Praise for Saving Sex

Now Featured at the Patheos Book Club
Saving Sex
Sexuality and Salvation in American Evangelicalism
By Amy DeRogatis

What People Are Saying

"From sexually transmitted demons to father-daughter purity balls to the use of trampolines as sexual props, Amy DeRogatis is a sympathetic, critical, and engaging guide through the world of evangelical sex manuals. She provides a vivid and nuanced account of how evangelicals convert secular sex advice for godly purposes and understand sex as part of salvation. This is an indispensable contribution to studies of evangelicalism and sexuality in America."
— Tanya Erzen, author of Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement

"Fascinating from beginning to end, this book adds greatly to the understanding of Evangelical life today. Amy DeRogatis examines the almost overlooked subject of conservative Protestant heterosexuality. Putting sex on the scholarly agenda in a compelling way, she makes a fundamental contribution to the materialization of Religious Studies in general, and of Protestantism in particular. Long dismissed as prudish and disembodied, Protestantism is rediscovered here as sexually engaged and self-aware."
— David Morgan, Professor and Department Chair of Religious Studies, Duke University

"Resisting the temptation of a playful romp through evangelical marriage manuals, Amy DeRogatis seriously engages the sexual ambivalences of born-again Christianity, particularly the insistent pursuit of both purity and pleasure. Contemporary evangelicals have been instructed to approach sex as if their salvation—as well as that of the wider culture—depends on its proper performance. Saving Sex is an eye-opening examination of just how extensive and detailed that instruction has been."
— Leigh Eric Schmidt, Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor, Washington University in St. Louis