The Naughty Nineties: The Triumph of the American Libido

by David Friend

A sexual history of the 1990s when the Baby Boomers took over Washington, Hollywood, and Madison Avenue. A definitive look at the captains of the culture wars -- and an indispensable road map for understanding how we got to the Trump Teens.THE NAUGHTY NINETIES: The Triumph of the American Libido examines the scandal-strafed decade when our public and private lives began to blur due to the rise of the web, reality television, and the wholesale tabloidization of pop culture.In this comprehensive and often hilarious time capsule, David Friend combines detailed reporting with first-person accounts from many of the decade's singular personalities, from Anita Hill to Monica Lewinsky, Lorena Bobbitt to Heidi Fleiss, Alan Cumming to Joan Rivers, Jesse Jackson to key members of the Clinton, Dole, and Bush teams.THE NAUGHTY NINETIES also uncovers unsung sexual pioneers, from the enterprising sisters who dreamed up the Brazilian bikini wax to the scientists who, quite by accident, discovered Viagra.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, Sociology, Contemporary, American History, Sexuality

613 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 12, 2017

About the author

David Friend is an editor, author, and award-winning documentary producer with a career spanning journalism, photography, and film. Since 1998, he has been the editor of creative development at Vanity Fair, following his tenure as Life magazine’s director of photography. His work has shaped major journalistic projects, including the 2005 Vanity Fair story that revealed FBI insider Mark Felt as “Deep Throat,” the confidential Watergate source. He also played a key role in expanding Vanity Fair into books, e-books, television, and digital media, launching VanityFair.com.
As an author, Friend has explored cultural and historical themes in books such as Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11 (2006), The Naughty Nineties (2017), and two volumes on human existence, The Meaning of Life and More Reflections on the Meaning of Life. In the realm of documentary film, he is an Emmy- and Peabody-winning producer, with projects including Lakota Nation vs. United States (2023), MLK/FBI (2021), and the widely broadcast CBS prime-time special 9/11.
Beyond journalism and film, Friend has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and the Middle East, coedited 13 Vanity Fair books, and curated photography exhibitions on three continents. His poetry has been published in The New Yorker, further highlighting the breadth of his creative work.

Reviews

[Warwick · Rating 2 out of 5]

A seminal '90s garment

This is a strange old book, combining a sort of pop-sociological history of sexual attitudes in the 1990s with a political analysis of Bill Clinton's campaign for, and handling of, the American presidency. Despite the fact that sexual scandal came to define Clinton, and despite Friend's assertion that Clinton is ‘the dominant figure of '90s America’, the two subjects never really gel as well as the author wants them to, and the resulting amalgamation clocks in at a rather unnecessary seven hundred pages. Fortunately I've read it on your behalf.

For Friend, the decade was a ‘fin de siècle inflection point’ – whatever one of them is – ‘when an array of forces aligned—cultural, social, political, legal, economic, medical, and technological—and prompted a customarily prudish nation to face its deep fascination with, and trepidation toward, human sexuality’. He darts from one example of this to another without any clear narrative line – Baywatch, internet porn, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Girls Gone Wild, Sex and the City, Howard Stern – although the sheer accumulation of data is quite interesting in itself, or at least offers a trip down memory lane.



Two magazine covers to ‘set off cultural shock waves’

Somehow representing all of these trends, Friend argues, was Bill Clinton, ‘a modern-age hybrid: the softie with a perpetual hard-on’. While he was cheating on his wife and lying to the public (and to Hillary, presumably), he was also actively promoting women in politics, pushing gay rights, and generally following a progressive agenda. No one in this book is quite sure how to judge him. His charisma is legendary: ‘He takes your hand and lasers you with those baby blues,’ one reporter tells the author, ‘and you go so weak. In one second, [you project ahead and] you see yourself gathering up your clothes in the dark and fumbling for change in the back of the cab on the way home.’

