Sex in Crisis: The New Sexual Revolution and the Future of American Politics Book

America is in the midst of a second sexual revolution--and this time, argues historian Dagmar Herzog, the love isn't free. There is a war on sex in America--and conservative evangelicals are winning. Only three decades after the legalization of abortion, the broad gains of the feminist movement, and the emergence of the gay rights movement, America has gone frigid. Republicans--and even many Democrats--insist that abstinence is the only acceptable form of birth control, and fully 50 percent of American high schools teach a "sex education" curriculum that includes deceptive information about the prevalence of STDs and the failure rate of condoms. Students are taught that homosexuality is curable, and that pornography is addictive. Americans are not anti-sex, but they're increasingly anxious about sex--largely due to the tactics of the Religious Right. Afraid of sounding unelectable, American liberals have failed to challenge its retrograde orthodoxy. We are all evangelicals now. How has the Religious Right achieved this ascendancy? Surprisingly, argues Dagmar Herzog in Sex in Crisis, Evangelicals have appropriated the lessons of the first sexual revolution far more effectively than liberals. With the support of a billion-dollar Christian sex industry, evangelicals have crafted an astonishingly graphic and effective pitch for the pleasures of "hot monogamy"--for married, heterosexual couples only, of course. This potent message has enabled them to win elections and seduce souls, with disastrous political consequences. Fierce, witty, and brilliant, Sex in Crisis will force America to confront its national sexual dysfunction--and rally all but the most pious hot monogamists to demand a more sophisticated national conversation about the facts of life.Read More