Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity

In this chapter—"All Guys Want It. Don't They?"— Orenstein explores the concept of rape from the male perspective. She admits that when she first started writing the book, she assumed that her conversations about consent would be exclusively with boys who had to confirm that they had affirmative consent from their female partners. However, she then became aware that it was more complex, that young men also experience unwanted sex.

Mainstream media—Stifler's mom in American Pie or Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate—and in porn—the stepmom or teacher—normalize the notion of an older woman having sex with a younger man. The gravity of unwanted sex from a male perspective is often scoffed at or ignored. Orenstein points out that unwanted sex also happens when a young man is incapacitated by alcohol, only to wake up and find out that he had sex against his wishes.

This chapter focuses on the dynamic between power and vulnerability. In the case of men who are victims of unwanted sex, Orenstein draws attention to subverted power dynamics. She writes: "Certainly the label of 'victim' conflicts with notions of conventional masculinity, including perpetual sexual readiness, but the inability to recognize or process negative experiences ultimately robs boys of choice and, potentially, of empathy" (193).