Peggy Orenstein

Harvard Book Store and AMAZE welcome bestselling writer PEGGY ORENSTEIN—author of Girls & Sex—for a discussion of her latest book, Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity. She will be joined in conversation by RICHARD WEISSBOURD, Senior Lecturer in Education at Harvard's Graduate School of Education. 

About Boys & Sex

Peggy Orenstein’s Girls & Sex broke ground, shattered taboos, and launched conversations about young women’s right to pleasure and agency in sexual encounters. It also had an unexpected effect on its author: Orenstein realized that talking about girls is only half the conversation. Boys are subject to the same cultural forces as girls—steeped in the same distorted media images and binary stereotypes of female sexiness and toxic masculinity—which equally affect how they navigate sexual and emotional relationships. In Boys & Sex, Peggy Orenstein dives back into the lives of young people to once again give voice to the unspoken, revealing how young men understand and negotiate the new rules of physical and emotional intimacy.

Drawing on comprehensive interviews with young men, psychologists, academics, and experts in the field, Boys & Sex dissects so-called locker room talk; how the word “hilarious” robs boys of empathy; pornography as the new sex education; boys’ understanding of hookup culture and consent; and their experience as both victims and perpetrators of sexual violence. By surfacing young men’s experience in all its complexity, Orenstein is able to unravel the hidden truths, hard lessons, and important realities of young male sexuality in today’s world. The result is a provocative and paradigm-shifting work that offers a much-needed vision of how boys can truly move forward as better men.

Praise for Boys & Sex

“Masculinity doesn’t have to be toxic—but so much of what we communicate to boys about masculinity is just that. The amazing Peggy Orenstein does more than just document the atrocities. She listens to boys and bears witness to their efforts to free themselves from trap the culture sets for them. Boys & Sex is required reading for anyone who has ever loved, raised, been, or will become a boy.” —Dan Savage, bestselling author and host of Savage Podcast

“As a psychotherapist who's raising a boy, I can't think of a more important book for our times. Eye-opening and nuanced, this compassionate exploration of boys' sexual lives gives voice to their deepest struggles and should be mandatory reading for anyone who cares about the next generation--which is to say, all of us.” —Lori Gottlieb, New York Times–bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

“Peggy Orenstein dared to do what so many of us are afraid of: actually ask boys about sex and then listen to what they had to say. She has given boys the opportunity to speak honestly about their feelings around sexuality, pornography, gender, consent and so much more. Their answers are illuminating, often times surprising—and essential.” —Nick Kroll, co-creator, writer, and star of Big Mouth