NRO Q & A

Kathryn Jean Lopez kindly conducted a Q&A about Prude that's running here.

One common misperception about the book is that I'm somehow encouraging girls and women to declare themselves to be prudes -- or that I'm doing that myself. Not so much. As I point out in the interview, in today's world, the term is a pejorative -- and I'm not into talking myself down or encouraging others to do it. If it's a term of praise, as its derivation from a French word would suggest, well, I'm not into self-glorification, either.

The title actually came easily when I found that young girls nowadays are willing to call each other "sluts," but the term "prude" remained a terrible term of denigration. And it's not even a political thing. As Page Hurwitz and Katha Pollit note in a 2003 piece in The Nation:

It's a strange day when Hot Topic's "Pay up, sucker!" thong (the words, in bubble letters, encircle a dollar sign) seems a better option for girls than the padlock one, because it smacks less of sexual puritanism.

It's not necessarily the most romantic Valentine's Day topic going, but there's a problem here that needs to be addressed.