Making Sex Safe Again

A Review of the Sexual Revolution: History, Ideology, Power by Bishop Peter

In The Sexual Revolution: History, Ideology, Power, Peter Elliott, auxiliary bishop emeritus of the Catholic diocese of Melbourne, Australia, explains how a whole series of current cultural flashpoints, from abortion to pedophilia to sex trafficking to the porn industry, has its roots in the movement we’ve come to call the sexual revolution. Why is hook-up culture practiced today? The sexual revolution. Why is “same-sex marriage” accepted today? The sexual revolution. Why does transgenderism seem plausible today? The sexual revolution.

Bishop Elliott shows how various streams of philosophy, technology, and patterns of living have converged to create an ongoing rolling revolution of sexual self-expression that has redefined both God and man and is now remaking societies around the globe. By situating names, terms, and ideas—names like Gramsci and Marcuse, terms like the Frankfurt School, and ideas like Queer Theory—in their historical context, he makes them understandable.

Breaking Down the Revolution

Bishop Elliott uncovers three core elements that make the revolution tick:

1. Rejection of God, at least a God who is involved in our lives.

2. A radically changed understanding of the nature of the human person.

3. Separation of human sexuality from fertility.

One of the book’s driving themes is how the growing focus on the individual and his “inner residing sexuality” has played out in each new iteration of the sexual revolution. Elliott points out that this emphasis on affirming “the sexual identity of the individual, in his mind, his emotions, desires, drives, and complexes  . . . is the power engine for the sexual revolution.” Homosexuality, for example, moved from being a behavior to being an identity and a lifestyle, and subsequent sexual identities and lifestyles have followed suit.

Elliott explains that when someone says, “I’m gay,” a more truthful response would be, “No, you are a man.” “Why,” he suggests asking, “define yourself by one element in your life—that you happen to have same-sex attraction?” Here, he strikes at a core tenet of the revolution—the identity issue, whereby people now identify themselves only by their sexual orientation. Doing so creates an “identity game [that is then] reinforced by ideological and political power.”

The framework Elliott sets up is a useful analytical tool for responding to each new phase of the sexual revolution as it emerges. It also tracks nicely with the trajectory of the psychologized, sexualized, and politicized self that Carl Trueman lays out in The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.

The Better Alternative

Having properly identified the upstream influences, Bishop Elliott then paints a picture of positive resistance to this new, sexualized world order by offering hopeful alternatives to counteract all three core elements and bring down the revolution. “We are called not to be reactive, but to be proactive.” This starts with reclaiming the family as a “mini church” and a “stronghold,” reconnecting love with sexuality, and recovering the mysterious splendor of sexed embodiment, with its generativity, self-giving, and complementarity.

Overall, The Sexual Revolution clarifies much of today’s sexual confusion and is a useful primer for everyone, from college students wanting to better understand the Christian sexual ethic to grandparents wanting to understand the cultural milieu their grandchildren have to navigate every day. Bishop Elliott’s conclusion is apt: we are “called to look forward confidently, beyond whatever afflicts our families in these times. In each home, we can quietly build the little communities of a new society, glowing with the culture of life and love.” And that is the best place to start.