Abstract
I began reading Moral Panics, Sex Panics just as the media had apparently exhausted Tiger Woods’ numerous infidelities, as salacious images of Rielle Hunter (mistress of former U.S. Senator John Edwards) saturated the mediascape, and Jessie James (then-husband of Academy Award winner Sandra Bullock) publically admitted to an affair with a tattooed exotic dancer. While none of these, “monogamy challenged” celebrities, nor the media frenzy surrounding them, represent moral or sex panic (in themselves, at least for now), the steady stream of sex scandal in contemporary media culture is an ever-present context for both thinking about the contents of Moral Panics, Sex Panics as well as the seemingly constant lascivious barrage of “sexual indignities” that saturate the media—a clear advantage to Gilbert Herdt’s edited collection, and one that I suspect will appeal to an even broader range of readers than perhaps intended.
Moral Panics, Sex Panics emerged organically from “presentations and subsequent conversations resulting from the major international conference Sexual Rights and Moral Panics, organized by the National Sexuality Resource Center and the Department of Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University in June 2005” (p. ix). Gilbert Herdt’s opening introductory chapter is an excellent overview of moral and sex panic and especially useful for students and scholars with a limited background in these classic and contemporary literatures. Herdt rightly points out that “as the studies in this book reveal, cultural reactions of such an extreme kind are not rare; in fact, they seem to be growing more frequent . . . [and] that moral panics in the United States are also becoming increasingly sexualized” (p. 2). Herdt lists a helpful set of sensitizing concepts—moral shock, great fear, moral campaigns, moral panic, sexual panic, and cultural anger—that allows a sharper, “more refined vocabulary” (p. 4) to distinguish the various social forms that surround panics (sexual or otherwise).
In Chapter Two, Diane di Mauro and Carole Joffe chronicle the rise of the Religious Right, their “political meddling and moral proscriptions,” and its “impact on sexuality policy in the United States”—and specifically using a case study analysis of abortion and sex education (p. 47). Di Mauro and Joffe directly address what is a common theme throughout the book: the rising prominence of the Religious Right since the 1970s and, especially, the fruition of their political power during the presidency of George W. Bush. The chapter is an excellent overview of recent abortion and sex education political history, and neatly frames the issues at stake.
Two chapters address the intersections of moral and sex panic with race and ethnicity. Cathy Cohen offers a unique and insightful analysis of “indigenous moral panics” among African Americans. Whereas classic literatures on moral panic assume “that much of the targeting, blaming, and shaming of a group comes from people external to the targeted group” Cohen convincingly dissects how and why black leaders are now increasingly a part of the public demonization of real or alleged black sexual behaviors, patterns or intimacy, and family structures (p. 108). From Bill Cosby, to Oprah, to Obama—from “down low” to images of poor young black people and their parents—Cohen links the indigenous moral panic of black elite to interests in protecting class mobility and, in so doing, challenges the presumed irrationality of moral panics. Saskia Eleonora Wieringa explores “postcolonial amnesia” in Indonesia and South Africa—how “the memories of certain sexual practices, cultures, and norms, specifically related to women’s sexual agency and same-sex practices got lost” (p. 205)—an amnesia that fuels present day moral panics that are built on manipulating fear.
Gary Dowsett’s chapter focuses on HIV/AIDS as an enduring moral panic and, specifically, how “HIV/AIDS speaks directly to our confusion about sex, and it especially brings into focus our decided ambivalence about homosexuality” (p. 130). Most interesting, Dowsett emphasizes a “moral economy” that is exposed in assertions of homophobia, a term that he provocatively suggests “is not very useful in understanding the positioning of gay and homosexually active men in terms of HIV/AIDS . . . because it does not tell us how all this occurs” (p. 133). Dowsett contends that asserting homophobia in the HIV/AIDS discourse “explains nothing about its construction as a social dynamic, and then, even if we could explain that, how it might be countered . . . it contains no strategy for defeat. Therein lies the uselessness of the term”—a provocative critique indeed!
Gilbert Herdt’s chapter on gay marriage revisits many of the themes from an earlier chapter on the rise of the Religious Right. Herdt primarily chronicles “the highly successful use of ‘cultural anger’,” especially as it “led to the ascendance of George W. Bush and, in particular, the Republican victory in the 2004 presidential election” (p.171–2). Although a relatively short section of the chapter, Herdt is among the few to provide commentary, analysis, and critique of so-called “activist judges”—a phrase that only recently “began to appear in the rhetoric of sexual conservatives” but continues to deploy considerable political capital (p. 180).
Janice Irvine concludes the book with the most exceptional and solidly sociological chapter of them all. Unfortunately, it is also a reprint of her 2008 article in GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. Nonetheless, the chapter fits well and belongs in this volume. Irvine rightly points out that, for several reasons, scholars have been inattentive to the emotions of sex panics and convincingly argues that public emotion is a powerful catalyst. Drawing from theories of emotion and, most notably, a dramaturgical framework for positing public emotions as scripted and situationally produced, Irvine grounds her analysis of “transient feelings” in the context of her field research on conflicts over sexuality education. In contrast to much of the rest of the book which tends to focus on politics, discourse, and rhetoric, Irvine keenly focuses on interactions at an embodied and explosively emotional level that may, perhaps, be the most readily observable characteristic of sex panic.
The subtitle of the book, Fear and the Fight Over Sexual Rights, is especially important to potential readers. Sexual rights are a major theme throughout the volume and, consequently, lend favor to certain topics over others. Indeed, the bulk of the book examines, grounds, or chronicles, the substantives areas of sex education, HIV/AIDS, reproductive rights (especially abortion), sexual demonization of racial and ethnic minorities, gay marriage, and GLBTQ issues in general (with emphasis on the GL). The upside is that these serious, enduring, and tragic moral and sex panics receive justifiably lengthy treatment. The downside is that, while sex panics are short or long term, more or less serious (as some note, including Herdt in his introduction), none of the more ephemeral (if not absurd) sex panics get anything more than passing commentary. For example, the book is mute on alleged Satanic ritual abuse of children, Internet sex and pornography, Internet predators (made especially infamous by Dateline’s popular series “To Catch a Predator”), sex panics in the priesthood or the Boy Scouts of America, the strangely explosive (if short-lived) panic surrounding the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” during the XXXVIII Superbowl half-time show—even the enduring panics surrounding pornography receive virtually no attention at all. It is obvious that the book intends to emphasize aspects of sexual rights—and that will appeal to many readers. Some topics were oversaturated (sex education, gay marriage, HIV/AIDS, and abortion) and the book ignored a more general treatment of sex panics by omitting those that are not directly related to sexual rights.
The Religious Right, the 2004 U.S. election, and George W. Bush’s administration are under enormous scrutiny in almost every chapter—each taking nearly as many shots as a rural road sign, and not at all undeserved. I doubt most readers will take offense, and it is inevitable that a book of this sort will appeal mostly to the choir (i.e., this book is unlikely to be “recommended reading” for the Moral Majority). The detailed review of recent political history is important to understand these events—especially if we wish to resist or undo them. However, the shelf-life of Moral Panics, Sex Panics might have been compromised a bit given so much emphasis on the 2004 presidential election and the presidency of George W. Bush—after all, we are well into Obama’s term in office. Regardless, the book is well-written, accessible, a valuable resource, and recommended to students and colleagues alike.