Clinton comes across here like a character in a Rikki Ducornet novel – a guy who can be forgiven any indiscretion because of the fact that – in the words of his old press secretary Dee Dee Myers – ‘he just likes women. That was great, Washington was very much a boys' club…he had a lot of women in the cabinet. He promoted women.’ Yes…among other verbs.


‘He was a good boy and a good ol' boy and a naughty, naughty boy.’

But while men were ‘existentially adrift’, women, if you believe this book, found a new kind of sexual freedom in the 1990s, shaped by the explosion of media culture, the growth of the internet, and the evolution of a sex-positive politics (Esquire ran an excited article about ‘The Rise of “Do Me” Feminism’).

In the alt-rock charts, Liz Phair sang ‘I want to be your blowjob queen’, Courtney Love screamed ‘Suck my clit!’, and Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna told the New York Times, ‘I didn't just hit the glass ceiling, I pressed my naked tits up against it’ (one of my favourite quotes in the book). In films like Basic Instinct (1992) or Disclosure (1994), male writers, in tones of nervous exploitation or of outright alarm, fixated on the terrifying idea of strong women with sexual agency.


‘Have you ever fucked on cocaine?’ ‘No, but I have played gin rummy when I was smacked up on Ventolin’

A lot of this was exacerbated by the astonishingly polarising ‘culture wars’ between the American Left and Right (i.e., in European terms, between centrists and far-right extremists). Joycelyn Elders, Clinton's Surgeon-General, was asked about masturbation at a UN forum on AIDS, and when she replied, ‘I think it is part of human sexuality and it's part of something that perhaps should be taught,’ it caused so much outrage that she had to be fired. Meanwhile the hurdles that Republicans sought to impose on the process of getting an abortion were so effective that by 1995, ‘the number of OB-GYN residencies offering abortion training fell as low as 12 percent’. In a country where it's theoretically entirely legal.

(As always, the hypocrisy is what really takes your breath away. The Orwellianly named Defense of Marriage Act was co-sponsored in the Senate by Bob Dole, who had already married twice, and introduced by congressman Bob Barr, who had been married three times.)

The combative atmosphere was reinforced by all the new cable channels – including Fox News and MSNBC, both founded in 1996 – which fostered a competitiveness that favoured entertainment over accuracy and drove a salacious interest in scandal and minute-by-minute developments. This would culminate in B. Clinton's videoed pronouncements about not having had sexual relations with that woman, but, as Friend sees it, the groundwork was laid by several other game-changing, media-saturated scandal trials in the '90s, especially the Bobbitt maiming in 1993 and the OJ Simpson trial the following year.




In one remarkable chapter, Friend meets up with Lorena Bobbitt, and she shows him the bizarre string of text messages that her abusive, now stitched-together ex is still sending her – ‘Please forgive me,’ says one; and then, ‘LOL’. Friend's interviews are indeed the best thing about the book, and the only fresh material that makes it worthwhile, given how light his own analysis tends to be. In other chapters, he tracks down ‘America's Patient Zero of the Brazilian wax’ (‘I was laying on the desk on my back with one leg over the fax machine…’), meets tantric sex-education pioneers (‘the clitoris is now like a spinning top, spinning by itself’), and talks to Heidi Fleiss, Monika Lewinsky, and many of the other headline-makers.

The problem really is his tone. For all Friend's denigration of tabloid culture, his own writing style – he's a Vanity Fair journalist – is uncomfortably close to it. His love of hyphenated compound adjectives means he comes across at times like Gerard Manley Hopkins moonlighting for Us Weekly. So James Carville is ‘a roguish, shoot-from-the-lip veteran’ with a ‘hot-under-the-collar TV persona’, George Stephanopoulos was ‘the campaign's floppy-banged pivot man’; Clinton's mother was ‘a let-loose, life-of-the-party gal’, and so on. He talks about ‘glamazons’, unironically employs the preposition ‘off of’, uses ‘refute’ to mean ‘repudiate’, and cannot resist a pun no matter how contrived. Sex-toy soirées are branded ‘Shtupperware parties’, and when conservative attitudes are in evidence, Friend talks about Americans ‘resetting their clocks to Dorian Graylight Savings’.

