What do you think?
Rate this book
Sex in Crisis: The New Sexual Revolution and the Future of American Politics
The Religious Right has fractured, the pundits tell us, and its power is waning. Is it true & -- ; have evangelical Christians lost their political clout? When the subject is sex, the answer is definitively no. Only three decades after the legalization of abortion, the broad gains of the feminist movement, and the emergence of the gay rights movement, Americans appear to be doing the time warp again. It's 1950s redux. Politicians -- including many Democrats -- insist that abstinence is the only acceptable form of birth control. Fully fifty percent of American high schools teach a "sex education" curriculum that includes deceptive information about the prevalence of STDs and the failure rates of condoms. Students are taught that homosexuality is curable, and that premarital sex ruins future marital happiness. Afraid of sounding godless, American liberals have failed to challenge these retrograde orthodoxies. The truth is Americans have not become anti-sex, but they have become increasingly anxious about sex -- not least due to the stratagems of the Religious Right. There has been a war on sex in America -- a war conservative evangelicals have in large part already won. How did the Religious Right score so many successes? Historian Dagmar Herzog argues that conservative evangelicals appropriated the lessons of the first sexual revolution far more effectively than liberals. With the support of a multimillion-dollar Christian sex industry, evangelicals crafted an astonishingly graphic and effective pitch for the pleasures of "hot monogamy" -- for married, heterosexual couples only. This potent message enabled them to win elections and seduce souls, with disastrous political consequences. Fierce, witty, and brilliant, Sex in Crisis challenges America's culture of sexual dysfunction and calls for a more sophisticated national conversation about the facts of life.
268 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 30, 2008
2 people are currently reading
143 people want to read
About the author
Dagmar Herzog
60 books25 followersDagmar Herzog (born 1961) is Distinguished Professor of History and the Daniel Rose Faculty Scholar at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She has published extensively on the histories of sexuality and gender, psychoanalysis, theology and religion, Jewish-Christian relations and Holocaust memory, and she has edited anthologies on sexuality in the Third Reich, sexuality in twentieth-century Austria, and the Holocaust.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 6, 2014
I study religion because I believe it can be a powerful force FOR change and social justice ... then I read book likes this and wonder why I bother. So many elements of Herzog's argument are things which I had a level of awareness regarding, but had simply failed to follow through logically. How was I to anticipate something as seemingly innocuous as the rise of "waiting-until-marriage" sex movements could be instrumental in such worldwide detrimental policy mismanagement (in this instance, with respect to PEPFAR and Uganda, specifically)? Fortunately, Herzog's done the legwork for me. A good if frustrating read.
September 24, 2008
Sex in Crisis is the story of the relationship between right wing evangelical Christians and sex in America. And a strange relationship it is. Evangelicals have been very successful in gaining a lot of political clout. The result? Our federal government has spent a billion dollars preaching abstinence to teens. Never mind that this works about as well as King Canute trying to hold back the waves, they keep insisting that only abstinence should be taught in sex education classes. They also want teen to be taught condoms don't work, sex before marriage causes chemical changes that will prevent future intimacy in marriage, and virgins are more successful financially and emotionally. They are also against the vaccine that prevents cervical cancer on the ground that it will promote promiscuity. Their position on that one would seem to be better dead than sexually active.
There is something a bit creepy about people who think condoms are a worse evil than AIDS and a vaccine for a sexually transmitted cancer is evil at all. Why is it that these people who try to legislate their own moral views, whose views are so often scientific nonsenses, and who want to stick their noses into everyone else's private lives have been so successful in advancing their agenda? Fear tactics and fanaticism would seem to be the answer. A scary book.
There is something a bit creepy about people who think condoms are a worse evil than AIDS and a vaccine for a sexually transmitted cancer is evil at all. Why is it that these people who try to legislate their own moral views, whose views are so often scientific nonsenses, and who want to stick their noses into everyone else's private lives have been so successful in advancing their agenda? Fear tactics and fanaticism would seem to be the answer. A scary book.
August 5, 2015
from the library
from the dust jacket: DH is prof of History at the Graduate Center of the CUNY. Author of Intimacy and Exclusion, and Sex after Fascism, as well as numerous scholarly articles.
Uneven in emotional tone, this is a slightly hysterical account of the rise of the religious right in matters of sexual ideas during the 80's and 90's when the religious right was experiencing a rather golden period of influencing American thought in many ways not least in social policy and governance.
