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ebonyutley's review against another edition
2.0
Reading this book caused a lot of eyebrow raising, forehead smacking, and fist shaking to the sky. I couldn’t believe the atrocities documented in America’s War on Sex. That documentation is definitely the strength of the book. I learned about all the innocuous sounding organizations designed to destroy my civil liberties. I learned about children taken from parents because of their sexual activity preferences. I learned about horrific privacy violations and women’s rights regulations that, honestly, had I been paying attention, would have blown my mind when they happened and not 5-10 years later. But that begs the question: why haven’t I been paying attention? Because the America within these pages is so repressive, it feels like fantasyland that simply cannot be real within my lifetime. While many of us are in denial there is a moral majority of erotophobes so shamed by their own sexual desires that they seek to control everyone else’s. Klein does a good job of explaining why.
1. Money and power. Of course. These organizations support political candidates and in turn the government supports these conservative religious organizations with money and tax-exempt status.
2. Sexuality is scary and people act impulsively when afraid and will do just about anything to protect themselves.
3. People are shamed about their sexuality and if their sexuality is bad so is their neighbor’s and the best way to deal with it all (in order to protect the innocent children) is via regulation—lots and lots and lots of it.
4. The more women’s reproductive rights are control by anyone other than the woman bearing the child, then women’s options (all of them) are limited and well, that helps a society that hates women.
5. It’s easier to profess belief in God, than it is to be Godlike so people use the the enforcement of their beliefs and feelings instead of facts and figures to show how pious they are. It’s easier to appear pious than to actually be pious.
So, there’s good stuff in the book. It’s good upper undergrad/grad reading even though the landscape is changing so fast that the second 2012 edition is now a bit dated. Klein is an excellent advocate for sex positivity and erotophiles. That said, at times, he’s an unrealizable narrator. He frequently makes this problematic conflation between sexual freedom and civil rights. It’s as if a) there are no more civil rights injustices and b) black people don’t have sexual freedom issues that are distinct from white folks’. If he wanted to make a point he’d say, our schools were desegregated and black people can rent houses anywhere so let’s end all sexual discrimination too. It sounds harmless at first but with enough repetition, it becomes clear that he could care less that the humanity of black folks is still under question in our society and so is our sexuality. After reading the porn section, I realized it had been a minute since I last previewed porn so I did a quick Google search (for research purposes) on “ebony sex” and “black porn” and my God, on some level porn is porn, but the discriminatory racial layers are NOT the same for white people. I am disappointed that for all his talk about sexual freedom and justice, this appears to have never occurred to Klein. But that’s his point, ironically. He claims that when the morality police get all hung up on other people’s morality it’s because they have issues with their own that remains unaddressed. Herein lies his uninterrogated privilege even as he advocates for “rights.” By extension, I didn’t like the conflation of gays and lesbians with swingers. He claims that people are also born with an intense desire for certain sexual behaviors in the same way that LGBT folks are born LGBT but again, it problematically conflates behavior with identity. If I were black and gay and a swinger I’d be outraged that in all of his talk about “me,” he completely erased “my” existence. And while he ranted about the right’s penchant for emotions and feelings over facts, I felt his book was also light on the facts. For example, he decries reports that the average age of a child’s exposure to porn is 8, but he doesn’t say what that average age is. There were several moments like this. He accuses the morality police of hyperbole but then writes this “You might as well melt down the Statue of Liberty and use the metal to fashion jail bars or chastity belts for the mind.” Hyperbole for hyperbole? I guess. In the final chapter, he encourages sex positive folks make their presence known so that the other side isn’t the only vocal majority but there are no action items, no steps to follow, no organizations to email, to representatives to write. Despite it’s penchant for activism, the book is not activist oriented. The lingering question is “what now?” For a second edition, that’s a glaring missed opportunity since the other side is clearly not going to be persuaded by any of his arguments and the people in the middle or those on his side are not likely going to be so overwhelmed by the end of the book, they will have no idea what to do next.
1. Money and power. Of course. These organizations support political candidates and in turn the government supports these conservative religious organizations with money and tax-exempt status.
2. Sexuality is scary and people act impulsively when afraid and will do just about anything to protect themselves.
3. People are shamed about their sexuality and if their sexuality is bad so is their neighbor’s and the best way to deal with it all (in order to protect the innocent children) is via regulation—lots and lots and lots of it.
4. The more women’s reproductive rights are control by anyone other than the woman bearing the child, then women’s options (all of them) are limited and well, that helps a society that hates women.
5. It’s easier to profess belief in God, than it is to be Godlike so people use the the enforcement of their beliefs and feelings instead of facts and figures to show how pious they are. It’s easier to appear pious than to actually be pious.
