NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Now in paperback--Peggy Orenstein, author of the groundbreaking New York Times bestseller Girls & Sex, turns her focus to the sexual lives of young men. "Eye-opening.... Every few pages, the boy world cracks open a little bit.... Even in the most anxiety-provoking moments of Boys & Sex, it's clear that Orenstein believes in the goodness of boys and the men they can become, and she believes in us, as parents, to raise them" (New York Times Book Review). Peggy Orenstein's Girls & Sex broke ground, shattered taboos, and launched conversations about young women's right to pleasure and agency in sexual encounters. It also had an unexpected effect on its author: Orenstein realized that talking about girls is only half the conversation. Boys are subject to the same cultural forces as girls--steeped in the same distorted media images and binary stereotypes of female sexiness and toxic masculinity--which equally affect how they navigate sexual and emotional relationships. In Boys & Sex, Peggy Orenstein dives back into the lives of young people to once again give voice to the unspoken, revealing how young men understand and negotiate the new rules of physical and emotional intimacy. Drawing on comprehensive interviews with young men, psychologists, academics, and experts in the field, Boys & Sex dissects so-called locker room talk; how the word "hilarious" robs boys of empathy; pornography as the new sex education; boys' understanding of hookup culture and consent; and their experience as both victims and perpetrators of sexual violence. By surfacing young men's experience in all its complexity, Orenstein is able to unravel the hidden truths, hard lessons, and important realities of young male sexuality in today's world. The result is a provocative and paradigm-shifting work that offers a much-needed vision of how boys can truly move forward as better men.

National Book Award Longlist Winner of the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction Winner of the Foreword INDIE Editor's Choice Prize for Nonfiction "Rebecca Solnit is essential feminist reading." --The New Republic "Solnit's exquisite essays move between the political and the personal, the intellectual and the earthy." --Elle Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books, including the international bestseller Men Explain Things to Me. Called "the voice of the resistance" by the New York Times, she has emerged as an essential guide to our times, through her incisive commentary on feminism, violence, ecology, hope, and everything in between. In this powerful and wide-ranging collection, Solnit turns her attention to battles over meaning, place, language, and belonging at the heart of the defining crises of our time. She explores the way emotions shape political life, electoral politics, police shootings and gentrification, the life of an extraordinary man on death row, the pipeline protest at Standing Rock, and the existential threat posed by climate change. The work of changing the world sometimes requires changing the story, the names, and inventing or popularizing new names and terms and phrases. Calling things by their true names can also cut through the lies that excuse, disguise, avoid, or encourage inaction, indifference, obliviousness in the face of injustice and violence.

Featuring an insightful look at lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) life in Cuba, this chronicle illuminates the progress the country has made from centuries of backward attitudes and oppression to the current state of enlightenment. From the mores of the Colonial period to the roles that Hollywood, the CIA, and Wall Street played in depicting Cuba as a "police state" for gays and in reinforcing the oppression, this overview provides a backdrop of the past and illustrates the persecution and exploitation originally planted by Spanish colonialism and further cultivated by U.S. capitalism. Details on the gradual transformation follow as the narrative examines the impact of the political and institutional initiatives taken by Fidel Castro and the Cuban leadership to overcome bigotry and prejudice against LGBT people--among them free health care and education, guaranteed jobs and housing, special health care for AIDS victims, and widespread sex education.

Gossip is no trivial matter; despite its reputation, Epstein argues, it is an eternal and necessary human enterprise. Proving that he himself is a master of the art, Epstein serves up delightful mini-biographies of the Great Gossips of the Western World, along with many choice bits from his own experience. He also makes a powerful case that gossip has morphed from its old-fashioned best--clever, mocking, a great private pleasure--to a corrosive new-school version, thanks to the reach of the mass media and the Internet. Written in his trademark erudite and witty style, Gossip captures the complexity of this immensely entertaining subject.

