On Girls & Sex by Peggy Orenstein

Once again, pretty sure this is the most I've read (for fun) in years. Sad to say but happy it's happening!

This week, I finished Girls & Sex by Peggy Orenstein. This book was OK. I think it could have used a trigger warning. Ultimately, as a woman, it reinforced my own life experiences, so there wasn't too much new information for me. It was no surprise that abstinence-only education had negative impacts on sexual health for all genders and sexual orientations and that the best way to keep kids safe and away from other risky behavior in general is to give them all the information. I think this book is probably best to be read by young boys and young girls. 

The book aims to address deficiencies in sexual education for women, including the new trend of young women to 'reclaim' their sexuality by participating in pornography. This topic is tricky because how can someone tell the 'empowered' person that their experience is untrue? It is difficult to touch this without coming off as, frankly, kind of supercilious. The author has a good point though, "those performers [who are empowered by sexualization] still work within a system that, for the most part, demands women look and present their bodies in a particular way," (p.25). Further, is it empowerment if, instead of your body being an object it is a product? Fundamentally, I agree that it can't be true empowerment. Engaging in sexual content creation has clear limits on physical and sexual health and is probably negative for women long-term. 

The book did identify things that subconsciously objectify and normalize violence against women. "In the study of behaviors in popular porn, nearly 90% of 304 random scenes contained physical aggression toward women, while close to half contained verbal humiliation...More insidiously, women would sometimes initially resist abuse, begging their partners to stop; when that didn't happen, they acquiesced and began to enjoy" it, no matter how hurtful it was (p.31). This is so horrible. We can't blame young men who see this and are taught that women want this, or young women who see this and feel like that's what men want and are taught they must toe the line between being sexy but not a slut; wanting it but not too much; and without any guidance. Many young girls are not taught how to have a voice, particularly in a sexual context. It is overwhelmingly common for girls to participate in oral sex "to avoid conflict," (p.48). 

Here are a few salient quotes:

"[Women] learn that sex is a performance rather than a felt experience," (p.3)

"Fully half the girls had experienced something along a spectrum of coercion to rape," (p.5)

Referring to advertisements, "as a man, he used his body; as a woman, she displayed it," (p.13). 

Overall, the book was 4/5. I wish there was more of a plan to get better sex education in schools and at home. I also think it could have covered lesbian and gender-nonconforming relationships more. Even progressive parents have a hard time discussing this issue. It's taboo for all of us, but our kids' health depends on the conversation. Thanks to my brother, Jeremy, for the recommendation.

On Bubble in the Sun by Christopher Knowlton

Pleased with myself to have finished another book in March! This is probably the most I've read in years.

I'll be honest- I didn't love this book. Bubble in the Sun is about the Florida land boom of the 1920s. It examines the ambitions and eccentricities of all of Florida's major developers in the 1920s, focusing on 4: Henry Flagler, Carl Fisher, Addison Mizner, George Merrick. Primarily it asserts that the Florida land boom helped precipitate the Great Depression. I struggle with this topic (development) as a whole- I'm an environmentalist and want to protect Florida at all costs, but without development I would never have known its beauty. I suppose that's kind of selfish, but I can understand where Flagler was coming from when he first arrived in Miami. Florida started as a place to heal and we've been the 'Florida Man' of the US since Carl Fisher arrived. Even Charles Ponzi, of Ponzi Schemes, came here. 

So, here we are now in Bubble in the Sun: "Florida in the 1870s remained...an undeveloped wilderness of dense pinewoods, impassable palmetto jungle, and tangled mangrove swamps...the vast interior was largely unexplored...the state could accurately be described as America's last frontier," (p.13).  In 1885- "Palm Beach had three houses, two families living in two of them," (p.35) right around the time of Guy Bradley. The book discussed the hunting of egrets and herons by tourists - just like what Guy Bradley was addressing as the first FWC officer. I dislike the Manifest Destiny-style phrasing of development here because it implies that development is civilization, that nature is something to be conquered, and that its development was inevitable. The complexity of our ecosystems commands respect; nature will never be conquered; and we can protect our land. I appreciated the sparse acknowledgements of ecological destruction and natural disaster, but he could have done more. This was a frustration I had throughout the book, as the author seemed to come from the Manifest Destiny philosophy which I fundamentally take issue with. There were chapters like "Trail Blazers" which glorified the process of blowing up our foundational limestone and displacing the Seminoles and a strong focus on the quirky nature of the characters instead of their ruthless greed. From the get-go, "The Everglades were already the site of rancorous battles over land use," (p.47). 

One part of reading this book that made it more interesting was my prior understanding of the history of Florida and one of my favorite books, the Murder of Guy Bradley. It was also interesting to read that characters like Al Smith and Robert Moses from a previous book, The Power Broker, also appeared in Florida at this time. The author added a global context citing the Teapot Dome Scandal, Hitler's writing of Mein Kampf, and Benito Mussolini's facism (p.224). 

