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

In the final chapter of the book—"Deep Breath: Talking to Boys"—Orenstein acknowledges that the restorative justice approach explained at the end of the previous chapter "may be promising, but it is still an after-the-fact solution" (219). She calls for broader initiatives on sexual education, which will ultimately provide young men with a proactive space to explore their emotions and questions about sex. While she acknowledges the awkwardness of talking to teenagers about sex, she urges parents to have conversations at home. She then provides some advice for parents.

Her first piece of advice is to make sure not to just have "the talk" one time, but to ensure that conversations about sex are habitual and forthright. She advises parents to reinforce the message that consent is absolutely crucial in sexual encounters; as much as parents need to understand that their sons are growing and learning even as they make mistakes, they "cannot enable his denial, deflection, or avoidance of taking full responsibility for his behavior" (223). She argues that consent is only the beginning of sex, whereas sex that is "good" or ethical consists of so much more. Sex is also not only about penis-vagina intercourse—a notion that excludes LGBTQ+ young people—but about physically intimate moments of various kinds.