Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape

Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk about Desire by Deborah L. Tolman (2002)

Dilemmas of Desire is a well-researched examination of how girls lack the language to discuss their sexual desire. Tolman, a professor at Hunter College, is the foremost expert on teenage girls and desire. Through many interviews, she shows how girls’ disconnection from their embodied sense of desire has been harmful and even dangerous for girls’ sexual development and throughout their lives.

Female Chauvinist Pig: Women and The Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy (2006)

Levy challenges “raunch culture,” identified in Girls & Sex as self-objectification. She investigates groups of young women who seek empowerment by reclaiming the sexualization and objectification that feminists have been fighting for decades. Levy argues that these women are engaging in conformity, not liberation, that still disenfranchises and oppresses women’s sexual agency.

The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women by Jessica Valenti (2009)

Valenti, a culture writer, argues through in-depth cultural and social analysis that girls’ sexuality has defined their worth for generations. Rather than focusing on girls’ values, talents, interests, kindness, etc., society continues to assess girls’ morality through their sexual behavior. She looks closely at Purity Balls and sex education programs and dissects the idea of virginity in America.

Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski (2015)

Nagoski, a sex educator, provides research about female desire, including that for women, it’s less about what they do and more about how they feel. She discusses how female desire works from a scientific and psychological perspective, and she reveals how context, mood, body image, and cultural pressures contribute more to women’s desire than most understand.

Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity by Peggy Orenstein (2021)

Using a similar methodology as she did for Girls & Sex, Orenstein examines the world of young men’s sexuality and romance. She dispels myths and analyzes the various ways boys navigate the often harmful and limiting experiences available to them.

• Boys & Sex on SuperSummary