When he takes a trip to the UK, he gets incredibly excited by the proximity of Pfizer's headquarters in Sandwich to Canterbury, and two paragraphs of blustery medieval evocation lead up to his introduction of Viagra: ‘Call it The Hardener's Tale’. Just no. Later, interviewing one of the key researchers on the project, he tries again:

As Osterloh sits in the back garden, sparrows dart and flit from the inn's roof to the nearby geraniums. Just on the horizon looms Canterbury Cathedral, for years a home to honeybees—raised by Benedictine monks to generate income from the insects' golden bounty. In a way, Osterloh is here to talk about the birds and the bees.

Seriously.



Friend's conclusion – slightly tacked-on but worth considering – is that Trump's America is in effect ‘a nagging '90s hangover’, a final flare-up in a Thirty Years' War between progressives and conservatives whose hyperbolic partisanship, and tone of sexual hazing, were laid down in the 1990s. I'm not sure I entirely believe this, and I'm not sure it matters all that much. But if you enjoyed the 90s the first time round, reliving it through this lengthy and hormonal survey might be a fun ride.

[Stewart Tame · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I won a free copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway.

Someone had way too much fun designing that cover.

As the title promises, David Friend examines the many ways in which general attitudes toward sex shifted during the 1990s. Among the topics covered are: Sex in the City, the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal, Lorena Bobbitt, the development of Viagra, breast implants, Iron John and similar books, and so much more. As someone who lived through young adulthood during the decade, I appreciated the trip down memory lane. I'm not certain I agree that the 90's were an especially naughty decade. I think many of these are currents that have been flowing, and that one could find evidence for them in many different decades. "The Naughty Nineties" is pleasingly alliterative though, and Friend tells his tale with a verve and wit. For example, the chapter on the development of Viagra is titled, with a nod to Chaucer, "The Hardener's Tale." I'm impressed by some of the folks he managed to interview--Lorena Bobbitt and Monica Lewinsky, anyone? This is a lively book, well worth reading. Recommended!

[Pat Lampe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to this audiobook thinking it was a great subject. A lot certainly did happen in the 90s. But I was so annoyed by the author's condescending attitude toward people who may have different political views from his that I just couldn't go on. Not everyone who would like a change from current attitudes is an ignorant, bigoted redneck. Just like everyone who is pleased is not a flaming liberal. Ugh.

[Julian Douglass · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I first saw this book, I will admit that I thought it was really cool and I was very eager to read this. At first, it was interesting, funny, and a sorta-kinda trip down memory lane. Then, as I dove deeper into the book three major issues occurred that kind of ruined it for me.

1) My god did he continue to talk and talk and talk in some places. While the content was good and it did a pretty good job describing the events, I feel that he over expanded too get some more pages. While doing this one or two times would be OK, about half of the chapters felt longer than they needed to be because of useless dialogue that he included.

2) The organization of the book sucked. It would go from a chapter on culture to a chapter on politics, to two chapters on culture to two chapters on politics and back and forth. I get that making this a linear history would be hard, but splitting the book into two parts wouldn't be too much to ask. There were times too where he would have a chapter on a phenomena that happened in the late 90's and then the next chapter would be on something regarding the 1992 presidential election. It was just weird that the book would be split up this way

3) The footnotes. I have seen this as a common complaint and I agree. The purpose of a footnote is a sentence of two to describe something in the text that would make it easier to understand without have to waste time in the main story. When a footnote is as long as the entire page, you need to either include it in the main text of not include it at all. Many times I would forget what I was reading about because I spent all my attention on what was in the note.

The book was OK. Some of the chapters I smiled and laughed, but by the end, I just wanted to finish it.

