Sexed Up

"When the mainstream transgender rights movement was still a glimmer on the horizon, Julia Serano‘s smash-hit manifesto Whipping Girl revolutionized the way we think about gender. With the movement for trans rights now at the center of our cultural debates, Julia Serano returns with a groundbreaking exploration of what it means to be sexualized. We tend to think of sexualization-that is, when people are reduced to their sexual bodies-as an issue that only affects women. But, as Serano deftly reveals, society sexualizes everyone along dehumanizing double standards, to disastrous effects. She shows how a predator-and-prey dynamic leads straight men to both admire and deride their partners, how bisexuals are stereotyped as "greedy," and how trans people are maligned as "entrappers" of cisgender people. Along the way, she unpacks why queerness is thought of as contagious, how people of color are sexualized to justify violence against them, and more broadly, how sexualization harms us all. Julia Serano confronts these arbitrary social rules, showing us that they‘re not natural or innate but instead are constructed. She then reveals powerful new ways to resist, by affirming consent and redefining courtship, so that we can forge life-affirming values for future generations"--