Bonus #1: Sexual Citizens

Sexual Citizens. Jennifer Hirsch & Shamus Khan. 2020.

I saw Shamus Khan talk at OSU last week and was intrigued enough to get the book and read it.  I am going to start by saying that these authors were very clear that they are not attorneys or psychologists and that they do not come from backgrounds working in the field of sexual assault.  And this definitely shows when they venture into making recommendations, but I am going to set aside that very small part of the book, which leaves something like a bad taste in my mouth, but not enough to outweigh the rest of this book which is absolutely spot on and articulates some thoughts about campus sexual assault and dating violence that really need to be disseminated.

Last year, I highly recommended Untangled for anyone raising teen girls.  This book is a really important companion to that and I highly, highly recommend this book for everyone parenting a teen or young adult.  I am not exaggerating when I say that. It isn't like What To Expect When You Are Expecting, where everyone said you needed a copy and sure, it was helpful, but not in a way that actually impacted how you parent.  This is something that will probably change how you talk to your kids about sex and it will help you frame and rethink about the role sex played in your life when you were younger.  This book is as much about consensual sex as it is about rape.  While there are certainly descriptions about sexual assault throughout the book, there are also a lot of descriptions of hook-ups and consensual sex that are well worth reading.  I particularly appreciated having examples of (young) partners talking about how they manage their sex lives with someone who has experienced child sexual abuse or sexual assault.  This is a topic that virtually no one ever talks or writes about.

My favorite takeaways:

1. We have to rethink how we allocate space on college campuses.  Freshmen are in dorm rooms with roommates where they have no privacy. Older students are more likely to have singles, apartments, or live in fraternities where they control alcohol (they can acquire it & have a place to hide drinking it) and space.  Dorm living does not allow for private or semi-private spaces to hang out with friends other than in a bedroom.  Think about it: If you want to sit and just talk, what are your options? A hard desk chair or the bed. No wonder everyone ends up on the bed.
2. Despite the claims made by some of the younger generations that we are "post-gender," women continue to date older men so that as they age through high school and college, the pool of available partners decreases, while the pool of on-campus partners for men increases.  It is still common for first year women to "date" juniors and seniors and uncommon for older women to "date" freshman--and by "date" I really mean hook-up with.
3. Banning parties with alcohol in sorority houses controlled by women continues to put the control of alcohol and space in the hands of older men.
4. We have to do better culturally to respect Black women's bodies.  100% of the Black women in the study had expected unwanted sexual touching or sexual assault.  ONE HUNDRED PERCENT.  
5. This book contains the most complete insight into sexual assault within the Queer community that I have seen.  It is very powerful and provides a lot to think about. I am looking forward to a lot of my friends reading this so we can talk about it more.
6. Kids go off to college with projects--career projects, academic projects, and sex projects.  We as adults have to find a way to talk to them about the role that they want sex to play in their lives, not just about the mechanics of sex and sexual health.  Progressive sex education should (and doesn't) talk about the role of morality in the context of a healthy sex life.  When asked what sex is for, they are almost universally flummoxed by the question.
7. The vast majority of parents across the political spectrum are in serious denial about the amount of information our children are getting from internet porn and how this has changed the landscape of the type of sex that teens and young adults are having.

I highly, highly recommend this book not only adults who are parenting or working with youth, but also for students in college or going off to college.  I'm revamping my class on intimate violence soon and am going to replace some of the assigned readings from Missoula and Fraternity Gang Rape (yes, I am still having students read a couple of chapters from this) with parts of this book.  It is exceptionally good.  Read it right now.

---