Turning on the Girls

In this sparkling satire, America’s about 10 years into a world run by women — a peaceable, eco-friendly, heavily aromatherapized society in which violent sorts have been cordoned off in lawless Zone Six. And what kind of erotic material might a feminist government sanction? It’s the increasingly thankless job of new Ministry of Thought staffer Lisa to find out, by revising and updating banned, black-market material: today’s porn and romance novels. But Lisa’s coital research is interrupted when she and her indispensable assistant, Justin, are asked to infiltrate a male-supremacist terrorist group — and wind up at ground zero of a hairy Zone Six coup. In Turning on the Girls, Benard spoofs utopian idealism and sexist stereotypes so cleverly that in this sly spin on the battle of the sexes, humor wins.