It all still comes down to same-old same old: womens sexual competance is not valued, women should do whatever, whenever their husbands want, no masturbation, no fantasy. And after all that women should always be sexy for their husband.
:
from the dust jacket: DH is prof of History at the Graduate Center of the CUNY. Author of Intimacy and Exclusion, and Sex after Fascism, as well as numerous scholarly articles.
Uneven in emotional tone, this is a slightly hysterical account of the rise of the religious right in matters of sexual ideas during the 80's and 90's when the religious right was experiencing a rather golden period of influencing American thought in many ways not least in social policy and governance.
It all still comes down to same-old same old: womens sexual competance is not valued, women should do whatever, whenever their husbands want, no masturbation, no fantasy. And after all that women should always be sexy for their husband.
:
December 8, 2009
A very thorough (but short, and therefore a quick and easy read) about how the religious right has hijacked the conversation about sex in the United States, and thus, figured out how to wield an incredibly effective political tool (no pun intended). Well worth checking out. And not that I didn't already know this, but this book really confirmed that the religious right truly are lunatics and their motives have nothing to do with promoting christianity and love.
Read
April 9, 2009HOT AND HOLY
Jennifer Cognard-Black
Review of Sex in Crisis: The New Sexual Revolution and the Future of American Politics
By Dagmar Herzog
Basic Books
There is a new sexual revolution in the United States, one initiated and perpetuated by none other than the religious right. An evangelical sexual revolution? Surely that’s a contradiction in terms. Yet historian Dagmar Herzog exposes precisely how the religious right has co-opted popular discourse on Viagra, Internet porn, female orgasm, adultery, HIV and STDs to revise its abstinence only, anti-abortion, homophobic, sexist and racist proclamations on sex and sexuality into a sizzling and seductive self-help package worthy of Sex and the City.
To begin with, the religious right has coined a provocative new term: the “soulgasm.” Since the mid-1970s, evangelical sex writers have promised that as long as readers engage in heterosexual, married sex, they can expect incredible God-given orgasms. And while there is some debate about the appropriateness of oral sex or vibrators, marriage therapists Melissa and Louis McBurney deem doggie-style sex and mutual masturbation just fine, while pastor Charlie Shedd touts anal sex as a healthy part of marital bliss. The Christian sex industry coaches husbands to become wild men of a passionate God, while wives are urged to clad themselves in black lingerie and be available for Christian quickies. Herzog points out that these bits of amorous advice are mired in cognitive contradictions. Husbands should be sexual stallions yet buy books such as Every Man’s Battle to curb their extramarital fantasies. Wives pray for their own orgasmic ecstasy and yet are told to have sex even when they don’t want to. As Herzog writes of authors of evangelical self-help books, “They rail against porn even as they perpetuate porn.”
It’s these contradictions that reveal the religious right’s actual agenda: to keep its constituents sexually anxious and to limit sex to the Christian bedroom. Homosexuals are “insecure heterosexual wannabes.” Singles should buy bikini briefs that read “I’m saving it!” Even teenagers who fooled around before finding God are encouraged to become members of True Love Waits and take a “secondary virginity” pledge.
Over the past 15 years, these insidious strictures have come to impact the entire American populace— as well as those living in developing countries. Herzog details how evangelicals have successfully co-opted feminist discourse on reproductive rights—particularly the right to say no—for the 50 percent of American high schools that have adopted abstinence-driven sex-ed courses, which, not incidentally, often provide inaccurate information on condom failure rates. In turn, this misinformation is promulgated to the wider world. NGOs fighting the global AIDS epidemic are hamstrung by George W. Bush’s “Abstinence-Be Faithful” requirements, and health organizations have sued the U.S. government for its insistence that condoms encourage sin rather than save lives. Sex in Crisis is a must-read for any parent wishing to influence a school system’s sex-education curriculum, any advocate for the reduction of HIV infections and any feminist who wants to influence the national conversation on sexual orientation, sexual practices and self-determined sexual consent.
---
JENNIFER COGNARD-BLACK is a professor of English and coordinator of the Women, Gender and Sexuality Program at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. She is coeditor of Kindred Hands: Letters on Writing by British and American Women Authors, 1865–1925 (University of Iowa Press, 2006).