Another issue I had with the book was how little it discussed the workers who actually built Florida. I did like the brief history fun fact on Dana A. Dorsey, a black carpenter who was one of Florida's first black millionaires. When Carl Fisher began building Miami Beach, no black people were allowed to drive in Miami Beach. The law was rescinded in 1918 because white tourists wanted to have black chauffeurs. (p.66). The restrictions against buying property or frequenting the hotels often applied to Jews and black people- unless, of course, the Jews ran successful corporations. Additionally, "Florida would boast the shameful distinction of leading the nation in the ratio of lynchings per capita" (p.99). Further, the Tamiami Trail was built by slave labor through convict leasing and there were "convict trustees" who were rewarded if they shot any convict who attempted to escape (p.117). Absolutely appalling. Furthermore, during and after the 1924 Hurricane, the farming towns like Moore Haven and Belle Glade were almost fully overlooked in infrastructure repair and "1,800 to 2,500 mostly black Bahamian and Haitian farmworkers" drowned (p.258). The du Pont family built the St Joe Paper Mill- still polluting black communities in the Panhandle. 

I will say Henry Flagler seemed like the nicest one of all the developers. He seemed to genuinely love Florida and wanted to build it out. That being said, he came as a railroad and oil magnate and took advantage of our system which promoted railroads. He claimed "eight thousand acres for every mile of track that he laid, he temporarily seized control of two million acres of land at no additional cost," (p.22). While the federal government caught wind of this and reduced his acreage to 210,000 Flagler wasn't innocent in his land speculation. Frank Shutts moved to Orlando in the late 1890s and moved to Miami in 1903 to start the first paper in Miami, now the Miami Herald. He was Flagler's railroad lawyer and facilitated the first land swaps here. His firm, Shutts and Bowen, still facilitates some of the most wetland destruction in the state. Furthermore, Flagler made villages for his black workers one example being the now known Overtown in Miami, promoting segregation. 

Now we welcome Addison Mizner to Florida from New York in 1918 who called himself the "greatest cathedral looter in the world" (p.51). Mizner was integral in popularizing Spanish and Mediterranean architecture in Florida. He seemed to be a quirky guy - kind of absent-minded and unfocused, very friendly, and liked to host. Then, we have George Merrick, the man who built Coral Gables as a premier planned development and turned Florida into "a subdivision civilization," (p.88). He was aspirational and bankrupted the City while scamming out-of-towners. Finally, we meet Carl Fisher, a 'new money' clown from Indiana whose boat racing stunts and flagrant disregard for the law eventually brought characters like Al Capone to Florida. There was minimal financial regulation at the time as people leveraged mortgages and traded land as though they were stock options. Florida was well known as the state that ignored Prohibition Laws, and was effectively a Las Vegas of the time. 

It was cool to see the names that originated our counties and distinguished places- Willis Polk, Napoleon Broward, Henry Flagler, Addison Mizner, Carl Fisher (Fisher Island), Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were friends, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, David Fairchild, William Jennings Bryan, Baron Collier, Coleman du Pont, J.C. Penney, Harvey S. Firestone, William Vanderbilt, Al Smith (former Governor of NY), John W. Martin, George Sebring, Joseph Young, Paris Singer, Edward Ball, and Eddie Rickenbacker. 

Many of these developers bought their land and homes prior to even seeing them in person, just like the people they sold to. On the Tamiami Trail, "speculation began immediately on the largely wet and once worthless land on either side of the road and canal," (p.116). "[Florida] was an easy state for man to ruin, and he has ruined it with ruthless efficiency," (p.121). So many people from out of state were getting scammed, Ohio passed laws preventing Florida real estate firms from obtaining licenses to operate there (p.186). Developers ran Florida then and they run Florida now. One said "no piece of land, no place in the world, is worth more than it can earn, developed to its highest and best use," (p.165). We literally have statutes which reflect the right of development to a piece of lands highest and best use. Governor at the time asked for responsible reporting and not what was effectively 'fake news.' 

Anyway, after several years of land speculation and selling worthless lots to out-of-state individuals, land ran out and the Florida land boom died out in 1929. "Housing is the business cycle," and as the Florida economy busted, it brought the national stock market with it. It must be acknowledged that many of the power players in the Florida land boom were power players in the national stock market. When they began losing money in Florida, stock market instability set in. For context, the "top 5% of the country held 90%. of the wealth," (p.275). "Sugar-growing interests and the cattle ranchers soon displaced the development community" in political clout (p.310) now we have all three. Ending the book with a quote by Walter Fuller, one of the principal auctioneers and sellers of property, "We just ran out of suckers...We became the suckers," (p.316). "Florida... made money for those who had money," (p.193).

And yet, even those who facilitated the boom and bust, the organized scam and speculation, still came out ok. They may have been battered but, for example, after George Merrick lost his entire fortune at Coral Gables and brought his lot owners with him, he was appointed to the Dade County Planning Commission. He actively supported the creation of Everglades National Park, but he was too little too late in my book.

Overall, this book was just ok. Thank you Goodreads for the recommendation.