[Rita Ciresi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to read this book because I don't remember much of this decade--working and being a first-time mom took up most of my energy. The author is a good storyteller and has a great sense of humor, but ultimately the book was a complete downer for me, confirming that the seeds of our narcissism and our acceptance of corruption were laid in the '90s and sown by the Internet. If you want a reminder of how far we've fallen as a culture, start here.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a long listen! It's repetitive at times with long sections focused on Bill Clinton, the creation of Viagra, and how the 90s shaped our current political climate. Some correlations were a stretch, but it was an interesting read from a decade that provides me with a lot of nostalgia.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

You'll Love It.

I lived through nineties but had forgotten much of the truly crazy and seismic sexual and culturally defining moments of the decade. This book brought those events back and reminded me just how crazy that decade was. As important, this cultural history helps bring context to our current political and social milieu(what Friend calls the "Trump Teens"). This is no dry recounting of events but is a well written, funny and at times touching account of America's not too distant past. Read this book and you will be both entertained and informed. Highly recommended.

[Beverly Diehl · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love sex and politics - what could go wrong?

I suspect this book appeals to a specific niche audience, of which I am not a member. Heavily footnoted and referenced, there were still things it got a little wrong, like referring to Hillary Clinton as the first female nominee for President. She was the first female nominee OF A MAJOR POLITICAL PARTY for President. Referred to Princess Diana of Wales, instead of Diana, Princess of Wales.

I hoped for something lighter and funnier, and although the author threw in clever little bon mots, like referring to "rubbing it out" in a chapter on masturbation, and "a gilooley" in the section and Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, these felt a little too contrived.

I realized that for me, this book had become a slog, so I stopped at 350 pages in. (200 to go). YMMV.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure that David Friend's account adds up to all that much (I'm not convinced that the nineties were anymore sexually revolutionary than the sixties or seventies), but this book is compulsively readable. For me, it was perfect spare moment reading on my mobile device, as the chapters pretty much stood on their own. And David Friend does manage to interview a lot of people whose fifteen moments of fame have long expired (e.g., Paula Jones, Lorena Bobbit, Monica Lewinsky, Heidi Fleiss). While Mr. Friend wrote this book in time to make the connection between the celebrity and reality television obsessed nineties and the ascension of Donald Trump, he published a bit too early to relate these events to the #MeToo movement. I'm expecting an extra chapter in the paperback edition.

[Anna]

Review forthcoming in Library Journal.

[Paul Mackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 1990s reconditioned America's attitude, turning us into sexual creatures

https://popculturelunchbox.substack.c...

After the “evolving exploration” of the 1960s’ sexual revolution and 1970s and ‘80s’ women’s and gay rights movements, the 1990s began with Ivana Trump busting then-husband Donald Trump on the ski slopes of Aspen with his snow bunny Marla Maples. It ended with Al Gore failing to emerge from the shadow of Bill Clinton as the next U.S. president.

Back then a simple tangential sex scandal was still enough to potentially disqualify a person from the top office in the land, but it was the beginning of a time when we all started to reevaluate our sexual selves, claims David Friend in his 2017 book The Naughty Nineties: The Triumph of the American Libido.

As the Baby Boomers aged into positions of power for the first time, “the counterculture had become the culture.” Between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, there was an “irrational exuberance” and it felt as if nothing could unnerve people in the U.S. The ‘90s “reconditioned Americans to accept themselves as profoundly sexual creatures.”

Friend writes that Sex and the City debuted in 1998 and at first jarred audiences with its sexual innuendo but soon enough people, especially women, were “enamored of its barrage of adult situations.” He takes a New York City bus tour of sites from the show and one of the tourists tells him, while walking among a wall of vibrators at a store at one of the stops, that women are “returning to their natural habitats … like 15,000 years ago.” She makes a comparison to some of the tribes she’s traveled with in Tanzania, Botswana, and Namibia, in which the women go out all day with each other gossiping and giggling about the men back at the village. The armchair expert added that women getting back into the job market (like those hunter gatherer “commuting” women of long ago) in turn helps their sexuality emerge. “For millions of years … women were just as economically, socially, and sexually powerful as men. We’re closer now to how we were a million years ago than we have been in centuries.”

