She’s amazing, all her books are amazing, we all need to read them and know her work. This is the TED talk that succinctly sums up the findings of her book ‘Girls and Sex’ which I read years ago and have been dipping in and out of ever since (that’s code for blowing peoples minds with its content) It was so depressing and yet wildly informative about the state of sex for young women in the contemporary landscape of a post-internet porn world. Most of the research is in the US of course but it translates here too, the internet is something of a sad leveller in this regard. It’s a great follow up from another formative book of my early 20’s ‘Female Chauvinist Pigs’ by Ariel Levy that I’ll refer to in another post.
Some of the findings of Orenstein’s extensive research boil down to (but are not limited to) the fact that girls and young women have no idea that sex should be pleasurable, that they have no say or autonomy in their partnered sexual experiences. That they must give blow jobs to almost any man they are alone with even if its just a friend of theirs. That sex ends in the man/boy cuming on your face and almost always involves anal (cos then you’re still a virgin right?) That you’re not entitled to orgasms, that you may never in fact ever experience one and that they don’t masturbate nearly enough. It’s the saddest thing ever. I literally want to cry for these young women and I sure as hell would like to make sure these attitudes don’t carry on to the next generations behind them.
Orenstein wrote some great stuff before ‘Girls and Sex’ about the “princessification” of girls childhoods which is how I first discovered her and she has just released ‘Boys and Sex’ which I shall read.
‘What Young Women Believe About Their Own Sexual Pleasure’ TED talk