Sex and God at Yale: Porn, Political Correctness, and a Good Education Gone Bad

Sex features more prominently than God in this critique of Ivy League culture from 2009 Yale graduate and conservative commentator Harden, author of National Review Online’s “Phi Beta Cons” column. Taking his inspiration from William F. Buckley’s seminal 1954 polemic, Man and God at Yale, Harden looks back to his college years to conclude that the campus’s permissive sexual culture, abetted by its liberal politics, has sapped the university of a once-firm dedication to “public-spiritedness.” Chief among his complaints is Yale’s raucous, semiannual Sex Week, particularly its involvement with sex toy and porn producers. Drawing on the work of antiporn activist Gail Dines, Harden argues that an inherently misogynistic industry deserves no place on a campus committed to feminist values. Other issues raised range from a student’s lurid plans for a performance art exhibit supposedly made from her own aborted fetuses to screenings of sexually explicit movies in language and film classes. While readers can admire Harden’s account of gaining admission to Yale after a rocky educational path and without the privileges enjoyed by many of his classmates, even those sympathetic to his case will find him lacking wit and persuasiveness. A foreword by his primary influence’s son, novelist Christopher Buckley, contains all of the rhetorical and verbal gusto missing from the book itself. Agent: Jon Sternfeld, Irene Goodman Agency. (Sept.)