I just read this book and am trying to distill some talking points from it for both direct talk and casual chats with D16. She’s headed to a women’s college, so that may inform my approach. Have you read this? What was your takeaway?
I haven’t read it but I was curious so I did some googling.
From the NPR.org article about the Fresh Air with Terry Gross interview with the author:
“talking clearly and honestly to girls about their own desires and their own pleasures”
Bravo!
I guess I thought the title of this thread would attract more attention! 
One of my major concerns about this age group is that it seems that their expectations about sex are heavily dependent on what is available on the Internet. I feel like they think they have seen it all (and some of them may have.) But that doesn’t mean they have a sense of what it feels like (emotionally and physically) or how to communicate about that with a partner.
My #3 is taking a summer class and they are reading this book and Guyland (which I had a copy of in our bookcase). as the textbooks. It will be interesting talking to him this summer and interesting to see if the class is more girls than guys or about the same number of each.
I hadn’t seen Guyland–thanks! I just put it on hold at our public library. I may need to ask my old bookclub to reconstitute itself and read both of these to discuss.
I am not a huge fan of Guyland, but I do recommend people read it. It is definitely a sociological study of a subculture of young, mostly white, males, but it is not nearly as sweeping as he makes it seem.
With that said, the subculture (or, really, the dominant culture probably) that he describes is absolutely something that needs to be studied and understood since that is where the bulk of societal “problems” lie (drug use, homophobia, and so on).
As for the OP’s book… I haven’t read it but I’ve worked in adolescent sexual health for many years. We need to teach young women that they are entitled to sexual pleasure (we already teach men this and we teach women that they are the pleasure givers and not the pleasure receivers). Once this happen, many of the other “issues” that go along with pleasurable sex will follow- consent, birth control, and so on.
In my household, sex was a natural topic so when it came to talking about sex with my partners, it was blunt but natural (well, for me… not for them!)
I agree romanig…I didn’t love, love it but I can’t say it wasn’t an interesting read. i laughed when #3 told me he needed to get on Amazon and buy it for this class. I guess i never grew up thinking I was a “pleasure giver” only with emphasis on the only, so I have a hard time relating to young women these days if that’s how they are thinking…