Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape

Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk about Desire by Deborah L. Tolman (2002)

Dilemmas of Desire is a well-researched examination of how girls lack the language to discuss their sexual desire. Tolman, a professor at Hunter College, is the foremost expert on teenage girls and desire. Through many interviews, she shows how girls’ disconnection from their embodied sense of desire has been harmful and even dangerous for girls’ sexual development and throughout their lives.

Female Chauvinist Pig: Women and The Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy (2006)

Levy challenges “raunch culture,” identified in Girls & Sex as self-objectification. She investigates groups of young women who seek empowerment by reclaiming the sexualization and objectification that feminists have been fighting for decades. Levy argues that these women are engaging in conformity, not liberation, that still disenfranchises and oppresses women’s sexual agency.

The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women by Jessica Valenti (2009)

Valenti, a culture writer, argues through in-depth cultural and social analysis that girls’ sexuality has defined their worth for generations. Rather than focusing on girls’ values, talents, interests, kindness, etc., society continues to assess girls’ morality through their sexual behavior. She looks closely at Purity Balls and sex education programs and dissects the idea of virginity in America.