Customer Reviews

Talk About Sex: The Battles over Sex Education in the United States, With a New Preface

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This is an excellent, well researched examination of sex education and the ways in which discourses of sex and sexuality have been simultaniously decried and utilized by the right. Irvine displays an extensive knowledge of sex education debates and provides an important historical accounting for the current state of affairs. The history presented in her book is fundamental for understanding sexuality, education, speech, and particularly, the interweaving of the three and its implication for battles over sex ed. Bravo. This is an important and timely book which deserves a wide audience.

This execellent and accesssible book explains how and why sex ed has been such a hot button issue. More importantly, it explains how the Christian Right has used sex ed to mobilize politically, how scare tactics are constructed, and why they are effective.

It takes great courage to stand up for comprehensive sexuality education. This book will help to more deeply root proponents in thier own history and offers a clear description of the historic modus operandi of the opposition.

It may be helpful to read this book in tandem with standard books about the religious right; notably Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, by Frederick Clarkson; and With God on Our Side, by William Martin.

Irvine has done some wonderful research for this comprehensive book. The problem is that she doesn't seem to know what she wants to do with it. On the one hand, the book is quite academically objective, presenting the information as straightforward as possible.... Except that Irvine isn't objective. Over and over again she tells us that comprehensive sex education is important and that those moralists on the Right are preventing our children from getting it.

Unfortunately, she never explains exactly why comprehensive sexuality education is so important, or how it will solve the problems that abstinence-only-until-marriage education can't. Irvine takes it for granted that her audience already knows/believes that part of the subject. Furthermore, she never adequately outlines what a comprehensive sexuality curricula would look like. Instead, the book feels like a vehicle to publish all of her research without actually putting in any creative legwork.

To sum up, my problem with this book is that it is too biased to be simply a sociological or journalistic treatise but not biased enough to function as a persuasive call to action on a problem of national importance. While Irvine has done a lot of admirable research, she seems confused as to the objective of her writing.