understand and negotiate the new rules of physical and emotional intimacy. Drawing on comprehensive interviews with young men, psychologists, academics, and experts in the field, Boys & Sex dissects so-called locker room talk; how the word hilarious robs boys of empathy; pornography as the new sex education; boys understanding of hookup culture and consent; and their experience as both victims and perpetrators of sexual violence. By surfacing young mens experience in all its complexity, Orenstein is able to unravel the hidden truths, hard lessons, and important realities of young male sexuality in todays world. The result is a provocative and paradigm-shifting work that offers a much-needed vision of how boys can truly move forward as better men.
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Pickpick

Orenstein uses the same treatment of her Girls and Sex and here turns the lens on boys, focusing on high school and college. She explores the attitudes of boys toward sex, how they develop, and the ways we could potentially change damaging and dangerous attitudes. Both books are terrific.

Megabooks I agree! (There‘s a shock 😉😏) 👍🏻 4y
Blaire I‘ve stacked this one. 4y
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WellReadCatLady
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Bit repetitive with Girls & Sex but still very insightful.

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Megabooks
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Pickpick

It seems that boys today feel caught between what they‘re supposed to want; hookups!, locker room talk, 24/7 porn; and what most do want, but they seem afraid to admit, which is genuine connection.

Peggy talked to boys 16-22 about consent, sexual assault, education, relationships...so many things. She included a chapter each on queer sexuality and POCs, but the majority is straight, white, cisgender.

It‘s likely something will surprise you!

Cinfhen Great 👍🏽 this book sounds super interesting but I‘m not ready to go there yet 😉 4y
Megabooks @Cinfhen I bet!! Honestly, the big takeaway is that boys need real talk from their parents, especially dads, because there weren‘t bad apples but there is A LOT of misinformation from peers, media, and sometimes adults. What changed things for a lot of the boys was their first serious girlfriend talking to them about negative and positive experiences for both of them. 4y
Cinfhen Thanks for the summation😘I like to think we are honest & open with our kids and talk to them about respecting others in all ways. But maybe a chat with dad can‘t hurt😊 4y
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Megabooks
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#newrelease and fucking fascinating.

I feel so disconnected from Gen Z as a young Gen X with no kids. I didn‘t grow up with the internet (or crazy porn on it), women wore pants when I was in college - even the sorority girls, and hookup culture was minimal.

Twenty years is a lifetime.

There seems to be a “silent majority” about ending the worst locker room talk, but the loudest speaking bros in the minority seem to rule.

Back to it!

BarbaraBB I was such a sorority girl and we always wore pants and boots and big shirts and shawls in our hair. We were always hiding ourself and it was kind of cool that way. My kids are very GenZ but fortunately I don‘t notice that in their clothes but mainly in their use of smartphones and their span of attention. 4y
Megabooks @BarbaraBB they actually had a study comparing boys from Holland and boys from America‘s attitudes towards hookup culture and sex, and the Dutch teens were more interested in and less afraid of the emotional dimensions of sex than American boys. So good for y‘all!! 4y
Bookwormjillk I just put this on hold at the library today which I‘m sure my son will love. Seems like an important book though. 4y
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Reggie I‘m interested in this. I read her Girls and Sex and it was amazing!! 4y
BarbaraBB @Megabooks It‘s good to know we did a good job with my kids growing up 😀 (edited) 4y
Megabooks @Bookwormjillk it is. I think the saddest part, now that I‘m farther in, is that so many men feel unfulfilled emotionally. Men/boys aren‘t seen by their male or female peers as emotionally complex and wanting a deeper dimension to sex, so they don‘t get it. Really no one, girls or boys, gets it, which is sad. 4y
Megabooks @Reggie I thought girls and sex was great too! There have been so many books published in a similar vein to g&s, but none as good IMO, but I haven‘t heard of anything like this one! 4y
Megabooks @BarbaraBB she went deeper into the study comparing Dutch and American boys, and it seems as far as sex education and open communication the Americans could learn a lot from you all!! 4y
BarbaraBB That‘s intriguing, I have no idea what we the differences would be! 4y
Megabooks @BarbaraBB you would not believe me if I told you how terrible and incomplete sex education is here, if it even exists in schools or families. Things that came out of the Bush era like: abortions cause cancer, the pill doesn‘t work 80% of the time, condoms don‘t prevent hiv, and my personal favorite, women who have sex are liked used chewing gum! So honestly, I hope y‘all are doing better than that because I‘d hate to see worse!! 😩 4y
BarbaraBB Okay.. I see 😂, that IS a bit different indeed. We were more about ‘when a girl says no she means no‘, ‘always use a condom‘, ‘you can get pregnant, the first time too‘ stuff like that. USA keeps surprising me even with all the books I read 😊 4y
Megabooks @BarbaraBB honestly, it started getting dismal in the 90s, but in the 2000s when there has been “faith-based”, aka right-wing Christian, sex ed paid for with government money, this is the crap you get! 4y
BarbaraBB Yes I think Christianity has got a lot to do with it. Religion is way less a part of society here. 4y
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