So, there’s good stuff in the book. It’s good upper undergrad/grad reading even though the landscape is changing so fast that the second 2012 edition is now a bit dated. Klein is an excellent advocate for sex positivity and erotophiles. That said, at times, he’s an unrealizable narrator. He frequently makes this problematic conflation between sexual freedom and civil rights. It’s as if a) there are no more civil rights injustices and b) black people don’t have sexual freedom issues that are distinct from white folks’. If he wanted to make a point he’d say, our schools were desegregated and black people can rent houses anywhere so let’s end all sexual discrimination too. It sounds harmless at first but with enough repetition, it becomes clear that he could care less that the humanity of black folks is still under question in our society and so is our sexuality. After reading the porn section, I realized it had been a minute since I last previewed porn so I did a quick Google search (for research purposes) on “ebony sex” and “black porn” and my God, on some level porn is porn, but the discriminatory racial layers are NOT the same for white people. I am disappointed that for all his talk about sexual freedom and justice, this appears to have never occurred to Klein. But that’s his point, ironically. He claims that when the morality police get all hung up on other people’s morality it’s because they have issues with their own that remains unaddressed. Herein lies his uninterrogated privilege even as he advocates for “rights.” By extension, I didn’t like the conflation of gays and lesbians with swingers. He claims that people are also born with an intense desire for certain sexual behaviors in the same way that LGBT folks are born LGBT but again, it problematically conflates behavior with identity. If I were black and gay and a swinger I’d be outraged that in all of his talk about “me,” he completely erased “my” existence. And while he ranted about the right’s penchant for emotions and feelings over facts, I felt his book was also light on the facts. For example, he decries reports that the average age of a child’s exposure to porn is 8, but he doesn’t say what that average age is. There were several moments like this. He accuses the morality police of hyperbole but then writes this “You might as well melt down the Statue of Liberty and use the metal to fashion jail bars or chastity belts for the mind.” Hyperbole for hyperbole? I guess. In the final chapter, he encourages sex positive folks make their presence known so that the other side isn’t the only vocal majority but there are no action items, no steps to follow, no organizations to email, to representatives to write. Despite it’s penchant for activism, the book is not activist oriented. The lingering question is “what now?” For a second edition, that’s a glaring missed opportunity since the other side is clearly not going to be persuaded by any of his arguments and the people in the middle or those on his side are not likely going to be so overwhelmed by the end of the book, they will have no idea what to do next.
teresawprice's review against another edition
3.0
This book has an incredible amount of information on the policing of sexuality and how that threatens liberty that it presents very clearly, but it’s often reductive on other issues. The author managed to write a whole book on America’s unique crusade against sexual freedom and individual autonomy that is still heavily steeped in American exceptionalism. Based on this book, one might get the impression that the United States has moved on from all prejudices not based on sexuality if it weren’t for all the times the author makes sure to emphasize how oppressive the U.S. is by comparing it to an Asian country.
It also barely covers the sale of sex. The sale of sexual material is covers extensively, but not the sale of sex. To be fair, America is less unique in this regard, but considering the theme of eroding individual rights through the regulation of sexuality, I’d expect more on how the criminalization of sex work grants the government the power to limit our bodily autonomy. Recently, these limitations were cited by Justice Alito as evidence that the government has the right to ban abortion.
It also barely covers the sale of sex. The sale of sexual material is covers extensively, but not the sale of sex. To be fair, America is less unique in this regard, but considering the theme of eroding individual rights through the regulation of sexuality, I’d expect more on how the criminalization of sex work grants the government the power to limit our bodily autonomy. Recently, these limitations were cited by Justice Alito as evidence that the government has the right to ban abortion.
gregorydelaurentis's review
5.0
Mr. Klein pulls no punches as to how well he sets up his arguments involving sexual freedom of expression and liberty that all Americans should be able to enjoy on a personal basis. He is excellent in his power of reason and logic and skilled in his presentation of important facts. With a level of intellectual professionalism he brings forth the arguments and tactics of the Anti-sex communities, organizations, and misguided leaders. He reveals their biases and hatreds and sets them against the cold hard facts in regards the 'American Democratic Covenant', where we all agree, as Americans, to accept the discomfort that the choices of others give us for the greater benefit--that is being able to live together as a single pluralistic society. But as Mr. Klein brings out, many on the religious left believe that sexuality falls outside of this covenant, and patently refuse to accept the discomfort that some individual's sexual choices cause them, even though these people accept the discomfort that the choices of the left cause them. Mr. Klein does an excellent job in clarifying one fact that is for certain: this war on sex is not just limited to the sexual choices of a segment(s) of American society, but ALL choices of ALL Americans because to succeed, the anti-sex groups have to attack, directly, the pillars of the Constitution, the foundation of this great nation.
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