“Girls & Sex should serve as a wake-up call to those who want to reframe the conversation around sex to ensure that young women and men can avoid negative sexual experiences and find 'caring, reciprocal, egalitarian relationships.'”
To really fix things, you’ll need bigger solutions, and it’s tempting to wish Orenstein would put down her reporter’s notebook to write a more focused sexual bill of rights that girls themselves, and not just their parents, can get behind. Girls & Sex is full of thoughtful concern and empathetic questions: What if girls learned that their sex drives mattered as much as boys’? What if hookups took place sober? What if? But Orenstein is uniquely positioned to do more than ask questions; you want her next book to tell us: Here’s how. Let’s go.
Importantly, Orenstein stresses that men must be held responsible for preventing sexual assault while women should be encouraged to master 'assertiveness and self-advocacy [as] crucial defensive skills.' ... Orenstein's tone can be slightly parental and smacking of middle-class respectability. Within the spectrum of 'sex-positivity' she leans more center-left than radical, and there's a subtle air of disapproval in how she discusses such topics as porn, hooking up and especially anal sex, which is always framed negatively.
