Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America's College Campuses [Hardcover]

Donna Freitas (Author), Lauren Winner (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 11, 2008

Based on dozens of face-to-face interviews, Sex and the Soul explores the sexual and spiritual lives of today's college students. Donna Freitas crisscrossed the country, visiting a range of America's colleges and universities--from public to private, Catholic to evangelical--to find out what students had to say about these highly personal subjects. Their stories will not only engage readers, but, in many cases, move them with the painful struggles these candid young women and men face. Indeed, the book uncovers aspects of college life that may unsettle some readers, especially parents. Many campuses, for instance, are dominated by the pervasiveness of hook-up culture. Moreover, many students see little connection between sex and religion, even as they seek one between sex and spirituality. Indeed, these observations hold true even at Catholic schools. Only at evangelical colleges is religion an important factor when deciding whether or not to engage in sex. But Freitas's research also reveals that, even at secular schools, students are not comfortable with a culture of casual sex, and that they do want spirituality, at least, if not also religion, to speak about what they should do and who they should try to be--not just what they should avoid doing.
Sex and the Soul will offer readers the chance to hear college students speaking honestly about extremely sensitive topics, in a book that will be of great interest to students, parents, clergy, teachers, and anyone who wants to know what's happening on today's college campuses.

Named one of the Best Religion Books of 2008 by Publishers Weekly

"Fascinating, disturbing...engaging...persuasive.... Freitas's work chronicles a poignant spiritual loss that students themselves articulate and mourn."
--Publishers Weekly

"Candid, disturbing, yet ultimately hopeful....Throughout this beautifully written book, Freitas presents students' feelings and experiences in an unflinching yet compassionate way. You care about these young people and their struggles. This book is a great service to students, parents, and those at colleges and universities who want to prepare young adults not just for the workplace but for healthy and fulfilling lives."
--Christian Science Monitor

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Boston University professor Freitas (also an occasional contributor to PW) explores college students' spiritual and sexual lives in this fascinating, disturbing book. With the exception of evangelical collegians, who are still gunning for marriage and trying to remain chaste until then, almost all of the young people Freitas interviewed were engaged in hookup culture, often exploring their sexuality with near strangers in the hopes of eventually finding someone to date. And with the exception of evangelical students, who allow their religious views to permeate all life choices, including sexual boundaries, most college students don't see much connection between their sexual behavior—which, in candid interviews, they often regret—and their spirituality, which is important to them. Freitas's tone is engaging and her writing persuasive. Of particular interest is her gender analysis of evangelical purity concepts, which expect young women to be chaste but passive as they wait for Prince Charming. Even more disturbing, the theme parties prevalent in hypersexualized hookup culture (in which young women may dress up as whores, maids or schoolgirls while their male counterparts are powerful CEOs, millionaires or professors) also place all the power in the hands of men. Freitas's work chronicles a poignant spiritual loss that students themselves articulate and mourn. (Apr.)
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Review

"Sex and the Soul is both disturbing and hopeful. Donna Freitas is a skilled and sympathetic interlocutor, and her prescriptions for addressing the 'hookup culture' merit serious consideration." --Randall Balmer, author of Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America

"Relying on exhaustive research and analysis, this unflinching work delivers both a widely comprehensive and deeply intimate portrait of hook-up culture in this formidably spiritual generation, examining its contradictions, broken hearts, and impossible promises like no one has before. Sex and the Soul should be required reading for anyone interested in today's campus culture -- and tomorrow's adulthood." --Lauren Sandler, author of Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement

"How to explain the rise in the 'spiritual but not religious' option among U.S. college students? Might sex have something to do with it? In this provocative book, one of the country's foremost scholars of religion and youth culture answers this question with an emphatic YES! At the heart of this pathbreaking (and heartbreaking) book are the stories of college students 'searching alone' for ways to bring their bodies into conversation with their beliefs. Smart, learned, beautifully written, and above all humane -- this book should jump-start a national conversation on how the sexual revolution has trapped students as much as it has freed them." --Stephen Prothero, author of Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- and Doesn't

