Owen Phillips’s Reviews > The Second Coming: Sex and the Next Generation's Fight Over Its Future > Status Update

Incredibly powerful and moving chapter. I would read a book just about this. Which sort of highlights that specific quality of this book. Each chapter is very much self contained. She’s connecting them at the top and bottom of each topic, but truly for the most part the themes are individual. The point about the Biden administration is also very affirming, just in the reminder that we were not given any help ever

Another chapter which is sound but not fully explored. Some chapters fully exclude the queer experience, while in others it seems to be essential to the main argument. I’m cautious of over dependence on identity politick viewpoints but I can’t help but notice certain blind spots, especially from a male perspective. Not in every case, but in critical ones

Ah yes, the horror movie chapter. Here we are my friends

This really isn’t the kind of book that should be making me sad

I have lesser comments on this chapter but my only meaningful one is that it seems a blind spot for researchers tracking the use and disuse of specific queer labels to say that labels are being eschewed where they used to be strictly adhered to. I think it’s more possible that academic projects, much like this one, seeks to identify specific groups for study. Guys fucking guys are gonna get labeled bi or gay duh

Kind of a mixed bag chapter. The character limit is gonna kill me here but in essence:In trying to demystify the way that we characterize the effect porn has on us sexually, she is still making a statement about its impact. By labeling acts as “being from porn” you eliminate the freedom of physical exploration. At the same time, a lot of the statements about hierarchy and first amendment expression hold very true

She’s done a good job so far of pretty cleverly connecting the points. The chapters are folding into one another nicely

DPMO! Everybody knows that the Scope Monkey Trial was a con job set up by the mayor of Dayton Tennessee to bring notoriety to the city by placing it at the center of the Christian education movement. Just because William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow fell for it doesn’t mean that it holds actual cultural significance! Shut up about the monkey trial!

I think this is more an accident rather than a function of the text, but these hyper specific stats feel sort of cherry picked. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to have the math on repeat teen pregnancies, that’s valuable and chilling, but it still doesn’t actually tell me how many repeat pregnancies there were