Book Review
Sex & the Civilized
Civilizing Sex: On Chastity and the Common Good by Patrick Riley
Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 2000
(272 pages; $28.95, paper [available in the U.S. in May 2002])
reviewed by Angus J. L. Menuge
For some, the topic of chastity is rather like Ptolemaic astronomy: a fascinating relic of the unenlightened past. Hedonistic license is so mainstream that we find it even in the magazines publicly displayed at grocery stores. The mantra of sex education, “They’ll do it anyway,” is promoted as realism and compassion, rather than as cynical defeatism and irresponsible indifference to the mental, physical, and social carnage that results.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Angus J. L. Menuge is Professor of Philosophy at Concordia University Wisconsin, where he is associate director of the Cranach Institute (www.cranach.org). He has edited three books, including C. S. Lewis: Lightbearer in the Shadowlands, and has recently published Agents Under Fire: Materialism and the Rationality of Science (Rowman & Littlefield).
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on sex from the online archives
25.4—July/August 2012
The Corrosive & Far-Reaching Fallout of the Sexual Revolution by Anthony Esolen
31.6—November/December 2018
on the Church's Response to the Anti-marriage Tide by Diane Woerner
31.1—January/February 2018
Getting Sex Wrong Is a Foundational Error by James M. Kushiner
more from the online archives
19.8—October 2006
on the Good Father’s Quiet Desperation by Russell D. Moore
32.5—September/October 2019
Some Trivial Thoughts on the Study of Philosophy by Graeme Hunter
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
