Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom

by Leslie C. Bell

Hard to Get is a powerful and intimate examination of the sex and love lives of the most liberated women in history―twenty-something American women who have had more opportunities, more positive role models, and more information than any previous generation. Drawing from her years of experience as a researcher and a psychotherapist, Leslie C. Bell takes us directly into the lives of young women who struggle to negotiate the complexities of sexual desire and pleasure, and to make sense of their historically unique but contradictory constellation of opportunities and challenges. In candid interviews, Bell’s subjects reveal that, despite having more choices than ever, they face great uncertainty about desire, sexuality, and relationships. Ground-breaking and highly readable, Hard to Get offers fascinating insights into the many ways that sex, love, and satisfying relationships prove surprisingly elusive to these young women as they navigate the new emotional landscape of the 21st century.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Sociology, Relationships, Sexuality, Womens Studies, Psychology

276 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Leslie C. Bell is a sociologist and psychotherapist who specializes in women’s development and sexuality. She maintains a private practice in Berkeley, California.

Bell earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, a Master of Social Work from Smith College School for Social Work, and a B.A. from Swarthmore College. She published the chapter on psychoanalytic theories of gender in The Psychology of Gender, an introductory textbook.

An award-winning lecturer, Bell has taught courses on women’s development, gender inequality, and sexuality at U.C. Berkeley and the Women’s Therapy Center in Berkeley. She currently supervises graduate students at the Women’s Therapy Center in Berkeley.

Bell has served as a fellow for the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the Robert Stoller Foundation.

She lives in Oakland, California with her family.

Reviews

[Lucy Hayes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being that the author, Leslie C. Bell, is a psychoanalyst I expected more from this book then anecdotal stories. I think she was going for an insider's look type feel, but grossly missed the mark. While the terminology used throughout the book was somewhat academic, it seemed to (for lack of a better word) babble instead of present real facts and evidence when presenting her collected case studies.

A real disappointment. I would not recommend.

I am heartbroken that I was not impressed with the book because Leslie C. Bell was kind enough to send me a free copy. I was the winner of this book on Goodreads First Reads.

The book is well organized.
The book has very intense and informative case studies of women in their late twenties.
The book does not shy away from taboo subject matter.

I'm sorry the book didn't work out for me. I'll be gifting it away or donating it to a local library.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book club selection from our excellent group. An intense read. The author has done 30 some-odd case studies of women in their late twenties and talked to them about their sexual and relationship experiences (the book vignettes about 8 women). Their experiences were titillating, but also made me profoundly compare myself to the women described, in not my healthiest moment. Some were happy, some not, some survivors of various forms of sexual abuse, gay and straight, and various income levels, and the variety of backgrounds really added to the strength of the book.

However, the writing style of the book was quite frustrating. Obviously a dissertation converted into a book readable by laypersons, the conclusions that the author drew were not always clearly based on the research that she provided. It's not that I believe her conclusions to be unfounded, but more that I wished there was a way to explore the topic more empirically in this format, or explain more about why she drew her conclusions (especially the radical idea of prioritizing the relationship over a reasonable job performance... how are you supposed to alter the entire economic system to provide this?). Sometimes the conclusions seemed to ignore simple facts, sometimes they came out of nowhere. Regardless, this book and the research is important, and I hope to hear more from her.

[David Lucander · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick read, and moderately interesting. Psychology folks and gender studies people will probably be into this. Bell's research reveals something many of us have probably noticed: LGBT people are often less confused or mixed about their sexuality than their straight counterparts - probably because they spend more time actually thinking this stuff through.

[Jennifer Treutle · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are aspects of this book that are seriously dated. Placing women into either a good girl or bad girl is infantile while also being a product of purity culture.

There are nuggets of truth that are incredibly helpful, but at the same time I wish better language could have been used.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard to Get

Some pretty stories within, some sad stories within. Each woman had a different experience in life that caused her to either be more sexually active or less so then she perhaps wanted and the book was about them talking to the therapist of sorts to try and get to the bottom of it. It was sad how some girls had some pretty devastating tales that caused them to have this sense of self oppression or self sabotage. One girl was molested by her father, another was raped at like 13, two were raised in such a religious and immigrant-based household that they acted out by having sex/staying abstinent.

Every woman was different and that really added to the study. The women feel that the “dilemmas and the solutions to the dilemmas reside within themselves. They have little sense of the changes in the outside world necessary to facilitate their development. This places a tremendous pressure on the women who hold themselves individually responsible.”

“Being a desiring woman also involves tolerating the vulnerability, uncertainty, and lack of control that inevitably come with desire. This requires that we acknowledge that all desire is normal and that conflict between desires is inevitable. Getting what we want from sex and relationships requires accepting and tolerating seemingly contradictory parts of ourselves: being strong and vulnerable, sexual and smart, desiring and desired, relationship and career oriented.”

“The desire to be powerful and vulnerable at the same time is a paradox that will go unrecognized as long as power and vulnerability are split between different genders and different people.”

“Development of identity and of relationships with others requires risk taking; asserting our desires and needs, tolerating another person's vulnerabilities, risking conflict, and risking disappointment and hurt in the pursuit of our goals.”

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book over the weekend.

I do agree with some of the points the author makes in the book about women in there mid twenties thinking that they have a "timeline" between "sexual freedom" and settling down for marriage.

I could not particularly relate to this book because I have been in a committed relationship since I was 19 but I have seen this trend in some of my peers.

I did like that she interviewed various women from a variety of backgrounds and that it gives the reader a good overall idea of why the author thinks this and explores the paradox.

I could not give it 5 stars simply because I could not relate to this book and I felt like it was geared at a single female twenty something audience.

[Ayush Sinha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feel sad and angry after reading this, in a good way.