All The Dirty Parts

All The Dirty Parts by Daniel Handler, 134 pages

“From bestselling, award-winning author Daniel Handler, a gutsy, exciting novel that looks honestly at the erotic impulses of an all-too-typical young man. Cole is a boy in high school. He runs cross country, he sketches, he jokes around with friends. But none of this quite matters next to the allure of sex. ‘Let me put it this way,’ he says. ‘Draw a number line, with zero is you never think about sex and ten is, it 's all you think about, and while you are drawing the line, I am thinking about sex.’ Cole fantasizes about whomever he 's looking at. He consumes and shares pornography. And he sleeps with a lot of girls, which is beginning to earn him a not-quite-savory reputation around school. This leaves him adrift with only his best friend for company, and then something startling starts to happen between them that might be what he 's been after all this time and then he meets Grisaille. All The Dirty Parts is an unblinking take on teenage desire in a culture of unrelenting explicitness and shunted communication, where sex feels like love, but no one knows what love feels like. With short chapters in the style of Jenny Offill or Mary Robison, Daniel Handler gives us a tender, brutal, funny, intoxicating portrait of an age when the lens of sex tilts the world. ‘There are love stories galore,’ Cole tells us, ‘This isn 't that. The story I 'm typing is all the dirty parts.’” Handler’s books just keep getting stranger.  I’m not sure that I really liked this book and I’m not sure that I’d recommend it to anyone, other than someone who was specifically looking for Handler’s books.

Girls and Sex

Girls and Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape by Peggy Orenstein.  236 pages (before notes)

"With casual hookups and campus rape relentlessly in the news, parents can be forgiven for feeling anxious about their young daughters. They’re also fearful about opening up a dialog. Not Orenstein. A contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and the New York Times best-selling author of books like Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Orenstein spoke to psychologists, academics, and other experts in the field and yes, 70 young women, to offer an in-depth picture of “girls and sex” today."

I don't usually just take the summary of a book from Goodreads, but I figured that for this book, it made the most sense.    I had been reading a lot about this book, and then heard the author on a Slate podcast, so I was curious about what this book would be like.   I found it a combination of things: fascinating, scary, a bit depressing . . . and seriously, I think it should be required reading for a lot of parents.   Strike that; even if you don't have a daughter, read this book.  It was really interesting to read what some of the girls that Orenstein interviewed had to say, and there were a bunch of things that I found surprising (and sad).

This made for an interesting read, but I think the most powerful thing about the book is that it creates an opportunity for some dialogue, and hopefully, some determination towards making some positive changes.

Come As You Are

Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski, 400 pages

"An essential exploration of why and how women's sexuality works-based on groundbreaking research and brain science-that will radically transform your sex life into one filled with confidence and joy.  Researchers have spent the last decade trying to develop a "pink pill" for women to function like Viagra does for men. So where is it? Well, for reasons this book makes crystal clear, that pill will never exist-but as a result of the research that's gone into it, scientists in the last few years have learned more about how women's sexuality works than we ever thought possible, and Come as You Are explains it all.  The first lesson in this essential, transformative book by Dr. Emily Nagoski is that every woman has her own unique sexuality, like a fingerprint, and that women vary more than men in our anatomy, our sexual response mechanisms, and the way our bodies respond to the sexual world. So we never need to judge ourselves based on others' experiences. Because women vary, and that's normal.  Second lesson: sex happens in a context. And all the complications of everyday life influence the context surrounding a woman's arousal, desire, and orgasm.  Cutting-edge research across multiple disciplines tells us that the most important factor for women in creating and sustaining a fulfilling sex life, is not what you do in bed or how you do it, but how you feel about it . Which means that stress, mood, trust, and body image are not peripheral factors in a woman's sexual wellbeing; they are central to it. Once you understand these factors, and how to influence them, you can create for yourself better sex and more profound pleasure than you ever thought possible.  And Emily Nagoski can prove it."  Every woman should read this book.  So should every man that wants to understand female sexuality better.  I definitely recommend this book. 

Being A Teen: Everything Teen Girls & Boys Should Know About Relationships, Sex, Love. Health, Identity & More

Being A Teen: Everything Teen Girls & Boys Should KnowAbout Relationships, Sex, Love. Health, Identity & More by Jane Fonda, 253 pages

Although not fabulously well written, this book does contain a lot of good information for teens about all of the topics mentioned in the title.  It doesn’t shy away from difficult or sensitive topics and includes a lot of resources for teens who may not be getting help or information from home.  The book does encourage teens who are having difficulties to talk to parents or other trusted adults about problems, like depression, pregnancy, bullying, etc., but recognizes the possibility that some teens may not have trusted adults in their lives.  Generally, I would think that a lot of teens could benefit from the book, either reading the whole book or skipping to the topics that interest them specifically.