CarnalNation

Reprinted with permission
from Sugarbutch Chronicles.

Perhaps I had unrealistically high expectations for this book. "The basement smelled like sex," the book starts. "That thick, musty scent that sits in the air and clings to everything it touches. I inhaled deep and hard, thinking about the heated moments that had just passed. The moments when I was too busy creating the odor to even notice its sticky presence." Maybe I thought it'd be a bit more upbeat, positive. I have a skewed perspective of sex education and what's going on with sexually active youth, after all, consuming places like Scarleteen and attending queer and kinky events occasionally open to young people.

Laid is separated into five different chapters, each focusing on a different aspect of sex: hookups, positive experiences, physical consequences, date rape, and abstinence. I expected "consequences" and "date rape" to be harder chapters to read, but in truth they were all hard. I kept cringing from the negative, stereotypical information being given out at every turn. But because these stories are full of people's real experiences and opinions, they can't exactly be "wrong" but I cannot recommend this book as any representation of sexual education, as it sells itself as being. The honest, real experiences expressed are valuable to read, but I clearly do not agree with these contributor's value systems, and many of them I would disagree as plain old bad information.

As I got further into the book, I even doubted the values and knowledge of the editor, as each chapter wraps up with a series of questions about that chapter's content from the contributors. Questions from Boodram such as "What does lesbian sex include, since it's not possible to have traditional vaginal/penile intercourse?" (p55), asking a bisexual woman, "Do you have a preference?" (p110), and asking a woman who authored a piece on her abortion, "Why did you decide to abort your child?" (p178) all got me hot under the collar, for both the content and the phrasing.

Boodram admits that a book agent wrote to her, "This book is too negative. Despite having some good information I think the chapter on rape really drags things down" (p185). First, including a quote from an agent's rejection letter in your book seems like a bad idea. Second, the book is too negative: but not just because of the rape chapter. The "physical consequences" chapter reads like a warning: Don't Have Sex Or This Will Happen To You. And while it's true that there are real consequences to sex, and that young people need to be educated about safety and caution, sex is not all bad! Despite the "positive experiences" chapter, the prevalence of scary, negative, and frightening stories was so pervasive that I can't help but think I would be all the more inclined to agree with Boodram's encouragement of abstinence after reading through these stories. Boodram used to run the site SaveYourCherry.com, which seems to be down now, and knowing that bit of information makes it even easier to see Laid as an advertisement for her philosophies about waiting to have sex because the consequences are too risky. Save it for the one you love! every chapter seems to shout. Or you'll end up like me. It seems like a cheap way to use the honest, rare stories that these teens and young adults shared about their sex lives.

Boodram did include some men's voices and perspectives in this collection of stories, but I found myself disappointed in that, too. In the introduction to the date rape chapter, Boodram admits, "My biggest regret about this chapter is that it does not include the voice of a male who experienced rape or sexual abuse. Twice I was contacted by different men ... both expressed that they were interested in sharing their stories, and neither ended up submitting. ... I had to give up" (p186). There must be more than two young men out there who have experienced sexual assault and who may be willing to share their stories around it. Rape is more complicated than women as survivors and men as perpetrators, and while that is the most common scenario, I wish she'd looked a little harder to include multiple perspectives.

But that's the problem with a "sexual education" book based on real experiences: it is much harder to include content to create a full, varied, and wide representation of experience, since the editor may be limited to the contributions she received. And it's difficult, as a critic, to disagree with someone's personal experience.