Promiscuities : The Secret Struggle for Womanhood

by Naomi Wolf

Hardcover, 1997

Status

Available

Call number

HQ27.5.W65 1997

Genres

General Nonfiction

Nonfiction

All Topics

Collections

Your library, University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

Publication

Random House (1997), Edition: 1st, Hardcover, 286 pages

Description

Promiscuities follows a group of adolescent girls as they gradually become aware of themselves as sexual beings and discover what our culture tells them being female means. Drawing on her own experiences as well those of her contemporaries, Naomi Wolf reveals the secrets of our coming of age: the sexual games, forbidden crushes, losses of virginity, and rites of initiation. She also uncompromisingly examines the darker territories of abortion, the influences of the sex industry, and sexual violence that underlie contemporary girl's struggle for womanhood. By bringing into light our relationship to the "shadow slut" that conditions our sexual development, Promiscuities explores how the sexual experiences of the adolescent years determine women's sense of their own value as adults, and envisions how we could better guide girls through the "normatively shocking" landscape they now inhabit. Finally, Wolf looks at the popular culture of the recent past, as well as at the history and mythology of female desire, to show how our "liberated" culture still fears and distorts female passion. Bold and candid, funny and revelatory, Wolf's stories illustrate the fear and excitement, the fantasies and sometimes crippling realities, that make up a young contemporary woman's journey of erotic and emotional discovery.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Arctic-Stranger

Part, if not most of this book is a memoir about growing up female in a culture that both idolizes and denigrates women when it comes to sex. Wolf has a keen bead when it comes to cultural studies, but like anyone who writes about Big Ideas, she misses as much as she hits. I am sure this was HER

experience, but I didnt know many girls like her when I was growing up.

This might be read well hand in hand with [Reviving Ophelia] by Mary Pipher.

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LibraryThing member eilonwy_anne

I read this as a teenager, and it was quite possibly the first explicitly feminist work of nonfiction I read. It was an easy read, not especially academic, and very valuable for me in noticing and evaluating the messages I was getting about female bodies, desires, and choices.

It's been a while

since I read it, but I remember especially valuing the emphasis on storytelling: the lack of positive stories about female sexual awakening in our mainstream culture, the shift in stories about women's desire over the centuries. I also remember having trouble relating to some of the firsthand tales of girls growing up in the wilder 60's/70's -- I was a very staid (yes, even prudish) 90's teen. But perhaps the shock did me good, and as the book says, storytelling is important.

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LibraryThing member nmele

This is not always the best researched or best written book but Wolf is pointing out and exploring a number of provocative and important issues, like the lack of a definite, meaningful initiation into adulthood and the sexual imagination of our society. Well worth reading and discussing; my wife

and I are still talking about it.

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