Like a virgin

Kate Monro, proprietor of The Virginity Project, has chronicled people's tales of first sexual experiences online for quite some time. Losing It: How We Popped Our Cherry Over the Last 80 Years (Icon Books, $15.95) is the culmination of that work in book form. Here, she interviews people with a variety of sexual orientations and identities about how they lost it. The stories contain all sorts of permutations, some romantic, others, not so much. Monro also includes information from sexuality research and analysis, including a revealing discussion of what we actually mean by “virginity”—a surprisingly imprecise term. Monro's carefree style and deep empathy for others' emotional responses make this an engaging read.