From the award-winning, sell-out live event series, Sex Talks: London's hottest new book club, The Pleasure Shelf: for people who treat books like lovers.
Every month join host, writer and journalist Emma-Louise Boynton, as she sits down with fellow writers and authors to deep dive into genre-defining books covering feminism, intimacy, romance and pleasure.
For our first official book club pick, we’re thrilled to be joined by Atlantic writer and Pulitzer Prize Finalist Sophie Gilbert to discuss her debut book Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves.
About the book
What do Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and early-aughts “raunch culture” have to do with feminism today, she probes? And why did the rise of internet porn reshape how an entire generation learned to see themselves, and each other?
Girl On Girl traces how, from the 2000s onwards, pop culture - from Spice Girls mania to reality‑TV cruelty, paparazzi obsession to internet porn - spun empowerment into objectification, teaching women to measure themselves against standards set by an increasingly insidious male gaze.
The result? A generation of women who were taught to turn on themselves, and each other.
After decades of misogynistic backlash to feminism's gains, not to mention the commodification of Girl Power, perhaps it should then be of little surprise that we're now witnessing a major row back on gender equality progress. From the continued rise in cosmetic procedures, to the return of heroin chic by way of Ozempic, to the TikTok Trad Wives trend... there's a lot to be concerned about.
📚 Bring your copy of Girl on Girl (or buy one at the event), and join Emma-Louise and Sophie as they unpick the myriad ways in which pop culture (re)shaped misogyny and feminism, and importantly: what we do about it.
Topics to be discussed
- Porn & power: how online porn has influenced intimacy, desire, and cultural norms today
- The early aughts effect: why the toxic mix of tabloid culture, reality TV, and celebrity humiliation still echoes through feminism today
- The female gaze: the art, images, and stories that offer new ways of seeing ourselves
📅 Thursday 25 September
📍 Second Home, Spitalfields
Tickets are limited as we're keeping these book clubs INTIMATE, so snap yours up fast.
Can't wait to see you there! xxx
