Sexuality: Recommended Reading

The greater any gift is, the greater it can be perverted and distorted. This is especially true of the gift of human sexuality. Its abuse and misuse seems to know no bounds today. Some 65 years ago C. S. Lewis wrote in his important volume, Mere Christianity the following incisive words:

“Our warped natures, the devils who tempt us, and all the contemporary propaganda for lust, combine to make us feel that the desires we are resisting are so ‘natural’, so ‘healthy’, and so reasonable, that it is almost perverse and abnormal to resist them. Poster after poster, film after film, novel after novel, associate the idea of sexual indulgence with the ideas of healthy, normality, youth, frankness, and good humour. Now this association is a lie. Like all powerful lies, it is based on a truth—the truth, acknowledged above, that sex in itself (apart from the excesses and obsessions that have grown round it) is ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’, and all the rest of it. The lie consists in the suggestion that any sexual act to which you are tempted at the moment is also healthy and normal. Now this, on any conceivable view, and quite apart from Christianity, must be nonsense. Surrender to all our desires obviously leads to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment, and everything that is the reverse of healthy, good humour, and frankness.”

How much more so is this true today. With human sexuality being so utterly ravaged today, we need to remind ourselves about what this great gift was intended for. We need a return to some sexual normalcy here. The following reading list might be of some help as we seek to rediscover what sex is supposed to be all about in a sex-saturated culture.

The volumes here deal with a number of related topics: sex education, pornography, the sexual revolution, the case for abstinence and faithfulness, and so on. They provide us reminders about what human sexuality was meant to be, and how far we have departed from the designer’s good purposes and plans for it.

Alcorn, Randy, Christians in the Wake of the Sexual Revolution. IVP, 1985.
Anchell, Melvin, What’s Wrong With Sex Education? Human Life International, 1991.
Ankerberg, John and John Weldon, The Facts on Sex Education. Harvest House Publishers, 1993.
Ankerberg, John and John Weldon, The Myth of Safe Sex. Moody Press, 1993.
Belleville, Linda, Sex, Lies, and the Truth. Wipf & Stock, 2010.
Budziszewski, J, On the Meaning of Sex. ISI Books, 2012.
Court, John, Law, Light and Liberty. Lutheran Publishing House, 1975.
Court, John, Pornography: A Christian Critique. IVP, 1980.
De Marco, Donald, Sex and the Illusion of Freedom. Mission Press, 1981.
Dines, Gail, Robert Jenson and Ann Russo, Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality. Routledge, 1997.
Dixon, Patrick, The Rising Price of Love: The True Cost of the Sexual Revolution. Hodder & Stoughton, 1995.
Donovan, Charles and Robert Marshall, Blessed Are the Barren: The Social Policy of Planned Parenthood. Ignatius Press, 1991.
Eberstadt, Mary, Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution. Ignatius, 2012.
Eden, Dawn, The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On. Thomas Nelson, 2006.
Eichel, Edward and Judith Reisman, Kinsey, Sex and Fraud: The Indoctrination of a People. Huntington House, 1990.
Engel, Randy, Sex Education: The Final Plague. Human Life International, 1989.
Grant, Ellen, The Bitter Pill: How Safe is the ‘Perfect Contraceptive’? Elm Tree Books, 1985.
Grant, George, Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood. Wolgemuth and Hyatt, 1988.
Grant, George, Immaculate Deception: The Shifting Agenda of Planned Parenthood. Moody Press, 1996.
Grant, George, Killer Angel: A Biography of Planned Parenthood’s Founder Margaret Sanger. Ars Vitae Press, 1995.
Grenz, Stanley, Sexual Ethics: An Evangelical Perspective. Westminster John Knox Press, 1990, 1997.
Grossman, Miriam, You’re Teaching My Child What?: A Physician Exposes the Lies of Sex Ed and How They Harm Your Child. Regnery, 2009.
Hall, Laurie, An Affair of the Mind. Focus on the Family, 1996.
Heath, Graham, The Illusory Freedom: The Intellectual Origins and Social Consequences of the Sexual Revolution. William Heinemann, 1978.
Heimbach, Daniel, True Sexual Morality: Recovering Biblical Standards for a Culture In Crisis. Crossway Books, 2004.
Hollinger, Dennis, The Meaning of Sex: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life. Baker Book House, 2009.
Jones, E. Michael, Degenerate Moderns: Modernity as Rationalized Sexual Behavior. Ignatius Press, 1993.
Kirk, Jerry, The Mind Polluters. Thomas Nelson, 1985.
Kirk, Randy, A Generation Betrayed: It’s Time To End the Sexual Revolution. Huntington House, 1993.
Layden, Mary Anne, The Social Costs of Pornography: A Statement of Findings and Recommendations. The Witherspoon Institute, 2010.
Lederer, Laura, ed., Take Back the Night: Women on Pornography. William Morrow, 1980.
Levy, Ariel, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. Free Press, 2005.
Magnet, Myron, Modern Sex: Liberation and Its Discontents. Ivan R. Dee, 2001.
Marshner, Connie, Decent Exposure: How to Teach Your Children About Sex. Legacy Communications, 1988, 1994.
McDowell, Josh, The Myths of Sex Education. Here’s Life Publishers, 1990.
McIlhaney, Joe S., Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children. Northfield Publishing, 2008.
McIlhaney, Joe S., Sexuality and Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Baker Book House, 1990.
Meeker, Meg, Your Kids at Risk: How Teen Sex Threatens Our Sons and Daughters. Regnery Publishing, 2007.
Minnery, Tom, ed., Pornography: A Human Tragedy. Tyndale House, 1986.
Mohler, Albert, Desire and Deceit: The Real Cost of the New Sexual Tolerance. Multnomah Books, 2008.
Mosbacker, Barrett, ed., School Based Clinics: And Other Critical Issues in Public Education. Crossway Books, 1987.
O’Leary, Dale, The Gender Agenda: Redefining Equality. Vital Issues Press, 1997.
Paul, Pamela, Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families. Times Books, 2005.
Reisman, Judith, Sexual Sabotage. WND Books, 2010.
Reisman, Judith, “Soft Porn” Plays Hardball.  Huntington House Publishers, 1991.
Richard, Dinah, Has Sex Education Failed Our Teenagers? A Research Report. Focus on the Family Publishing, 1990.
Roback Morse, Jennifer, Smart Sex: Finding Life-long Love In A Hook-up World. Spence Publishing, 2005.
Ruff, Robert, Aborting Planned Parenthood. New Vision Press, 1988.
Russell, Diana, Dangerous Relationships: Pornography, Misogyny and Rape. Sage Publishing, 1998.
Schlafly, Phyllis, ed. Pornography’s Victims. Pere Marquette Press, 1987.
Scruton, Roger, Sexual Desire: A Philosophical Investigation. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986.
Shalit, Wendy, A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue. Free Press, 2000.
Shapiro, Ben, Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future. Regnery Publishing, 2005.
Simon, Caroline, Bringing Sex Into Focus. IVP, 2012.
Sobran, Joseph, Single Issues: Essays on the Crucial Social Questions. The Human Life Press, 1983.
Struthers, William, Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain. IVP, 2010.
Wetzel, Richard, Sexual Wisdom. Proctor Publications, 1998.
Williams, Nigel, False Images: Telling the Truth About Pornography. Kingsway Publications, 1991.
Wilson-Thomas, Claire and Nigel Williams, Laid Bare: A Path Through the Pornography Maze. Hodder & Stoughton, 1996.
Winner, Lauren, Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity. Brazos Press, 2006.
Zetterstein, Rolf, Sex, Lies and the Truth. Tyndale House Publishers, 1994.

Happy reading.

[1161 words]