Nighttime used to be the time for rest, to retreat from the daily challenges of survival, and for romance and storytelling. Then in the 1950s, the TV entered into the picture. By the 1990s, at least on Sunday nights, women watched Sex and the City and men, generally speaking, watched sports. On a Sunday night in January 1992, all those audiences converged—after the Washington Redskins whooped the Buffalo Bills in the Super Bowl—to view an episode of 60 Minutes in which Bill and Hillary Clinton would attempt to get out in front of emerging reports of Bill’s sexual escapades. He was about to go from virtually a nobody to the biggest Naughty Nineties character of all. And it was Hillary who landed the biggest takedown of Steve Kroft’s relentless questions about her husband’s alleged affair with Gennifer Flowers: “I’m not some little woman standing by my man, like Tammy Wynette. I’m sitting here because I love him … if that’s not enough for people, then heck, don’t vote for him.” The Clintons made that moment make or break, and it paid off big time, turning them into about as close as it gets to a political dynasty, and Bill into “a new masculine archetype—a Bubba Boomer.”

Clinton was portrayed as the opposite of his opponent for the presidency. Despite his resume, George Bush was a wimp. His campaign suffered greatly when he was branded an out-of-touch yuppie for being taken aback by a barcode scanner at a market—something he somehow apparently had never seen before. How times have changed for the worse; now Trump’s fans seem to take it in stride when he repeatedly bumbles about his utter (and utterly stupid) shock and awe about the word “groceries,” something he has cleary never had to shop for.

Past presidents had been sexual icons of a sort. John F. Kennedy would have been a predator by today’s standards and was known to say things in private like how he had to have sex every day to avoid headaches and that he liked to have his women at least three different ways before he could be satisfied. Lyndon Johnson like to quite often pull out his … umm … johnson. He was proud of its girth. With Ronald Reagan, “the line began to blur between Washington and Hollywood, politics and marketing, power and romance.” Then came Bill.

I’ll return to this book later to explore more ways in which Friend makes the convincing case that the 1990s transformed America’s sexual attitudes and the media landscape. There is no shortage of juiciness to discuss, including Monica Lewinsky, the rise of internet porn, tabloids and celebrity sex scandals, cable news and Howard Stern-like shock radio, the coming out of Ellen DeGeneres and a burgeoning LGBTQ+ movement, Supreme Court judge Clarence Thomas’s sex harassment of Anita Hill, the moral panic of Tipper Gore about Frank Zappa and all those devious rockers, and much more.

[Paul Sutter]

There is little question how THE NAUGHTY NINETIES turned into a book that is coming perilously close to 600 pages. It was certainly a decade that turned the world upside down with so many things happening. While the book does an exceptional job of covering much of it, there was still a lot that was left out of course for space reasons. For those who lived during these precarious and unsettling times, the book is like stepping back into a time machine to give us another tastes of the times and the moments that shaped the world we lived in today.
The book is a re-release of the 2017 book THE NAUGHTY NINETIES (THE TRIUMPH OF THE AMERICAN LIBIDO). It adds more with an Afterword that is heavily into Donald Trump’s escapades especially in response to his election victory in 2016. Donald ironically is noted very early in the books thanks to his extra-martial escapades with Marla Maples, while he was still with wife Ivana. It is not that surprising that somehow he makes media attention wherever he goes, whether he is trying to or not.
But the book is about much more, and the moments and events that really changed our lives. There were sections more in-depth than others most notably the world of President Bill Clinton and his encounter with Monica Lewinsky. We lived through the denials and scandals associated with it, as Hillary Clinton stood by her man, and would later chart her own path toward the White House in 2016.
No matter what page you turn to, there are reminders of all the wild times and inventions that became a staple of the decade. One of the most life-altering was the creation of Viagra, noted in major detail, and how men of all ages suddenly had a new lease on their sex lives, thanks to one little pill.
It seems that sex became a common thread that decade, as the show Sex and the City premiered to great accolades and the idea that sex and shoes could became a great pastime for millions. The book also looks at New York’s Times Square, where there was a proliferation of sex stores, that were targeted for annihilation by such people as Mayor Rudy Giuliani. But of course there were so many other people whose participation one way or another in the 1990’s, made them almost household names at the times.
Lorena Bobbitt and her unkindest cut of all, Anita Hill and her charges of sexual harassment against then Supreme Court Nominee Clarence Thomas, and Paula Hill and her own accusation against Bill Clinton, changed the face of American life and politics. But there was even more such as the creation of the World Wide Web and the launching of adult entertainment, Ellen DeGeneres’ coming out, Demi Moore and the controversial with child cover, and, well the list goes on and on.
If you remember the nineties, were too young to recall, or were not born before then, this is the ideal refresher course on the decade that was so memorable, and still has affected how we live and breathe today.

