9780062209788
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Girls & Sex audiobook

  • By: Peggy Orenstein
  • Narrator: Peggy Orenstein
  • Length: 7 hours 25 minutes
  • Publisher: HarperAudio
  • Publish date: March 29, 2016
  • Language: English
  • (8681 ratings)
(8681 ratings)
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Girls & Sex Audiobook Summary

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.

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Girls & Sex Audiobook Narrator

Peggy Orenstein is the narrator of Girls & Sex audiobook that was written by Peggy Orenstein

PEGGY ORENSTEIN is the New York Times bestselling author of Boys & SexDon’t Call Me PrincessGirls & SexCinderella Ate My DaughterWaiting for DaisyFlux, and Schoolgirls. A frequent contributor to the New York Times, she has written for The Washington PostThe AtlanticAFAR, 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.

About the Author(s) of Girls & Sex

Peggy Orenstein is the author of Girls & Sex

Girls & Sex Full Details

Narrator Peggy Orenstein
Length 7 hours 25 minutes
Author Peggy Orenstein
Publisher HarperAudio
Release date March 29, 2016
ISBN 9780062209788

Additional info

The publisher of the Girls & Sex is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780062209788.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Krista

March 31, 2018

I will probably end up digesting every word written by Peggy Orenstein. What I love about Girls & Sex especially, is that every time I thought to myself “I wish she would talk more about this...” she did. So many interesting, shocking, and infuriating topics can be discussed when talking about sex. Peggy does a great job sifting through them and actually letting you hear the voices of girls going through life. There were multiple times through this text that I wished this was required reading for anyone in school. What a different world we would grow up in if preteens/teens/adults knew this information. Even the college students interviewed were still so naïve in the worst sexual ways. It shouldn’t take over a quarter of your life to start learning your own body.

Amanda

May 30, 2016

An important books for people with children. (Not just daughters. All parents.) If I had the money, I would buy a thousand copies and hand it out to every parent I know. It's a topic I've read about widely, so it didn't offer stunning new insights for me. But if you don't spend a lot of time reading danah boyd, Lindsay Doe, bell hooks, and Evelyn Resh, then it's an excellent introduction to the issue. Even for those, like me, who have spent a lot of time immersed in the issue, it was a tidy and useful synopsis. Well structured, thoughtful, clear prose, with a nice balance between the personal interviews and the abstract analysis. The chapters on larger cultural issues were maybe the most useful, personally. My family doesn't listen to pop music, so the extraordinary sexualization of the teen pop stars and the blurred lines (ha!) between that and porn came as a bit of a surprise. The chapters on queer girls was very hopeful and even uplifting, in a way that the rest of the book was not. Most important, though, are the chapters on rape. These should be required reading for every goddamned parent in the world. Orenstein presents a thoughtful and reasoned middle ground between Jezebel's rageful third-wave idealism and Emily Yoffe's victim-blaming apologia. Yes, we should teach men not to rape, she says, and a woman is never to blame if she is raped. But we also need to teach risk mitigation and educate girls about the connection between booze and rape. We also need to teach them how to look out for predatory behavior for boys.If this book has a flaw, it's the complete exclusion of boys -- their motives, their lack of emotional self awareness, their toxic ideas and bro culture. I understand WHY she didn't write about them but boys and their culture are a big part of the problems surrounding sex and girls and I am hopeful that she will write a follow up book about boys. Of course, the fact that the rape chapters are the most important is, in and of itself, indicative of the larger problem. Her thesis is that we need to teach girls about enjoying sex and the pleasures of sex. She does have some good insights in there -- talk to your daughters about their clitoris, teach them that they should masturbate and know their own bodies before they have sex, discuss reciprocity in bed, educate them about the false world of porn -- but the points seem lost in the larger din of horrors. But I can't really say that's HER fault.

Brian

April 22, 2017

(4.5) Difficult but important to read as a parent of boys as well as girls.[Update: After further reflection and discussion with Julie, the biggest flaw is that this is marketed to, and speaks to girls and parents of girls. So much of this must be read by boys and their parents as well. Perhaps more so than girls even!]Saving grace was that my children are far from adolescence (as of this writing), so it wasn't quite as cringing and fearful a read as it could've been.We get deep and honest discussion about "hotness" culture, girls' self-objectification, drinking/drugs and sex, sexual assault. There is a lot to digest here, and thus the high rating. Not 5.0 because I really wish there was a lot more hope to offer in this book. I came away with a pretty bleak outlook on modern adolescence and what girls and women have to go through to simply make it to adulthood (where things certainly aren't perfect either).Perhaps she'll pen a follow up with a few more answers to the problems she's raised? Her main conclusion is to have and encourage frank discussion of sex with children/young adults--and not just about the risks, but also about how it can be a positive thing if fully consensual, reciprocal and meaningful. Neither easy said nor done.

