Her Way: Young Women Remake the Sexual Revolution - Hardcover

Kamen, Paula

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0814747337 ISBN 13: 9780814747339

Publisher: NYU Press, 2000

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

Watching Barbara Walters's interview with Monica Lewinsky was like being caught in a tractor beam of horrified prurience. It boggled the mind that the leader of the free world would risk so much for... well, you know. The interview was many things, including funny, and that was mainly due to the enormous chasm between interviewer and interviewee regarding the heart of the matter: sex. When Walters asked, "And there were things that were done that made you as a woman happy and content?" it took women under 40 a few moments before they realized to what Walters was so coyly referring. The women of Generation (Se)X don't talk to each other like that. Even in public. They are a lot more explicit.

In Her Way, journalist Paula Kamen traces what she calls a sexual evolution, a slow but profound change in how women relate to their sexualities. Thirtysomething Kamen uses surveys (some more scientific than others), scholarly and popular literature, pop entertainment, and her own open-ended interviews with a wide variety of women to paint a picture of younger women who are more confident about their sexual selves (be they virginal or promiscuous) and in negotiating what they want in bed and their love relationships.

In keeping with the book's sex-positive message, the emphasis is on women's agency and on further possibilities for broadly satisfying sexual and interpersonal relationships. There is little about, for example, sexual violence, including date rape. Kamen has distilled a wealth of research in an engaging and accessible form, and she does not shy away from a more subtle commentary that notes the persistence of a sexual double standard for men and women. She also points out that we are still operating on "basic male definitions of sex or sexual freedoms" and asks whether, perhaps, in the words of the bumper sticker, "Women who strive to be equal to men aren't ambitious enough." --J. Riches

From the Inside Flap:

It’s been twenty-five years since Shere Hite’s revealing report on American women’s sex lives and, surprisingly, no one has undertaken an update–until now. Based on more than one hundred candid interviews with women representing a full spectrum of classes, races, sexual preferences, and relationship options, Her Way delivers a frontline account of today’s sexual “evolution.”

Unlike the countless prescriptive books that give women a romanticized take on what they should be doing, Her Way offers an eye-opening perspective on what they are doing. Giving voice to their empowering experiences, journalist Paula Kamen provides a glimpse into the underreported world of modern post-boomer women, a generation that doesn’t view men as mere meal tickets, enjoys guilt-free one-night stands, and is comfortable being single and making the decision to have sex–or not–on its own terms. An unprecedented portrait of contemporary womanhood’s emerging new identity, Her Way captures a new way of liberated living.

About this edition

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0814747337
• ISBN 13: 9780814747339
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288