May 4, 2015
New York–based Australian journalist Hills explores the sex lives of Millennials across the English-speaking world in this incisive look at contemporary sexual realities. According to Hills, media hype and other factors have created a “myth” of hypersexual young adults who measure their worth by how often they hook up. Drawing from research, an informal survey, conversations with 200 men and women (primarily those in their 20s), and more than a thousand emails, Hills tells a different story: plenty of Millennials aren’t extraordinarily active sexually, yet those who aren’t often worry that they are somehow abnormal. Borders between “normal” and “deviant” sexual behaviors have been redrawn over time: once, “too much” sex was considered abnormal; now, “not enough” is considered a problem. In numerous interviews, Hills shares the intimate details of her subjects’ lives, examining how they feel about themselves as they encounter, explore, and come to terms with their sexual identities. Hills calls for another bold change in cultural attitudes toward sex, arguing that in order for upcoming generations to be truly sexually empowered and liberated, they must first reject mistaken ideas linking sexual prowess and frequency to one’s overall value as a human being. Agent: Rebecca Friedman, Rebecca Friedman Literary Agency.
April 14, 2015
Rachel Hills defines The Sex Myth as a cultural narrative that demands our sexuality be experienced in a narrow way. We are hypersexual and frequently desiring, it dictates. Hills is a veteran feature writer on sexuality and gender, and explores sexual sociology for 20-somethings in layman’s terms. She discovers that not many people live up to pop culture’s projected ideal. Sex is ‘influenced by social and cultural forces’ such as films and friends’ conversations, writes Hills. She deconstructs the thinking propelled by these forces: the internalised expectation of proud casual encounters; sex as a path to status or self-worth; and the influence of gender roles (the ‘sexually insatiable male’ model educates men to pursue pleasure to prove their manhood while the virginal woman creates a passive female sexuality). As well as mining pop culture for enforced norms, Hills interviewed almost a thousand young people across the Western world. All discussion and research is LGBT-friendly, and is rich with anecdotal evidence of anxiety about failing the standard. There’s so much more to our sex lives than simple desire, and this book is an accessible resource for anyone who wants to explore this idea.
Lou Heinrich is the books editor at Lip