A mother and journalist explores the contemporary challenges, ideas and behaviors of young girls and women navigating early sexual experiences, and the associated pressures and issues. By having candid, open interviews with many young women in high school and college, and detailed discussions with them about their sexual activities and feelings, she was able to show how we as a society continue to fail them, by not providing realistic information about the emotional and pleasurable aspects of sex.
She discusses the destructive role of ubiquitous pornography online, which is seen by many or most young girls and boys, as a truly sad alternative to good education, information and advice about healthy sex and women's enjoyment of it.
She also pays attention to the conflicting social pressures young women face in the modern “liberated” era, where they are expected and encouraged from an early age to be seen as sexually available, “hot” and desirable, yet can be and often are “slut-shamed” (particularly on social media, with terrible psychological effects) at the same time if they actually act on boys’ expectations or their own desires.
This is a very revealing, compassionate exploration of the challenges faced by modern girls in weathering the earliest phase of their sexual lives, as they try to learn how to develop positive sexual relationships and healthy self-images, and have enjoyable experiences, in the realms of sexual pleasure, love and relationships. Highly recommended.
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