Boys & Sex

Peggy Orenstein’s Girls & Sex broke ground, shattered taboos and launched conversations about young women’s right to sexual pleasure and agency. It also had an unexpected effect on its author: Orenstein realized that talking about girls is only half the conversation. In Boys & Sex, Peggy Orenstein reveals how young men understand and negotiate the new rules of physical and emotional intimacy. Drawing on comprehensive interviews with young men as well as experts, 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. 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.