The Sex Obsession: Perversity and Possibility in American Politics. By Janet R. Jakobsen
In The Sex Obsession, Janet R. Jakobsen offers a masterful analysis of a question that has drawn the attention of many commentators on US religions: “Why sex?” Why, as Jakobsen puts it at the outset, “are gender and sexuality such riveting public policy concerns in the United States?” (1). Foreshado...
| Published in: | Journal of the American Academy of Religion |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Review |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2021
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| In: |
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Year: 2021, Volume: 89, Issue: 2, Pages: 749-752 |
| Further subjects: | B
Book review
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In The Sex Obsession, Janet R. Jakobsen offers a masterful analysis of a question that has drawn the attention of many commentators on US religions: “Why sex?” Why, as Jakobsen puts it at the outset, “are gender and sexuality such riveting public policy concerns in the United States?” (1). Foreshadowing her argument, she goes on to remind readers that “the usual answer may be summarized: ‘Because religion’” (1). The usual answer is not what Jakobsen offers.Instead, Jakobsen takes up in turn four different answers to her opening question—religion, morality and the material, the social, and stasis—arguing that there is no single answer to this question and suggesting that the question itself may misdirect our analysis in its (over)simplicity. Instead, Jakobsen introduces the metaphor of the kaleidoscope to help readers understand the interrelated forces that maintain what she terms “mobility for stasis” (e.g., 19) in the United States and that therefore prevent the creation of greater justice. In this kaleidoscope, religion continues to have a significant presence, but it can no more be brought truthfully to the fore as a sole cause of injustice than can any of the other elements Jakobsen juggles with such agility. This tracing of religion not as a solitary force in justice issues, even with regard to sex, but rather as one of an interlocked set of forces is precisely why this book is of great importance to religious studies. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4585 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American Academy of Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfab040 |