A must-read for every parent, educator and youth worker.
Award-winning gender spokesperson and journalist Peggy Orenstein, considered one of the top forty most influential women to persuade media landscapes in the last forty years by The Columbia Journalism Review, has written her seventh book, Boys & Sex.
Orenstein is perhaps most notably known for her TED Talk which talks of the need to close the ‘orgasm gap’ and specifically focuses on the mindsets of female adolescents in sexual encounters. In this latest book, she investigates how today’s modern sexual landscape affects male perspectives on sexuality.
Orenstein spent over two years researching this book by following the paths of over one hundred young men aged sixteen to twenty-two. She unintentionally, yet very willingly also took on the role of advisor during this time to several of the interviewees, as many felt they could not talk to anyone else about their fears or their ‘good’ or ‘bad’ behaviours.
Hours-long conversations, multiple interviews and numerous text conversations later, she came to some keys observations about male masculinity in the modern era: their attitudes, behaviours, and their expectations and discovery of sex and/or intimacy, with the latter two on many occasions being mutually exclusive.
Some of the main drivers affecting male attitudes towards sex is the media and/or educational settings in which they are a part. It should be noted here however, that all interviewees she described were students either at high school or college, so it does not include those in employment settings. As such Orenstein’s analysis refers not to the culture which sparked the #metoo movement but perhaps is a precursor to it? The idea that it links into masculinity pressures in a corporate atmosphere is outside the scope of this book although she does strongly indicate that her role is to give guidance in turning boys into better men.
Things she deliberates upon are: Do parental attitudes matter in the sex debate? Does being a racial or sexual minority count? How do sexual situations affect each gender and how can it be navigated better? And what about porn? These are just some of the issues raised in Peggy Orenstein’s Boy & Sex.
It is a must-read for any parent regardless of their child’s gender, to anyone working with youth, and to all educators both inside and outside the formal settings.
Reviewed by Rebecca Wu
Distributed by: Allen and Unwin
Released: July 2020
RRP: $29.99
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