The middle class black women who people Judith Weisenfeld's history were committed both to social action and to institutional expression of their religious convictions. Their story provides an illuminating perspective on the varied forces working to improve quality of life for African Americans in crucial times. When undertaking to help young women migrating to and living alone in New York, Weisenfeld's protagonists chose to work within a national evangelical institution. Their organization of a black chapter of the Young Women's Christian Association in 1905 was a clear step toward establishing a suitable environment for young working women; it was also an expression of their philosophy of social uplift. And predictably it was the beginning of an equal rights struggle--to work as equals with white women activists. Growing and adapting as New York's black community evolved over the decades, the black YWCA assumed a central role both in the community's religious life and as a training ground for social action. Weisenfeld's analysis of the setbacks and successes closes with the National YWCA's vote in 1946 to adopt an interracial charter and move toward integration of local chapters, thus opening the door to a different set of challenges for a new generation of black activists. Weisenfeld's account gives a vibrant picture of African American women as significant actors in the life of the city. And it bears telling witness to the religious, class, gender, and racial negotiations so often involved in American social reform movements.

The world has changed before our eyes. In only a century, ancient landmarks crumbled and among the discarded ruins are gender distinctions that had been intertwined with everyday life for thousands of years. Tony Robinson pieces together common threads regarding wardrobe, gender expectations, and the roles we play, stitching them to historical and biblical underpinnings of both gender identity and worship of God. He then peels this fabric back to expose the naked truth of the things we hide behind in life, death, and the afterlife, revealing a forgotten significance and worldview that is more than skin deep. Unlike most sources that address adornment and gender identity, The Naked Truth: Revealing Things We Hide Behind uses an ontological perspective to explain in a multifaceted way things that are usually overlooked or misunderstood."Cultures change; therefore, this change in culture is good," is the circular logic claim used by many churches today when it comes to gender-based ideals. Tony Robinson takes a different approach to explain the scriptural and social importance of things we hide behind, all within the framework of a systematic applied theology. The reader will be presented a question upon gender-based adornment, followed by a solid study in Biblical rules of interpretation, law, history, passages on adornment and gender roles, as well as a multifaceted investigation into worldview repercussions related to the human body. In one sense, this is a theology textbook that uses significant details of the human body, its origin, destiny, parts, functions, how we treat it, and what we do with it to help reveal worldview lessons influencing society. In doing so, Tony Robinson reveals but goes far beyond the topics of modest attire and sexual immorality that Christian books about the human body typically focus upon. The last chapter contains review questions for each chapter, many of the questions include new material related to the chapter they are addressing. This chapter of questions lends itself to classroom, group discussion, or private meditation that can help the reader to think through the book's material for application within daily life. Why is the last chapter written like this? Because the author believes that why you believe something and whether you translate that belief into practice is more important than simply saying that you believe something.

In 1975, at the age of forty, Richard Raskind, a renowned eye surgeon and highly ranked amateur tennis player, "died," and Renée Richards was "born," in what was to become the most public and highly scrutinized sex reassignment to date. It was not until Renée Richards was discovered playing in an amateur tennis tournament that the world took notice. Extensive media coverage and criticism thrust Renée reluctantly into the spotlight, sparking an intense public debate over her private life. Now, at seventy-two, Richards looks back and speaks frankly about all aspects of her complicated and often notorious life in this eye-opening, thought-provoking memoir. Richards' honest and compelling narrative explores the dichotomy between the successful life she lived as Dr. Richard Raskind, who seemed to have everything (devoted friends, a beautiful wife and son, a stellar record of academic and professional achievement, and outstanding athletic ability), and a secret life of struggle with a drive that could not be suppressed, even by years of psychotherapy and the force of a considerable will. Richards takes readers through her difficult decision to undergo surgery and the complex mixture of relief and continued frustration that came with the realization of her new identity. Discussing life after her transformation, Richards candidly relates the details, trials, and pleasures of her romantic life as well as fascinating stories about her tennis career, including her experiences as Martina Navratilova's coach. She also provides an intimate account of her difficult but rewarding relationship with her rebellious son: runaway teenager, high-stakes Vegas gambler, karate champion, and entrepreneur. She describes the deterioration of a once-loving marriage and the challenges of reclaiming her place at the forefront of her demanding medical specialty. Having lived as a woman almost as long as she lived as a man, Richards draws on a personal history that illuminates thirty years of remarkable change in society's attitude toward gender issues. Her absorbing and inspiring story, at once heartbreaking and uplifting, is a testimony to how far we have progressed in our ability to discuss and accept sexuality in all its iterations, as well as a reminder of how far we still must travel.