Greetings from Amazon.com Delivers Teens

Ah, sex ed. Two little words that evoke such powerful
images--like garbled filmstrips, outdated textbooks, and
embarrassing teachers. But today the birds and bees have
never been so hip, thanks to Esther Drill, Heather McDonald,
and Rebecca Odes, creators of gURL.com and authors of "Deal
with It! A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain and Life
as a gURL." With chapters such as "Boobs," "What's Up Down
There," "To Do It or Not to Do It," and "Those Sucky
Emotions," the gURL girls have got it all covered with
frankness, humor, and style. In addition to a cooler-than-
cool layout and loads of detailed info, "Deal with It"
includes a ton of questions and comments from teenage girls
who frequent the gURL.com Web site. In this piece, written
exclusively for Amazon.com, the authors share how they first
learned about sex (or didn't) and why they decided to write
this big, bold book. Here's hoping it changes the face of
sex ed. forever!

You can find "Deal with It! A Whole New Approach to Your
Body, Brain and Life as a gURL"
at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671041576/entertainmentsit

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How the Authors of "Deal with It" Dealt with It
by Esther Drill, Heather McDonald, and Rebecca Odes


"Deal with It! A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain and
Life as a gURL" is the new book from gURL.com, the site we
founded in 1996. We've packed it with information, resources,
and real-life conversations with gURL community members on a
range of topics--from losing your virginity to acne to
alcohol and drugs to family problems. And on top of all
that... it's fun!

When we were in high school and junior high, there wasn't
much out there in terms of information on sex and our
bodies, etc. Most things we did find were inappropriate,
incomplete, or very boring.

Rebecca remembers:
Basically, I secretly read every book on my parents' shelves
that had any sexual content: "The Joy of Sex," "Everything
You Always Wanted to Know About Sex," "Fear of Flying," and
all these clinical books about sex my mom had for her work
as a therapist. There was also some late night, surreptitious
viewing of soft-porn movies on cable. I was pretty well
educated way before I was anywhere near ready to start
experimenting myself.

Heather remembers:
My friends were useful but only up to a certain point, and
even my numerous sisters seemed too embarrassed to really
discuss any real experiences with me. (I think I was also
too shy to ask.) The examples in my Catholic school health
book seemed way too bizarre and unrelated to anyone I had
ever met.

Esther remembers:
The really in-depth stuff I found came in junior high via my
friends' fathers' porno collections. We used to sit in one
friend's clubhouse reading "Penthouse" forums out loud to
each other. Later, my best friend found her father's stag
films and we staged a pretty shocking Super 8 film festival.
Very freaky and certainly not the best introduction to
healthy sexual relations.

After we started our Web site, we discovered that girls
today have many of the same questions we had, that it's
still difficult to find good information, and that
misconceptions still abound.

For example:
Q: What's an orgasm?
A: It's what happens to a boy during sex. (WRONG!)

Q: You have big breasts and boys laugh at you. If you have
small breasts they laugh at you, too. Why is it that no
matter what, you can't win with boys? (Sound familiar?)

So we set out to make a book that could provide trusted
resources and information while acknowledging the humorous
side of teen trauma.

As you can probably guess, putting the book together was
really fun (and a lot of hard work). We ended up learning a
lot ourselves in the process of doing research. Reading
through conversations from the online community kept us
laughing and reminded us again how the Web allows for great,
honest, and open exchanges. So "Deal with It!" is really a
tribute to the creativity, intelligence, and wit of the
girls in our Internet community and to the universal angst
of teenage girlhood.

Featured in this e-mail:

"Deal with It! A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain and
Life as a gURL"

by Esther Drill, Heather McDonald, and Rebecca Odes
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671041576/entertainmentsit

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You'll find more great books, articles, excerpts, and
interviews in Amazon.com's Teens section at
Teens


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