100. Valenti, Jessica. The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women. 219 pages. 8.7.09.

Jessica Valenti's The Purity Myth examines America's Puritanical views on female purity in an attempt to reveal the negative consequences of an unbalanced and unrealistic sexual culture. Valenti draws on policy, popular culture, and the materials presented by the Conservative movement for virginity in order to demonstrate the extent to which young people (and the public at large) are outright lied to under the guise of abstinence-only sex education, and presents compelling evidence as to how the push for female virginity and "purity" actually undermines the rights and liberties of young women.

As a whole I found Valenti's book to be enlightening and informative - and sometimes terrifying. While her propensity for snarky footnotes ultimately keeps the text from being what I would consider "academic", The Purity Myth is intended for a large public audience, and Valenti's style of writing adds entertainment value to the information she presents. Given my own negative experiences with self-labeled feminists in academia (for example, a graduate professor recoiling in horror when she discovered I was expecting my first child) I am often hesitant to read "feminist" material. However, I found Valenti to be fairly even-keel, and many of her ideals match my own (equality of the sexes vs. "men are evil"). As with any politically involved author, it is obvious that Valenti has a specific agenda and that she is writing to that agenda, but I do not believe her conviction works to the detriment of the text. I cannot remember which of my fellow LibraryThingers recommended the book, but I am grateful that it was brought to my attention and would certainly recommend it.