[Chris Jaffe · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a decent, easy, and engaging read. And that's nice because it's not very deep and doesn't do a very good job making any larger points about sex in the 1990s. It's an exploration of how American culture changed in terms of sex and sexuality, gender and gender roles. David Friends takes us on a tour of the decade, making sure to point out every familiar sign post along the way. It's a nice reminder of "hey, I remember that" for someone who lived through it.

Main themes include an increasing public acceptance of sexuality and declining shame of it all. At one point Friend even argues that around June 1994, Amrican decorum changed, as we stopped looking away from the previously shameful and not started to stare at it. Friend's arguments tend to be either generic or not incredibly well made, though. The Clintons a central figures, but even they come and go. It's more a series of stories than any overall point.

Still, it is an interesting and enjoyable tour of the decade. Topics include (take a deep breath here): 3rd wave feminism (including Paglia, Faludi, and Naomi Wolf), Madonna, Ellen, Demi Moore, Anita Hill, the Vagina Monologues, Brazilian waxes, Sex and the City, vibrators, masturbation, hormonal therapy, Murphy Brown and the culture wars, Pat Buchanan and the 1992 RNC, the internet and online sex (and online misogyny), e-dating, "don't ask, don't tell", William Bennett, Loveline, sex on TV, the public embrace of plastic surgery, piercings, wonderbra, Victoria's Secret, TV tabloids, OJ Simpson, Paula Jones, the Bobbits, Clinton's impeachment, Newt Gingrich, JFK Jr., conservative media, Million Man March, Promise Keepers, male hugging, Robert Bly, the Hummer (the vehicle, that is), metrosexuals, rogaine, Casual Friday, "man caves", steroids, Michael Douglas movies, The Big Lebowski and the idealized slacker, post-moral movies (Pulp Fiction, Goodfellas), the man-child, gross-out films, porn goes mainstream, Skinemax, viagra (2 full chapters - almost 50 pages just on it), Heidi Fleiss, sex addiction, strip clubs, Eastern European sex trade, abortion, gay marriage, traditional marriage, Monica Lewinsky & journalism becomes consumerism.

It ends with a brief bit on Donald Trump that felt tacked on.

The experience of reading this book is nice, but it's less than the sum of its parts.

[False · Rating 5 out of 5]

These days, sex seems to ooze from every nook and cranny of American culture—and Friend, a Vanity Fair editor, traces this trend to the ’90s, with its roiling cesspool of cable news and political scandals that spawned Viagra, internet porn, and celebrity culture as we know it. I don't even know how this book was written within a logical timeframe. Just studying the bibliography will boggle the mind (and I copied it to go back and do more research on the varied topics) of what was really going on, in hindsight, during the era of the 1990's, chiefly in America. Our sexuality, our politics, the scandals, the development of the internet, how we use social media, morality, self absorption, rampant celebrity worship...and the destruction of idols. The chapters are many, and some subjects are woven in as part of the whole fabric: the Clintons, for example. There is an afterword that shows how Trump could have evolved from all of this. Utterly can't put it down fascinating. I will be using my copy of the bibliography to go back to again and again when I have the time and re-delve. I'm also going to seek out and read the author's other works.

