Book Review
Title: Don’t Hold My Head Down by Lucy Anne Holmes
Genre: Non-Fiction, Social, Comedic
Rating: 4.25 Stars
I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I picked up this book, but the title and premise intrigued me. Essentially the author is documenting her own journey of sexual discovery or better put re-discovery. Holmes it her 30’s and realised that she was deeply unsatisfied with her sex life and wanted to know the reason why. In trying to answer this question she learns a lot about herself and the society we live in. Being close to 30 myself, I found myself agreeing with a lot of the things Holmes was bringing up, from girls being taught subconsciously from a young age that their bodies are only instruments of pleasure for men rather than themselves and online porn on reinforces this ideal.
Our society also plays a key part in how women view themselves and sexual partners. All our lives we are told that we must look and act a certain way to fit into the idea of the “ideal” woman. This obviously doesn’t consider that everyone woman is difficult, some will carry more weight, some have different body shapes and a variety of other things, but these are messages we internalise from childhood and are often carried into adulthood without realising the damage it is doing. These messages lead young women into feeling pressured to look and act a certain way, and often leads them into situation where they can be assaulted without even realising it. Holmes explains this well through her own experience where she was assaulted after she passed out while at a friend’s house and yet felt that somehow the encounter was her fault even though she hadn’t given any consent or even been conscious during the act.
This is a familiar situation for a lot of young girls, and I was surprised and proud that she was the one behind the Stop Page Three campaign as despite being touted as empowering for women, it was doing the exact opposite. It was showing young, impressionable girls that this was the ideal standard for women and if they didn’t meet it then there was clearly something wrong with them, spawning generations of women who daily, mentally and emotionally abuse themselves over things that can’t change and shouldn’t have any desire to change. Following Holmes on her journey not only to have better sex but to get more in touch with her own body and emotions was both empowering and tender. I also greatly sympathised with her utter ineptitude with the opposite sex as I have the exact same issues and can’t hold a conversation with a man without a few drinks in me but like Holmes, this is because there is a deep rooted shame about my body because it doesn’t conform to the beauty standard that are forced on us.
In addition to being hilarious in places, Holmes also includes a lot of educational content, presumably because she is learning these facts for the first time but also in case there are younger men and women reading her book. Lucy does discuss some very important topics like consent, societal expectations of men and women and their roles within relationship as well as her personal relationship with sex, intimacy and being able to say no when she doesn’t feel something is right. Being slightly older made her more relatable as an author because she has gone through the growing pains and is supposed to be a proper adult and yet struggles a lot. In addition to the relationship and sex issues, Lucy also deals with an unplanned pregnancy with someone she wasn’t exclusively dating at the time, which brings a whole host of questions and talks that many people could relate to.
Overall, I found Don’t Hold My Head Down to be a very interesting and honest read. Lucy discusses some sensitive but important topics that everyone can benefit from reading about. However, she writes in a way that her stories are funny, relatable and educational all at the same time which I appreciated. Definitely worth the read if you haven’t already.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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