Back to our book club basics
Our book club member Ciara Hargreaves discusses our January read, Losing It by Sophia Smith Galer
Guest post written by Ciara Hargreaves
After a couple of months off for a winter break, for January’s book club we took things right back to Sex Ed Book Club’s roots with Losing It: Dispelling the Sex Myths That Rule Our Lives by Sophia Smith Galer. Once we’d settled in with a brew, and introduced ourselves to old and new faces, we kicked things off with the traditional question: how would you describe this book in one word? From this came responses such as ‘eye-opening’, ‘infuriating’, ‘thought-provoking’, ‘rage’, ‘power’ and ‘too late’ (where was this education when we were kids?). Overall, I think it’s safe to say that the fact this book and its message is still so desperately needed in 2024 had us all pretty angry, but not surprised.
Who’s reading this book?
Moving on, we discussed who we thought the book’s target audience would be, and who we thought would benefit from reading it the most. Judging a book by its cover - in all its millennial pink glory - it would be easy to mistake it as a book targeting the millennial woman, but once you open it up the contents have something for everyone. As with many of the books we’ve read at Sex Ed Book Club, we pondered over whether we ourselves were the ideal target audience - naturally, by virtue of attending a sex ed themed book club, we’re already quite interested in (and perhaps even knowledgable about) all things sex and relationships. So while I’m pretty sure we all learnt something new, many of the ideas and themes discussed weren’t entirely new to us. This led us to think about how it could be a good book for teenagers, so that younger generations wouldn’t have to grow up with the same lack of knowledge that we did. Furthermore, the author’s exploration of themes such as virginity, toxic masculinity, sexlessness, penetration and more mean that we’d recommend sharing this book with people of all genders. We all have a lot to learn!
“A lack of sex education in school, parents who are too embarrassed or too uninformed to discuss the topic, and the rise of the internet have all allowed sexual misinformation to flourish”
The book’s introduction took us back to a long-forgotten website of our youth: The Student Room. After our shock that the website still exists and is still active today, we can see how it’s easy for myths to become established. A lack of sex education in school, parents who are too embarrassed or too uninformed to discuss the topic, and the rise of the internet have all allowed sexual misinformation to flourish. When generations of young people think the best way to answer their sex questions and anxieties is to ask an anonymous stranger, whose only qualifications are hearsay and Pornhub, they’ve been failed. That’s where this book comes in.
Seven dangerous myths
In this book, Sophia Smith Galer breaks down the lies we’ve been told about sex into seven myths and then takes a look at what could come next. The book is jam-packed, and each chapter investigates, breaks down and dispels a common myth about sex that we’ve been led to believe throughout the years. The author does this by blending a mix of her own personal experience, fact-filled journalism, and interviews with experts. We all agreed this made the book really easy to read, as well as being trustworthy and reliable, a style that really shows off the author’s strengths. The seven myths explored in the book are:
The Virginity Myth
The Hymen Myth
The Tightness Myth
The Penetration Myth
The Virility Myth
The Sexlessness Myth
The Consent Myth
In early chapters the author explores society’s attitudes to virginity (it’s a totally made-up concept!), as well as medical misinformation about the hymen and vaginal tightness leading to unnecessary, expensive and potentially dangerous surgeries. Later chapters look at our attitudes to sex itself, how we’re doing it, and how often. These chapters challenge our heteronormative ideas about what sex is and highlights how rigid ideas about sex are particularly damaging for the LGBTQ+ community. The chapter on the penetration myth explores how penis-in-vagina (PIV) sex is touted as the end goal of any sexual encounter, otherwise it’s not ‘real’ sex. Meanwhile, the chapter on the sexlessness myth addresses how our obsession with linking a high amount of sexual activity to a successful relationship can also be difficult and damaging for those on the asexuality spectrum.
Content warning: the following paragraph mentions sexual assault - feel free to skip ahead and continue reading in the next section. Links to support can be found here.
We thought that one of the most interesting parts of the book, in the chapter on the virility myth, was how the author broached the topic of incel (involuntary celibate) culture. The topic is handled empathetically and, whilst the book predominantly addresses the negative and even dangerous consequences experienced by women, this chapter in particular makes a compelling point about how men are also failed by toxic masculinity. Alongside this, we felt that the chapter on consent made some crucial observations. We agreed that too often consent is boiled down to simply ‘not raping someone’ and that, as a society, we’re really failing young people with the ways that we discuss consent (we’ve all seen the cup of tea video…). We agreed that we need to be discussing how we can all have honest conversations about sex and relationships. Consent is the bare minimum when it comes to sex, but there’s a lot more to the conversation. We need to shift the focus towards pleasure and frame the conversation about consent in terms of making sexual intimacy pleasurable for everyone involved.
What now?
There were occasions where we wanted the discussion in the book to go a bit further, or where we thought another perspective would add to the conversation. That said, overall we agreed that the book does a really good job of starting conversations, and instilling (or validating) an important rage at how we’ve found ourselves with such a significant knowledge deficit about how to have healthy sex.
To round up the topics discussed in the book, Sophia Smith Galer takes a look at where we go from here and, from our perspective, things still look pretty bleak. How much can really change with a sex education curriculum that’s only changed once since 2000 (for context, Section 28 was still in effect in 2003 in England and Wales), a lack of funding to implement new updates to the curriculum, and educators reporting that they don’t feel sufficiently trained or confident in delivering sex and relationships content to young people?
“The book does a really good job of starting conversations, and instilling an important rage at how we’ve found ourselves with such a significant knowledge deficit about how to have healthy sex”
However, there is some hope. While the internet can be a negative place, it has also given a platform to a new generation of sex educators, with more diverse voices who are helping young (and old) people navigate sexual experiences. It can be difficult to feel positive about sex education in our current political climate, but there is information out there, and there is good stuff happening all the time in sexual health spaces, even when it feels like we’re up against it.
All in all, we think this book starts incredibly important conversations and is a thought-provoking and illuminating read for anyone and everyone, regardless of gender. As a final note, and direct request to the author: Sophia, when is the full unabridged bibliography being released? The sex nerds need more further reading!