Jennifer Cognard-Black
Review of Sex in Crisis: The New Sexual Revolution and the Future of American Politics
By Dagmar Herzog
Basic Books
There is a new sexual revolution in the United States, one initiated and perpetuated by none other than the religious right. An evangelical sexual revolution? Surely that’s a contradiction in terms. Yet historian Dagmar Herzog exposes precisely how the religious right has co-opted popular discourse on Viagra, Internet porn, female orgasm, adultery, HIV and STDs to revise its abstinence only, anti-abortion, homophobic, sexist and racist proclamations on sex and sexuality into a sizzling and seductive self-help package worthy of Sex and the City.
To begin with, the religious right has coined a provocative new term: the “soulgasm.” Since the mid-1970s, evangelical sex writers have promised that as long as readers engage in heterosexual, married sex, they can expect incredible God-given orgasms. And while there is some debate about the appropriateness of oral sex or vibrators, marriage therapists Melissa and Louis McBurney deem doggie-style sex and mutual masturbation just fine, while pastor Charlie Shedd touts anal sex as a healthy part of marital bliss. The Christian sex industry coaches husbands to become wild men of a passionate God, while wives are urged to clad themselves in black lingerie and be available for Christian quickies. Herzog points out that these bits of amorous advice are mired in cognitive contradictions. Husbands should be sexual stallions yet buy books such as Every Man’s Battle to curb their extramarital fantasies. Wives pray for their own orgasmic ecstasy and yet are told to have sex even when they don’t want to. As Herzog writes of authors of evangelical self-help books, “They rail against porn even as they perpetuate porn.”
It’s these contradictions that reveal the religious right’s actual agenda: to keep its constituents sexually anxious and to limit sex to the Christian bedroom. Homosexuals are “insecure heterosexual wannabes.” Singles should buy bikini briefs that read “I’m saving it!” Even teenagers who fooled around before finding God are encouraged to become members of True Love Waits and take a “secondary virginity” pledge.
Over the past 15 years, these insidious strictures have come to impact the entire American populace— as well as those living in developing countries. Herzog details how evangelicals have successfully co-opted feminist discourse on reproductive rights—particularly the right to say no—for the 50 percent of American high schools that have adopted abstinence-driven sex-ed courses, which, not incidentally, often provide inaccurate information on condom failure rates. In turn, this misinformation is promulgated to the wider world. NGOs fighting the global AIDS epidemic are hamstrung by George W. Bush’s “Abstinence-Be Faithful” requirements, and health organizations have sued the U.S. government for its insistence that condoms encourage sin rather than save lives. Sex in Crisis is a must-read for any parent wishing to influence a school system’s sex-education curriculum, any advocate for the reduction of HIV infections and any feminist who wants to influence the national conversation on sexual orientation, sexual practices and self-determined sexual consent.
---
JENNIFER COGNARD-BLACK is a professor of English and coordinator of the Women, Gender and Sexuality Program at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. She is coeditor of Kindred Hands: Letters on Writing by British and American Women Authors, 1865–1925 (University of Iowa Press, 2006).
June 7, 2010
In this book, Herzog outlines the influence the Religious Right has had upon the dialogue about sexuality in the US. Some of the issues will, no doubt, already be familiar with readers--such as the battles over sex ed , prejudice against gays and lesbians, and the culture wars over "traditional marriage." Other topics will no doubt surprise readers--such as conservatives' efforts to deny access to condoms as an AIDS preventative in Africa.
Some sections of the book tend to drag, and aside from the unintentionally funny (or disturbing) quotes from evangelical crusaders, there's really no humor in the book.
Some sections of the book tend to drag, and aside from the unintentionally funny (or disturbing) quotes from evangelical crusaders, there's really no humor in the book.
February 4, 2012
OK take on, I think, the affect the conservative right has had on this area at home and overseas. Most of it was fairly well documented but I learned a lot about the impact on the AIDS epidemic which I hadn't relly considered before.
Written in a matter of fact way that left me strangely unengaged. No real humor that sometimes lightens the topic but no real passion for the cause either.
Written in a matter of fact way that left me strangely unengaged. No real humor that sometimes lightens the topic but no real passion for the cause either.
January 3, 2009
This is a book about sex in politics, especially as the right-wing has used it successfully. Sometimes I felt the analysis needed more evidence, but mostly good.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews