edited by Dan Savage ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2005
Technology-enslaved, boring, all-American: this is pretty dispiriting stuff. Thank goodness Erica Jong is there to remind...
Is sex dead?
There may be the naughty bit or two here, but the collection is surprisingly—perhaps distressingly—chaste: This isn’t really “sex writing,” but “writing about sex,” a kissing cousin of dancing about architecture. Syndicated columnist Savage performs one unthinkable, or at least deeply unseemly, act: He includes a 40-page hunk of his Skipping Towards Gomorrah (2002) in violation of nearly every word in this book’s title. (It’s not great, though that isn’t to say the piece is without its merits; we can forgive anyone who writes, “I didn’t go to New York City simply to sin and to defy Osama bin Laden and his Islamo-fascist pals. I was also in New York because Jerry Falwell pisses me off.”) Elsewhere, two dozen writers and journalists, from stalwarts like Erica Jong to newcomers like Cole Kazdin, weigh in on the sociology of sex. Naomi Wolf sagely examines what pornography does to women, which seems less to dehumanize them than to make them uninteresting: “By the new millennium, a vagina—which, by the way, used to have a pretty high ‘exchange value,’ as Marxist economists would say—wasn’t enough; it barely registered on the thrill scale.” It does the same to men, too; Christopher O’Brien’s Wired article on would-be cyberporn king Gary Kremen is a masterwork of reportage on the evil of banality, while Alessandro Camon, writing in Salon.com, ponders the influence of imagination-stifling smut on the twisted puppies who committed the atrocities in Iraq’s most infamous prison: “The president and his inner circle said, ‘This is not the America that we know,’ ” Camon observes. “But it is. The pictures from Abu Ghraib are American ‘gonzo porn.’ They reek of frat-house hazing and gang initiation rituals.”
Technology-enslaved, boring, all-American: this is pretty dispiriting stuff. Thank goodness Erica Jong is there to remind readers, in closing, that “wild passionate sex exists.” Even without a credit card and a mouse.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2005
ISBN: 1-56025-598-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2004
Share your opinion of this book
More by Dan Savage
BOOK REVIEW
by Dan Savage
BOOK REVIEW
by Dan Savage
BOOK REVIEW
by Dan Savage
by Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2018
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
Share your opinion of this book
More by Steven Levitsky
BOOK REVIEW
by Bari Weiss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2019
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
Share your opinion of this book
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.