Girls & Sex (Orenstein) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider using these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Girls & Sex...and take off on your own:

1. Orenstein finds the contraries in the beliefs held by today's young women: the dismissal of male patriarchy coupled with the desire for male sexual approval. How do you, or any woman, align those divergent views?

2. The teenaged girl get ready for a date in her college dorm tells Orenstein that her desire for the night "is to be just slutty enough, where you're not a prude but you're not a whore." What do you think of her attitude toward sex? It's modern, but is it freeing...is it healthy...is it empowering? Is it moral? What is the difference between "slutty" and a "whore"? What is the perfect slut?

3. Follow-up Question to 2: How did the young woman, a college economics major with, presumably, a fair amount of intelligence, come to acquire her attitudes toward sex and "getting attention from guys"?

4. Talk about the "hookup culture." Why does Orenstein find it so disturbing--aside from the fact that she doesn't want to appear judgmental? And that begs the question about the rightness or wrongness of "judging" our children's behavior. What do you think?

5. Why aren't women more satisfied with their intimate relationships, especially given the fact that they're graduating at a higher rate than men and closing the wage gap? In other words, they're finding success in the public sphere...why not in the private one?

6. What affect does pornography have on male expectations?

7. Is taking your clothes off a sign of empowerment or self-determination? One young woman tells Orenstein, "I love Beyonce. She’s, like, a queen. But I wonder, if she wasn’t so beautiful, if people didn’t think she was so sexy, would she be able to make the feminist points she makes?" What's your opinion?

8. How does Orenstein feel about abstinence-only sex-ed programs? Should sex education be left to parents?

9. Talk about the role of alcohol in the youth culture.

10. What would be the ideal sexual code appropriate for today's young women...and men? How could we go about, as a society, promulgating it?

(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime feel free to use these, online of off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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