Welcome to Litsy!

This book complements Orenstein‘s book Girls and Sex. Through interviews with high school and college age boys/men as well as research, Orenstein explores how the interviewees perceive masculinity, sex, porn, girls/women, hook-up culture. As always Orenstein provides a lot of research and her own analysis of current trends. CW discussion and description of rape and sexual assault.

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 primarily focused on white college bound kids from the upper middle class. Helpful to see teenagers perspectives on masculinity, sex, and how they view society‘s expectations of them.

Whilst at times anecdotal vs deeply scientific there is much in this to inform and educate. The author speaks to approx 70 young American men and uses their quotes and stories as the framework for an exploration of perceptions of sex, pleasure, respect, consent and more. The benefit of this being a less scientific tome is that it also has some valuable recommendations for parents of boys. A final take away from me ⬇️

This wasn‘t terrible in fact it was good and well researched. Yes that is surprise your sensing lol
There is so much that guardians/care takers of males need to do to make them aware and knowledgeable when it comes to the topic of sex and their partner(s).
My son is on the cusp of puberty and that means I have a lot to do and honestly this book has helped.

I‘m about 40-45 minutes in to this and so far I don‘t want to scream and swear at the author. I‘m going to keep going with it. 👍🏼

Feeling a little iffy about this book. I haven‘t started it yet and I‘m going to try to keep an open mind.
The last time I tried to read Orenstein the book learned how to fly.
I‘m most curious about what she calls “the new masculinity”
I have sneaking suspicion I‘ll end up bailing but I‘m going to give it a fighting chance.