Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity
Peggy Orenstein, 2020
HarperCollins
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062666970
Summary
Peggy Orenstein’s Girls & Sex broke ground, shattered taboos, and launched conversations about young women’s 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 girls—steeped in the same distorted media images and binary stereotypes of female sexiness and toxic masculinity—which 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 men’s experience in all its complexity, Orenstein is able to unravel the hidden truths, hard lessons, and important realities of young male sexuality in today’s 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. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 1961
• Where—Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
• Education—B.A., Oberlin College
• Awards—(see Recognition below)
• Currently—lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, California
Peggy Orenstein is an American essayist and author of nonfiction books. A native of Minneapolis, Minnesota, she attended Oberlin College where she earned a B.A.
After college, she moved to New York City, where she worked as an associate editor at "Esquire," later acquiring senior editing positions at Manhattan, Inc. and 7 Days. In 1988, after moving to San Francisco, California, she became managing editor of Mother Jones and, in 1991, a writer and producer at Farallon Films. She is married to filmmaker Steven Okazaki. They have a daughter and live in San Francisco's Bay Area.
Books
♦ 2020 - Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity
♦ 2016 - Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape
♦ 2011 - Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl
Culture
♦ 2007 - Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night and One Woman's Quest to Become a Mother
♦ 2000 - Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Love, Kids and Life in a Half-Changed World
♦ 1994 - Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self Esteem, and the Confidence Gap
Other
A contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, Orenstein has also written for the Los Angeles Times, Vogue, Elle, More, Mother Jones, Slate, O: The Oprah Magazine, New York Magazine and The New Yorker.
She has contributed commentaries to NPR’s All Things Considered. Her articles have been anthologized multiple times, including in The Best American Science Writing.
She has been a keynote speaker at numerous colleges and conferences and has been featured on, among other programs, Nightline, Good Morning America, Today Show, NPR’s Fresh Air and Morning Edition and CBC’s As It Happens.
Recognition
In 2012, Columbia Journalism Review named Orentstein one of its "40 women who changed the media business in the past 40 years."
She has been recognized for her "Outstanding Coverage of Family Diversity," by the Council on Contemporary Families and received a Books For A Better Life Award for Waiting for Daisy. Her work has also been honored by the Commonwealth Club of California, the National Women’s Political Caucus of California and Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Additionally, she has been awarded fellowships from the United States-Japan Foundation and the Asian Cultural Council. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/3/2016 .)
Book Reviews
Orenstein’s Boys & Sex is a natural follow-up to her 2016 best seller Girls & Sex. The young men we meet here tend to be hyperarticulate—to the extent that I was initially skeptical of their eloquence…. However unexpected it is, though, the boys’ willingness and ability to share is also decidedly eye-opening ... Every few pages, the boy world cracks open a little bit like that…. To her credit, Orenstein acknowledges her biases. And, through story after story, she forced me to see mine: I was wrong to presume that young men couldn’t be beautifully well spoken and lucid about issues of love and sex. In fact, that assumption is so common, it’s at the root of our problems.
Lauren Smith Brody - New York Times Book Review
A sobering look at the landscape in which young men are growing up—and an invitation for the grown-ups in their lives to offer a lot more support and direction.
Chicago Tribune
To be clear, none of these subjects are new, and men who read this book might not learn anything revolutionary. What Orenstein does excellently, however, is condense, clarify, and draw out the perspectives of the boys and men that she interviewed—their voices, interspersed with her own, lift the book up, hopefully showing readers that they are not alone in their experiences…. The book’s strength lies in Orenstein’s ability to summarize biting, salient points that, even if they don’t come as a shock to some readers, are nonetheless reemphasized clearly…. [A] valuable addition to the litany of books out there discussing what, exactly, is happening with the youth these days.
Harvard Crimson
Through a combination of extensive interviews with young men and sociological research, the book seeks to move beyond the space of think pieces written by men and actually include them in the conversation. It gives readers a digestible overview of the problem…. In between introducing terms like "feminist fuckboy" and "Golden Dick Syndrome," the book also tells stories of boys that are largely neglected in society’s sex conversations…. Most moving are the stories of young men who are victims of abuse, how it often comes as a result of their fears of straying from gender expectations…. These narratives further complicate Orenstein’s problem and make the book a more interesting read…. What I came away understanding is that regardless of how a boy identifies, he is probably confused…. I believe people of all ages can benefit from reading Orenstein’s book and that it can inspire change for the better for all.
Columbia Journal
[Orenstein] trains her expert eye on the world of adolescent boys, and the unique set of challenges that young men are facing today. Boys & Sex is not just a candid and often devastating view into the lives of real high school and college boys right now; it's an affirmation of hope, and an exercise in the power of listening.
Salon
(Starred review) [C]candid and fascinating portrait of young American masculinity.… Expertly written and sometimes disturbing, but always informative, Orenstein’s latest is a valuable reference for parents of teenage boys and young men.
Publishers Weekly
By interviewing young men and collecting data for two years, Orenstein developed insights into her subjects' ideas of masculinity and how society can steer young men away from misogynistic patterns.… A thought-provoking read for all interested in gender studies. —Emily Bowles, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
Library Journal
(Starred review) [A] welcome forum for exploring "a hunger for more guidance about growing up, hooking up, and finding love in a new era." A highly constructive analysis that provides many topics for exploration and discussion by parents and others who interact with boys.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. William Pollack believes there is a "boy code" that "trains young men to see masculinity in opposition to, and adversarial toward, femininity: a tenuous, ever-shifing position that must be continuously policed" (13). Do you agree? If so, why do you think masculinity is defined so narrowly? If you disagree with Pollack's statement, how would you define today's model for masculinity?
2. Orenstein and the young men she interviews talk about the use of the world "hilarious." What does that word cover up? Why do boys use it? What are some ways to promote more emotionally intelligent responses from boys… and men?
3. Talk about the male use of porn and how it affects their understanding of and expectations for sex. What about the frequent use of violent rape in popular culture—especially in TV shows and movies. Does that have an impact on young (or older) males' thinking about intimate relationships?
4. Talk about the hookup culture? What do you think has caused this evolution in male/female relationships? How does the idea of hook-ups line up with the values of so-called conventional masculinity? What do you think of Wyatt? What does it mean to be a "feminist fuckboy"?
5. How difficult is the path for young gay and trans people? How has society changed, or not changed, when it comes to social queerness? To what extent are younger people more open to gender preferences that don't align with traditional views?
6. What are the pressures that young black men experience on campuses? Did anything surprise you regarding their views on attending predominantly white educational institutions? Why were, or why weren’t, you surprised by what you read?
7. How do we create so-called "good guys"? What, in fact, does it mean to be a good guy? Why do some young men see themselves as not that bad, even when their behavior falls short. How do come of the young men who Orenstein interviews feel about, or understand, coercion?
8. How can we help young men understand the concept of "meaningful consent" in their sexual relations. What do they need to know?
9. In what ways can young men be encouraged to perform their own emotional labor? How do we increase a
young man’s emotional intelligence—or make him aware that being attuned to emotional intelligence isn’t a
bad thing—or a sign of weakness? How do we break the cycle of women being the ones who do emotional labor?
(Questions adapted from the HarperCollins teaching guide.)