"This is not a book about the sex industry; it is a book about what we have decided the sex industry means....how we held it up, cleaned it off, and distorted it." (Ariel Levy, excerpt from book page 198)

What is feminism to you? How does it equate to our existence as a woman? Why do we strive so hard to be "manly" in our daily activities? How did sexuality become feminism? When did Porn Stars become the Cool Role Models? Why are our kids driven to look sexually "hot", when half of them don't know what sex is all about?

All these questions are looked at in this witty book written by Ariel Levy. She takes the reader inside behind the scenes to talk to the people who are putting out the images we are all striving to be like. You get a view into the inner sanctums of playboy, girls gone wild, CAKE, old school feminist,Strippers, Porn Stars, Teenagers, Lesbians and much much more. If you think you know feminism and how it equates into a woman's sexuality or just curious about it all, this book is a must read for you.

I have to admit, I have never been stopped and asked by so many strangers "what is that book about" as I have been with this one. It is guaranteed to cause a sensation just from the cover alone. I loved the witty tone it had as the author explained some of the really absurd norms we have these days. I found each chapter a pleasure to read and Ariel posed a tons of questions which set me to pondering the reason behind all the madness these days. One question she did not really address is "why is this happening". We see a big jump from conservative feminism to raunchy feminism; she show a great picture of what it was and what it is now but no history on the between time; how we changed over to what it is. I enjoyed the section she had on the teenage girls and was pleased to a section from a boys perspective. What the male interviewee said made a lot of sense. As I read the statements from the women who were interviewed I couldn't help but wonder why they needed to be so "manly" in their behaviors, why do they feel they need this trade off. I found the book to be a very informative book and will recommend it to may of my friends.
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donut whore (USA: TX) (2007/08/18):
I've heard a lot about this book in my various feminist circles. People either love it or hate it. I'm in the latter group. I bought his book a year ago and finally decided to bust it out, but I wish I hadn't. So...where shall we start on why I hate this? Let's see...

Her (poorly written) first chapter points out how many women are behind (corporate) Girls Gone Wild and Playboy, and how raunchy women have gotten in pop culture, then concludes by saying, "It no longer makes sense to blame men." (It's not like men are participating in the multi-billion dollar porn industry and have any part in objectifying women or anything. It's not like the misogynist shithead to founded GGW is sitting in jail for coercing underage girls to star in his videos or anything...not. [/sarcasm])

And then she does other dumb shit, like suggesting the current state of smut is directly derived from second-wave feminism (the women's lib movement). She puts Susan Brownmiller and her anti-porn crusade at the center of the women's lib movement, and then starts to mention how the movement began splintering off into various sects. "Imagine how Susan Brownmiller must have felt...Now there were "feminist" pornographers. There were seperatist "feminists," and there was a highly vocal contingent of S/M lesbian "feminists." What had been clear and beautiful was now messy and contentious." Um, bitch, maybe there were seperatist feminists because the mainstream women's lib movement was full of heterosexual, white, upper-middle class ideologies.

And what really pissed me off about her was how she alluded to the notion that butch/femme lesbian identity is part of raunch culture (because butch/femme obviously didn't exist before the reality TV era [/sarcasm]). She keeps saying how women go to strip clubs and have lots of sex because they want to BE men, the she jumps into this whole chapter on various LGBT identities, including butch lesbians.

And let's not forget how she calls pre-teen girls Pigs In Training. In an era where children are flooded with fucked up advertisments, reality tv, and stupid celebrities, she has the gall to place blame on teens and call them Pigs in Training. There's no doubt kids are over-sexed these days, but look at all the exposure to sex they get. Levy tries to make a strong statement about how they're flooded with sex imagery 24/7, but it's too little too late. Why bother trying to find reasons for these little Pigs in Training if you've already painted teen girls as whores? *eyeroll*

She went to Wesleyan University and kept talking about how liberal it was and how her mom was a feminist, but she strikes me as the type of person who went to a really liberal school while being a closet Republican. Because she's full of conservative Republican bullshit that's thinkly veiled by her "feminism." She talks shit about Bush, but almost everything she writes could fall in line with Bush's conservatist crap.

It's too bad, too. It could've been a good, strong topic to examine if she hadn't been such a stupid bitch. And then in the afterword she talks about how she's pro-sex, pro-sex worker, pro-porn, etc. Bullshit. I'm getting aggravated all over again just thinking about it.

This book is sophomoric, gossipy, and manipulative.