Saving Sex, by Amy DeRogatis

It's always interesting to read an outsider's perspective on specific cultures, especially when you're an insider in that culture and you can recognize the outsider's distance.  I don't know Amy DeRogatis, and have no idea what sort of church she attends or if she is even a Christian.  She is a Harvard Divinity School graduate and a professor of religious studies at Michigan State.  In Saving Sex: Sexuality and Salvation in American Evangelicalism, she surveys a variety of evangelical books, web sites, and sermons to examine "the relationship between sexuality and salvation in American evangelicalism."  The book is a revision and expansion of two articles published in scholarly journals.

DeRogatis gathered a wide variety of evangelical publications on dating, marriage, and sex to do a sort of sociological analysis of evangelical beliefs and practices.  She found common themes that will be unsurprising to evangelicals, primarily "that heterosexual sex is holy and natural, is sanctioned by God, and should be practiced in marriage."  DeRogatis's tone of ostensible academic detachment often comes across as arrogant and mocking, especially in her descriptions of purity pledges and the abstinence movement.  Yes, some of it sounds silly, especially as she describes it, but what is her alternative?  Endorsing sexual activity among teens doesn't seem like a good option.

The mocking continues as she discusses manuals for married couples.  She sees them as simplistic, medically insufficient and naive, and too male-oriented.  Responding to the claims of the purity movement and the sex manuals, she facetiously asks, "If sex within a sanctified marriage is fabulous, why do evangelicals continue to buy books about sexual technique and practices?  Clearly, many born-again married Christians believe that they should be sexually satisfied, but they need instructions."

In spite of her apparent biases, DeRogatis does do a nice job of surveying the mainstream Christian literature. However, she spends an inordinate amount of time on a couple of fringes.  There are plenty of Christians who endorse and enjoy having large families, and discourage any means of preventing conception, but she tends to focus on those at the extreme end of the spectrum.  Even more troubling is the amount of space she gives to one book that discusses "sexually transmitted demons," actual spiritual beings who "travel through fluid such as blood and semen" and are passed through generations.  I can safely say that anyone who holds this view is in a tiny minority among evangelicals.

I'm not sure what DeRogatis was attempting to accomplish or demonstrate with this book.  It will offend many evangelicals who don't like to be portrayed as unenlightened or boorish.  It will affirm mainstream Christians and nonreligious people who think evangelicals are unenlightened and boorish.  What she doesn't accomplish is offering any alternative.  She doesn't recognize that evangelicals are very aware of their own sinfulness, the need to protect themselves and their children from the destructive effects of sin, and the hope that God offers for healing and restoration when sexual boundaries are crossed.  That is what evangelicals believe about saving sex: it's a gift from God that we, in our sinfulness, frequently misuse, but that God wants to restore and redeem in us.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!