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| Prude: How the Sex-Obsessed Culture Damages Girls (and America, Too!) | 
 enlarge | Author: Carol Platt Liebau
Publisher: Center Street
Category: Book
List Price: $22.99
Buy Used: $7.08
You Save: $15.91 (69%)
New (34) Used (20) from $7.08
Avg. Customer Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 272058
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 1599956837
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.7083520973
EAN: 9781599956831
ASIN: 1599956837
Publication Date: November 2, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Pages are in excellent condition with no apparent markings. Cover is in great condition with minimal wear around edges. Cover is as pictured. Hardback version.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Great book, gives information on our sex-obsessed culture March 5, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book was interesting. It really explained in detail how our sex-obsessed culture is slowly but surely destroying everyone, not just girls.
If you don't believe that teens having sex is a big deal, then how about girls as young as 11 getting birth control?
If oral sex is not that huge, then how about girls 11 and younger are doing it under beds and at parties?
If this information surprises you, then you will be shocked about what else is mentioned in the book.
If you want to try and stop what is happening to young girls (and boys) and stop these girls from growing up into a society that is even worse then this one is now, then you need to read this book, or give it to someone who does not believe what you say when you have read it.
Correct Assessment But So Preachy It Put Me Off February 29, 2008
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
Just once I wish someone could write a book that reports on the proliferation of the sexually-oriented culture aimed at ever-younger Americans, and yet not come across as a Puritanical moralist. Prude is certainly not that book. I read through the first few chapters and got my fill and then wound up skimming over the rest of the book. It's true childhood is under attack by a marketing effort to push the definition of "pre-teen" ever younger, and never before has American society reached levels of prurience that sweep so low, but the tone of this author's commentary on it all got under my skin. I also doubt she reached anyone out there who didn't already share her mindset and so I don't know how much value this book ended up being to our culture as a whole. Good subject for someone to tackle, but wrong tone to take.
Yes, we know we are sex-obsessed, but what now? January 2, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Very well-researched and documented work which confirms all parents' darkest fears about the Bratz/Britney/Prostitot Culture. What I found lacking was suggested interventions to help. I know that conscientious parents keep their girls under close supervision, but this sexualization of girls feels like a tidal wave. What can we do that we are not already doing?
 Proud to Be Prude December 30, 2007
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
In Prude, Liebau examines the oversexualization of American culture and the damaging effect of this phenomenon on young women. Replete with facts, figures, and very clear-cut examples, Liebau's analysis of cultural trends is graphic and disheartening. For nearly the first two-thirds of the book, she provides example after example of the hypersexualized messages that bombard young girls from every angle. Working her way through the Internet, books, magazines, TV, movies, music, and fashion, Liebau offers a thorough, well-researched, and very detailed account of the often very risque sexual themes that pervade each of these media. She looks at the explicit content in young adult novels and the nearly pornographic nature of music videos, the racy headlines in women's magazines and the sexually permissive attitudes prevalent on many of teens' favorite TV shows. The effect of the popular culture's portrayal of sex, argues Liebau, is that young girls are encouraged to treat the act casually and to strive for sexiness above intelligence, honesty, even kindness. They are taught that brazen sexuality is hip, attractive, and powerful, while modesty and reserve are peculiar and passe. Liebau's candid analysis is discouraging yet eye-opening as it sheds light on the sex-saturated reality with which teens are faced on a daily basis.
For readers familiar with works such as Wendy Shalit's Girls Gone Mild, Laura Sessions Stepp's Unhooked, Miriam Grossman's Unprotected, and similar tomes dealing with the current state of sex and singlehood, Liebau's work may feel a bit repetitive, as she doesn't say a whole lot that these women have not already said before in some way or another. But, for a parent, teacher, or young woman who is not familiar with these other works, Liebau's book is the best place to start. Think of Prude as the prequel to Girls Gone Mild or the high school introduction to Grossman's college-level study in Unprotected. Liebau's research is well-supported, her survey of the modern landscape the most comprehensive, and the portrait she paints the most disturbing, making Prude the best way to introduce the problem of oversexualization in our culture and the most effective means of encouraging readers to overcome it.
In fact, Prude's convincing, comprehensive nature is the most powerful aspect of Liebau's work. While many young women are quick to admit that sex plays a major role in the American media, most women are also quick to insist that raunchy song lyrics or a humorous sex scene in a teen movie don't actually influence our own attitudes toward sex, or those of our daughters, our sisters, or our peers. Several years ago, a younger and much less wise version of myself fell into this category, arguing that television shows like The OC and Desperate Housewives, and the lyrics of artists like Christina Aguilera and The Pussycat Dolls, were simply harmless entertainment - arguments that Liebau confronts head-on. Once I gained a more prudent perspective, I realized how such sex-induced fare had already influenced my own attitudes as well as those of my peers, and I reformed my outlook accordingly. Had I read Liebau's book several years ago, however, I would have come to this realization much more quickly - and saved myself a great deal of trouble.
By drawing parallels between the portrayal of sex in the media and the attitudes of teens and young women toward sex in real-life, Liebau clearly proves that such entertainment not only encourages a cavalier attitude toward sex, it also denigrates those who approach the subject prudently. This outlook is absorbed by teens and young adults, infecting our culture like the common cold. Yet the first two-thirds of Liebau's book provide the first step to a remedy, as her poignant examples pack such a punch that they leave little doubt as to the negative influence of popular culture when it comes to sex. In fact, Liebau's unremitting examples will leave most readers so disgusted with today's media content that they will be sure to think twice before singing along to those raunchy lyrics again, or allowing their kids to do so. And this change in attitude is the first and most necessary step in changing the culture.
Yet, while Liebau makes it clear that the culture needs to change, she doesn't offer much guidance in terms of making those changes, and the final third of Prude loses some of the strength of the early chapters. In this section, Liebau examines the physical, emotional, and economic toll of our oversexed culture, listing consequences in an overview that feels a bit like it has come from a teen health textbook. She goes on to discuss the changing role feminism has played in the sexual equation, as well as the social trends that have allowed our current attitudes about sex to propagate. In an insightful and well-constructed argument, Liebau shows how the culture's marginalization of religion and emphasis on self-expression have led to moral relativism and, subsequently, overall moral decline, consequences that ultimately work to reduce the free nature of our society.
In her final chapters, Liebau wraps up by encouraging readers to change the culture, providing examples of organizations that promote chastity and character development (in an overview that is not nearly as comprehensive or as inspiring as that provided by Wendy Shalit in Girls Gone Mild) and setting basic guidelines for doing so. These guidelines, such as "give girls great expectations", "don't forget the boys", and "set the example" read a bit like common sense and could use elaboration. Yet Prude succeeds in showing readers that it is possible to alter the direction our culture is headed, and the book ends on an inspirational note. Meanwhile, Liebau succeeds in redefining what it means to be a prude, turning the term from a derogatory label to a classification that connotes goodness, modesty, and virtue.
Thanks to Liebau, I'm sure I'm not the only one who is proud to be a prude.
 hypocrite December 25, 2007
11 out of 57 found this review helpful
So concerned is the author about teenage sexuality, she rushed to the Bill O'Reilly Show to air her viewpoints: Yet, as everyone knows, O'Reilly himself paid huge sums of money, many millions, to settle a sexual harassment suit against him! In addition, O'Reilly himself published a soft-porn novel that is as hilarious as it is profoundly disturbing, pornographic and horribly written. This is the kind of hypocrisy which is more dangerous to kids than sex. What would help all teenagers, and everyone else for that matter, is a clear understanding of human sexuality, pregnancy, disease and reproductive health. These are issues that are essential to every thinking person.
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