Bibliovoracious

February 03, 2019

Things are grim. Just as bad for the next gen of girls as it was for mine. Different, but you have to squint to see any real progress for women in their relationships to men, as manifest in early sexual relations (this book nods to non-cis-genders and queer girls but primarily focuses on male-female sexuality).I was hoping for more change, more hope. Nope. It's rough out there for young women (still).

Cátia

February 11, 2020

Another amazing feminist book!! Girls & Sex by Peggy Orenstein had been on my wishlist for ages (I wanted this specific edition, btw it’s gorgeous!) and it was such a sensational read. I am happy I prioritized it! It’s amazing how I keep reading books on this topic and I keep learning and learning!Girls & Sex, as the title suggests, offers an in-depth picture of girls and sex today. Orenstein talked to psychologists, academics, experts and several young women about their sexuality and everything that’s behind it. Girls & Sex explores a wide range of topics like body image, masturbation, nudes, sexting, rape culture, social and gender expectations and so on. The fact that shocked me the most (yes, I still get shocked by these things) was that 1 in 3 college men would rape a woman if they could get away with it. This book reads so well and quickly since the language is super accessible. If you care about gender equality (and I hope you do!) or if you want to understand more about this topic, please, pick up this book! It’s so enlightening!! For more reviews, follow me on Instagram: @booksturnyouon

Tera

July 30, 2016

I recommend this book for women, adolescent girls, parents of all adolescent people, and anyone who plans to ever have sex with an adolescent girl or a woman. What a great deal of useful information and thought-provoking questions for us all to consider about the cultural issues relating to sex especially for young people. It's a great tool for talking to our kids of both genders about sex, what they might run into socially, and what they can strive for when it comes to health, safety, and pleasure.

Autumn

February 17, 2020

Orenstein provides extremely important data about how girls (and boys) perceive sex in our culture. She discusses extensively the problems with porn culture, ignoring rape, and generally how society as a whole does (or does not) talk about sex. I whole-heartedly agree with her that parents need to develop relationships with their children so that when their children do have questions they feel comfortable talking to their parents. Of course there are several points in this book that I do not agree with, but that does not diminish the importance or the necessity of understanding her research.

Ynna

February 04, 2017

This is a very quick read as it is littered with a number of unbelievable statistics, interviews and stories that sparked outrage, shock and sadness as I read. This was another instance in which timing affected the way I felt and interpreted the book, as I read it cover to cover on a bus coming home from the Women's March on Washington. The biggest takeaway I gained from reading Girls & Sex, besides my life philosophy that boys are gross, was I am completely and utterly terrified of becoming a parent of a teenage girl!!!! There is so much filth in the world directed toward young women and so many issues that we have yet to properly address, however some things were very black and white:1) We need to change the way we talk to girls and boys about sex and not just intercourse. Teens and young adults are getting the majority of their information about sex from the internet and primarily pornography. Because of the rampant violence and degradation of women in pornography this is not good. Young women have skewed ideas of how they should be during sex and what is expected of them and young men have skewed ideas of how a woman should act during sex and what is expected of them (spoiler alert- not much). Also, sex is not just intercourse. Spoiler alert- teens are doing really intimate things with each other, really often and really early and it is not labeled as intercourse.2) A lot needs to be done in our judicial system about rape- how it is reported, viewed in the media, handled on campuses, how we treat survivors, etc. etc. etc. Right now it is a rapist's world that we are living in.There was a lot more that Peggy Orenstein covered, but again, these issues were not so black and white. It was also interesting for me to read this book, think about the way I was raised in a conservative Mormon household and how this book suggests we should address sexuality with teens. I find myself wrestling with personal and religious beliefs which is emotionally exhausting, but intellectually stimulating.

Britta

April 22, 2018

I know that people will read the description of this book and choose to internalize the description as political and not read it. If you are a parent or ever plan on being one, read this. Or even if you work with youth or want greater education on this topic read it. We have a serious problem in the United States that needs to be addressed. Many people can't clearly define sexual assault to the point that they may not realize that they've been assaulted, or worse - that they've pushed the limits. The US federal government did not provide federal funding for comprehensive sex education until 2015 and prior to only (slightly) funded abstinence only education. Today, only 14 states require that sex ed be medically accurate. 14 STATES, that's it. It was only in 2015 that a judge first ruled against a school system for actively teaching misinformation regarding sex education. Some people may see this as fine because they feel this is not the schools job, but to draw a comparison to the Netherlands where comprehensive and even candid sexual education begins in kindergarten their teen birth rate is 8 times lower, first sexual experiences occur later and people have fewer partners in their lifetime. Obviously this is a topic I feel strongly about, but I absolutely believe we have a problem with ignorance and sex ed in the United States and I especially believe we need to make an effort to become better educated as individuals in this country.

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