[Pearse Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 26 hour audiobook! OK! I listened to this at 1.75 speed because Friend talked sooo slooowly and it was a pretty good read! 600+ pages that blended together a lot of interesting topics and combined Friend's Vanity Fair photography career, his interviews with 1990s sex icons, and the cumulative work of past historians. I learned a lot about the history of American sex and how many fucking problems the 1990s had socially and politically. Fuck, he makes a great argument for how the 2016 election started with the OJ trial, so much of the present day was impacted by the development of the internet fetish world, the Clintons' 60 Minutes interview, Viagra's origins and marketing, Newt's children, wow.

[Laurel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing history of the ‘90’s. Yes, the focus is on how sex changed our culture, but the author looks to other decades when he discusses the impact of norms and transgressions. It is more a history of self-selected events that drew the attention of the author and the fascination of this reader. The 500+ page volume was a time consuming and deep read, that if I had not skipped over the massive and detailed footnotes, would have taken me twice as long to read. Anchored by the Clinton sex scandals, the author closes with an insightful rumination around how all that came before led us to Trump.

[Maureen Sepulveda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this well-researched and fascinating story. It chronicles the decade of the 1990’s, the rise of the internet, 24/7 news network, scandals like Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, OJ Simpson and introduction of Viagra. At the beginning of this crazy decade, I was in middle school. At the end, I graduated college. It was so interesting to read about the decade in hindsight having come of age during it.

[Vincent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book and really shows how the 90s really shaped the society that we live in today. I have so many memories of watching trash TV coming home from school and hearing different things on the news that were referenced in this book. Nice little trip down memory lane, but now I can make certain connections as to the impact those things had.

[Amanda Crumley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book for an honest review !! I lived the Nineties so I thought this was a fun way to look back at some of the events that went on during that time . A little long read but just the right information gather for anyone whom may have forgotten or have not been bore yet !!

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

A breezy overview of sex in the 90s that is rendered unreadable by the author's insistence on including multiple footnotes on every page, as if he was writing some major academic tome. Someone get him an editor who can apply the brakes. I quit after 150 pages.

[Erik Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

a dense sucker but undeniably fun and interesting

[Sunil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely a maximalist in prose style, which can be a bit much, but this thesis hasn't been carried out to such length by anyone else.

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There were stories in sweat." (1)

[Jasmine]

DNF. Might skip and listen to the conclusion eventually. I just cannot believe a book with this subject matter could be so BORING!!!

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

If he wanted to just write about how the Clintons were right to behave as badly as they did, he should have just written that book instead.

[Susan Lamb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very long . . . I lived through the 90s and didn't see how sex so permeated them until now. :(

[Ben Bush]

Dumb in terms of tone and slant but some interesting stuff about Sex in the City, the Vagina Monologues, the rise of waxing, etc.

[CJM · Rating 3 out of 5]

A just-OK review of sexual trends and moral responses in a complex decade. (Aren’t all decades complex? They do comprise ten years of Life on Earth after all.) Ultimately, sex is more fun to have than read about, and we’ve all moved on for better or worse. If our society and culture had a healthier attitude toward sex, instead of feeding whatever media obsessions of the moment (as I write this it’s polyamory) we’d all be better off. This book gives the reader a good deal of history but precious little useful insight into how the 90’s shaped 21st century attitudes. It’s a quick read though

[Patrick Culhane · Rating 4 out of 5]

To think I lived through that era. A good review of the cultural changes and the evolving individual and collective attitudes and beliefs about SEX. I thought the late sixties and seventies were wild. The nineties were a real roller coaster. The book is a bit long but well researched and written. I listened to the audio and it made the drive bearable.