Although I do not generally list the chapters in every book review that I write, I think it’s important to so to explain how Good Sexual Citizenship strives to create a “sexually safer world.”
- The Bases for Our Biases
- Standing Up for Sex
- Consent – (I Promise) It’s Not That Complicated
- Little Kids, Big Questions
- The Teen Sex Situation
- Getting to Good Sexual Citizenship
Whu do I list these? Because I consistently struggled to understand the overall structure that the author, Ellen Friedrichs, was aiming for. I am not sure if it’s the examples the author uses to introduce each chapter that makes them feel so disjointed rather than work in congress, but it’s so distracting. I don’t want to be stuck on the author’s organizational choices over her words, especially when I agree with what she has to say.
This begins with the first chapter, which delves into sexism. Honestly? I understand why discussing sex (and gender) and sexism is a sensical place to start when it comes to discussing the issue of a safer sexual world, but others may not. Some people may be on the word but haven’t fully formed their thoughts on the subject. It seems a bit presumptuous to me that the reader should have to already know this. At the very least, it could be overwhelming to the reader. There is room to make the argument and it may be necessary to do so that we cannot start a book without first examining gender. Perhaps the author things the entire first chapter accomplishes this, but it would not hurt for the point to be more explicitly, either in the introduction or at the start of the chapter itself.
As Friedrich moves into a history of sex culture and education (and the lack thereof), she paints the bigger picture of how we got to where we are. including casual sex and hookup culture, and what’s wrong with that if you want to build a sex-positive society. I suspect this is where many people would expect the book to begin. From there, it makes more sense to move onto the topic of consent, which includes discussion of how it plays out in college hookups and established relationships as well as how we define sexual assault, in the next chapter. Framing consent as a simple but essential solution to sexual assault is so important. The questions Ellen asks readers to consider about consent at the end of the chapter are especially poignant.
But the segue to teaching children about sex is almost nonexistent. It would be so easy to explain that if we teach children about sexuality and consent from a young age, providing them with age-appropriate information so that we can impress upon them the importance of consent. The chapter that follows, on teenaged sexuality, is the clearest transition in the book.
Her final chapter does reiterate why we are where we are as a society and ties together how all the misinformation or simply lack of education has contributed to that in a way that makes the preceding chapters make more sense. I just wish there was more of a common thread throughout the pages.
With that said, each chapter in this book relies on research, which is referenced throughout the book and listed in the notes, to make points that I do often agree with. And as readers move through those chapters, there are asides that help to challenge the unhealthy, harmful, and sex-negative messages we may have absorbed from living in a society that has created such a dangerous culture around sex. Each chapter also ends with a worksheet containing questions to gauge the reader’s knowledge, opinion, and comfort with the topics discussed in the chapter that encourage the reader to consider the topics on a personal level and rethink the ways they navigate sexuality.
As Ellen Friedrich makes her points and educates the reader to dispels myths, she makes sure to include LGBTQ+ members and to point out how sexism and these ideas about sex hurt men as well. However, she’s careful to point out how these limited narratives depict sex and gender at the same and a binary and how sexism against women has allowed the current sexual culture to proliferate.
The author also takes the time to point out the actions people can actually take not just to change their own minds but to impact sexuality in society from their interactions with other people on a daily basis to how they vote. Good Sexual Citizenship doesn’t just describe a problem without offering solutions. It didn’t leave me feeling hopeless as it very well could have. At points, the advice might have been a little superficial, but the reader is given enough information that they can seek out other resources, which they will have to do on their own because aside from references used, Friedrich doesn’t list any resources that her readers may want to read in addition to her book.
One thing that I found was interesting was that Friedrichs initially uses a couple of footnotes to define terminology with which the reader may not be familiar. I mean literally two in the introduction, and then she never does this again in the book. It’s confusing. But there were also places where I thought that those definitions would be incredibly useful to a reader who has maybe never heard a term before or isn’t quite sure what it means. “Slut-shaming” is a good example; yet, the author quickly seemed to forget about using definitions or decided that the only two terms that would benefit from them were in the beginning of the book.
Although there are many points with which I agree in Good Sexual Citizenship, and I’d like to see them made more often and vocally, I still felt that the book lacked an overall narrative to help the reader progress from one chapter or point to the next. Although I could draw some conclusions because the content was familiar to me, this might not be the case for others. The reader shouldn’t have to make assumptions or have a ton of prior knowledge to understand the overall argument made by a book. That’s the point of the book.
I wonder if the imperfection of Good Sexual Citizenship would leave others frustrated or cause them to set it aside, perhaps before they even pick it up, rather than just leaving them confused like I was. However, I still recommend this book, perhaps just as a starting point. And it’s not only that there are some weak points in Good Sexual Citizenships, it’s just that no one book or source can provide all the information we need to truly become good sexual citizens. As long as the reader understands this and that the onus is on each of us to create a sexually healthy world after reading the last page, I think this book will ultimately be helpful.
