Peggy Orenstein, an American journalist and bestselling author of Schoolgirls and Cinderella Ate My Daughter, investigates adolescent girls’ sex lives in today’s world in Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape. Her findings are based on interviews with young women as well as psychologists and experts. Orenstein’s work over the past 25 years has focused on gender dynamics, particularly contemporary American girlhood. Girls & Sex was published in 2016 and won that year’s Books for Better Life award in the Relationships category. The book was also named one of the best books of the year by publications including The New York Times, TIME Magazine, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Another book by Orenstein is Boys & Sex.

This study guide refers to the 2017 HarperCollins Publishers paperback edition.

Content Warning: This guide includes explicit stories of sexual behavior and sexual assault.

Summary

Peggy Orenstein interviewed more than 70 young women between the ages of 15 and 20 to examine the complicated, modern world of teenage girls and sex. Orenstein wonders whether “today’s young women have more freedom than their mothers to shape their sexual encounters” (3) and examines the gap in progress made between general social progress for women and the regressive stereotypes and expectations that persist regarding female sexuality. The book is organized into seven chapters, including an Introduction.

In Chapter 1 (“Matilda Oh Is Not an Object—Except When She Wants to Be”), Orenstein looks at girls’ assessments of their physical selves. Girls today engage in “self-objectification,” where they take on the hypersexualization of women in the media, claim it as their own, and feel empowered by being conventionally attractive. The problem Orenstein sees is that self-objectification brings girls no closer to experiencing their bodies as their own: They continue to compartmentalize being sexually desirable and being sexual, and there is still no cultural focus on girls’ sexual agency. Instead, pop stars glamorize self-objectification, trying to make themselves the producers of hypersexualization. Orenstein asserts that this, combined with the influence of pornography on culture, produces sexual scripts that position young women as objects rather than subjects.

Chapter 2 (“Are We Having Fun Yet?”) examines what teenage girls’ sex lives look like in contemporary life. Orenstein finds that performing oral sex on boys is extremely common and is considered the next escalation in sexual intimacy after making out. Girls perform oral sex to appease their partners when they aren’t ready for sex. Anal sex, too, has become more common. Girls’ pain during sexual acts and lack of sexual satisfaction continues to be normalized.

In Chapter 3 (“Like a Virgin, Whatever That Is”), Orenstein analyzes the notion of virginity among today’s youth. Vaginal sex continues to be a sensationalized threshold for girls (and sometimes boys). Some girls participate in Purity Balls where they pledge their virginity to their fathers until marriage. Others invest too much importance into the act. Virginity is a patriarchal construct that only harms and limits girls as sexual people. Orenstein finds that despite decades of feminist social progress, girls still have to walk a line between being considered sexually permissive or prudish, a double standard that has been around for ages.

Chapter 4 (“Hookups and Hang-Ups”) concerns the hookup culture of today’s youth. In hookup culture, young men and women have sexual encounters that don’t necessarily have emotional or romantic significance. In some ways, this is freeing for young women; they can focus on academics or other aspects of their personal lives that don’t include romantic relationships. In other ways, girls lose out: They are rarely satisfied sexually, and they wind up performing sexuality more than genuinely connecting with their partners. Orenstein finds that hookup culture also relies on alcohol because drinking signals to others that a girl isn’t being serious: She’s having sex to have fun. Alcohol consumption, however, often leads to sexual assault, unclear issues around consent, and regret.

Chapter 5 (“Out: Online and IRL”) looks at queer, adolescent girls. Queer teenage girls both struggle to find who they are in the world and are relieved of some of the problems faced by their straight peers. Today, there is much more cultural acceptance of gay and non-heterosexual identities. However, many teens still feel their families won’t accept them. Queer culture also highlights the limitations of mainstream societal definitions for masculinity and femininity.

In Chapter 6 (“Blurred Lines, Take Two”), Orenstein discusses sexual assault and the muddy world of consent. Rape, particularly date rape, continues to be on the rise. Most of the data available concerns rapes on college campuses. Alcohol is often a big part of campus parties, and drinking is expected of girls who want to be considered fun and cool. But altered states complicate sex, paving the way for assault, confusion about what happened, and self-blame when things go wrong. Orenstein recounts that girls were able to change campus policies by speaking out about their assaults. “Yes means yes” policies, for example, change how consent is viewed, defining it as unambiguous and enthusiastic. 

In the final chapter, Chapter 7 (“What If We Told Them the Truth?”), Orenstein proposes a solution for adolescent girls, citing sex education policies in the Netherlands that respect teenagers’ sexuality and support their autonomy and safety. Orenstein wishes Americans would learn more from them but cites positive examples in the US where teachers speak openly to teenagers about sexual autonomy, consent, and emotional and psychological concerns.