NYU Press Her Way: Young Women Remake the Sexual Revolution

Three decades after the Sexual Revolution, women's power and status have begun to match men's, and women are finally making the rules in order to experience a more radical and truer form of liberation. Her Way demonstrates how and why 20- and 30-something women have evolved to act and think more like men sexually, while also creating their own distinct sexual patterns and appetites. Today's young women are now the leaders of an unreported but sweeping "Sexual Evolution," in which women take control of sex and redefine it from their perspective. In other words, do it "her way." Paula Kamen characterizes this Sexual Evolution according to two major developments that are setting sexual patterns for future generations of women: young women's sexual profiles are now remarkably similar to those of men, in terms of age of first intercourse, and numbers of sex partners and casual encounters. They also feel less guilt or shame about their behavior, from premarital sex to having a child out of marriage to coming out of the closet to cohabiting. Yet young women are not merely imitating men, but forging their own distinct sexual perspectives and asserting their own needs. In addition to discovering the pleasures of sex, young women are also exploring the dilemmas, challenging male-defined sexual scripts, and changing what actually goes on in bed. Based on more than one hundred lively, unfiltered and in-depth interviews with women across the country, Her Way cuts through the sensationalism and speculation of popular discussions about young women and sex. Kamen reports the real story of today's enhanced sexual expectations and choices. Review A bold new look at female sexuality in America today. Based on years of meticulous research, Paula Kamen has produced a fascinating, important study of how young women are redefining their roles and relationships in a post-boomer world.--Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking At last, a book about young women's sexual behavior that's actually written by a young woman! Paula Kamen documents women's sexual truths without judgment andmore importantwithout all the wrongheaded, double-standard-laden assumptions that all too often plague writing on this topic. Kamen brings the focus back where it should be: on women's own views, rather than others' views of them.--Lisa Miya-Jervis "Bitch Magazine" At times startling and at the very least amusingreading it is an education. And now we know at least some of what educated women stand to gain.-- "The New York Times Book Review" Gives women cause to celebrate! Her Way shows how, for perhaps the first time in history, a generation of young women is truly defining sex on its own terms. Her nuanced analysis of this quiet but undeniable trend is optimistic while not shying away from the problems that remain, including the inertia of a mainstream popular culture that insists on portraying women as sexy rather than as sexual beings in their own right.--Lisa Douglass, coauthor of Are We Having Fun Yet? The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Sex If women's sexual mores become more like men's, is that progress? Paula Kamen seems to think so, based on Her Way. . . . Kamen backs her assertions with a panoramic breadth of scholarship-pretty much every major piece of sex research for the last hundred years shows up in Her Way, including some fascinating surveys of women born in the nineteenth century.-- "Nerve" Intellectual, political, and compassionate, Her Way shows that the freedom to live and love by our own standardswith men on our good sideis the way toward the social change that, truly, begins in our social lives.--Lynn Harris, author of Breakup Girl to the Rescue! A Superhero's Guide to Love, and Lack Thereof Lively and entertaining, honoring the intimate voices of a diversity of women, Her Way is an authoritative study of our long slow journey toward sexual autonomy. Kamen is a savvy third wave feminist who has done her homewor