"In Sex and the Soul, Donna Freitas models a lovingly Catholic attention to evangelicals, a surprisingly evangelical attention to Catholics, and a passionate, creative attention to the desires of all college students. Freitas is America's foremost young writer on how religious traditions impact everyday life." --Tom Beaudoin, author of Consuming Faith

"This book offers a rare and candid look into the souls of today's college students. Donna Freitas is a truly good listener: she creates a safe space for students to talk about the tender and profound things that they are too seldom allowed to speak of. She listens to them not merely as subjects of a study, but as fellow human beings who are at once spiritual and sexual. Anyone involved in education, pastoral work, or youth work -- but especially parents -- should read this well-written and important book." --Brian D. McLaren, author of Everything Must Change

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 328 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1St Edition edition (April 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195311655
• ISBN-13: 978-0195311655
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #221,919 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Timely, Brilliant, Fair, Poignant, April 30, 2008

By 

Book Junkie (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America's College Campuses (Hardcover)

This is a carefully researched and elegantly written book on the relationship between sexuality and spirituality on US college campuses. It is pretty well known among scholars that high school kids are quite religious in the US. When they go to college they start turning away from the religions of their parents, often toward more generic spirituality. Why does this happen? Freitas thinks sexual experience might hold the key. In other words, as college students start experimenting sexually they push away from religion, since religion is in their view "anti-sex." That's the argument, or part of it. But at the heart of the book lie stories about these students. Kids at evangelical, Catholic, and secular schools struggling with faith and sexuality. It's brilliantly done. It's sad in many ways to see the binds that "hookup culture" put young people in. It's balanced in that there are things in here that will infuriate (and delight) conservatives and liberals alike. And it's timely. Makes me wonder what the next generation is in for heading off to college.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Superb Examination Of A Troublesome Issue, December 24, 2009

By 

Michael Lima (Fresno, California USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America's College Campuses (Hardcover)

There's been a lot of very good material written in the past couple of years on the detrimental emotional and psychological effects that unrestrained sexual behavior is having on American young adults; primarily college students. Donna Freitas' Sex and the Soul is a worthy addition to that material. The reason the book is as valuable as it is stems from the approach that Freitas took to present the information. As is the case with any scientific study, Freitas provides a factual definition of the issues through the use of raw data gathered through observation (in this case, surveys that she and her staff organized). However, instead of stopping with the data, she gives the study depth by incorporating comments from students on their views regarding sexuality and spirituality. The comments not only put a human face on the issues, they also make what would be a dry study readable. Both the data and the interviews bolster Freitas' conclusion that there is a discontentment with the options of promiscuity and chastity. In order to address this discontentment, Freitas develops practical recommendations for finding the middle ground between spiritual goals and sexual practice.

As I stated earlier, Sex and the Soul is the latest addition to a body of material which persuasively argues that promiscuity as a means to explore one's sexuality is not an emotionally healthy lifestyle. What distinguishes Sex and the Soul from these other books is that Freitas respects the role that both spirituality (in either a religious setting or non-religious setting) and sexuality have in one's life. She takes pains to show that the issue doesn't need to have an "either/or" answer; but, is instead broad enough to allow for one to express sexuality within a religious context. Because of this even-handed approach, Sex and the Soul rises to the top of the list of books that have been written on this subject in the past few years.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book!, July 2, 2008

By 

John Murphy (Lansing, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America's College Campuses (Hardcover)

This is an excellent ( at times appalling - at times hopeful) book. I don't usually find sociology books that I can't put down, but I read through this one in short order. What the author does quite brilliantly is weave her study of college students and how they integrate faith/religion and sex, around the personal stories of the students that she interviews. If you are a parent (like me) it is disheartening to see the influences that kids come under when they go away to college, and the soul-destroying nature of casual "hook-ups" with people one may or may not know well.

The book is hopeful (to my way of thinking) in that it is almost exclusively the evangelicals (I am one) who believe that there is a connection between spirituality and sex, and that it is important. While it is no surprise that virtually everyone struggles with how far to go physically before marriage, it is nice to see that evangelicals are generally trying to follow what they believe God desires in regards to dating and marriage.