David Rosen Writes

on sex, politics & American life

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Sex Matters

The following are articles I’ve published — with links — over the last decade that explore the issue of sex, politics and American life.

2022

  • Gender Nonconformity: Further Erosion of Patriarchy, CounterPunch, October 13, 2022.

2021

  • Republican Revenge: Targeting Gender Nonconforming Children, CounterPunch, April 8, 2021.
  • Atlanta Shooting: Sex, Race & the Politics of Repression, CounterPunch, March 24, 2021.
  • The Culture Wars Continue: Biden Takes on Abortion, CounterPunch, February 19, 2021.

2020

  • Fundamentalist Christians, Sex & the Supreme Court, Medium, October 20, 2020.
  • Kennedy, Sex & Prostitutes, Medium, October 12, 2020.
  • Donald Trump, Sex & Prostitutes, Medium, October 4, 2020.
  • The Dildo: A Short History of a Long Story, Medium, September 26, 2020.
  • The Sex Industry in the Time of Covid-19, Medium, September 24, 2020.
  • Easy Target:  Trump’s Attack on Transgender People, CounterPunch, August 7, 2020.
  • Coronavirus and the Increase in Domestic Violence, CounterPunch, May 1, 2020.
  • Sex Life in the Time of the 21st-Century Plaque, CounterPunch, April 27, 2020.
  • Abortion & the 2020 Election, CounterPunch, March 11, 2020.
  • Targeting Gender Nonconforming Children, CounterPunch, February 7, 2020.

2019

  • Dialectics of Postmodern Sexual Identity, CounterPunch, December 3, 2019.
  • Epstein Story Continues to Unravel, CounterPunch, November 8, 2019.
  • Evangelicals, Abstinence, Abortion & the Mainstreaming of Sex, CounterPunch, September 20, 2019.
  • The Likely End to Roe v Wade, CounterPunch, September 13, 2019.
  • The End of Roe v. Wade: Inside the Right’s Plan to Destroy Legal Abortionby Robin Marty and Jessica Mason Pieklo, New York Journal of Books, August 31, 2019, 2019.
  • Sex Work & the 2020 Presidential Campaign, CounterPunch, August 30, 2019.
  • Postmodern Sexual Identity, CounterPunch, August 2, 2019.
  • The Epstein Affair: Take #2, CounterPunch, July 10, 2019.
  • What Happened to Obscenity?, CounterPunch, June 28, 2019.
  • Florida’s Sex Wars: the Battle to Decriminalize Sex Work, CounterPunch, May 17, 2019.
  • Abortion Wars Get Meaner, CounterPunch, April 12, 2019.
  • Trafficking or Commercial Sex?: What Recent Exposes Reveal, CounterPunch, March 22, 2019,
  • Review, After the Rise and Fall of American Feminism by Lynn Chancer, New York Review of Books, February 5, 2019.
  • Roe: Preparing for the Worst, CounterPunch, January 24, 2019.
  • Review, Handbook for a Post-Roe America by Robin Marty, New York Journal of Books, January 21, 2019.
  • Sexual Predators in the Era of Trump, CounterPunch, January 11, 2019.

2018

  • December 17th: International Day to End Violence against Sex Workers, CounterPunch, December 17, 2018.
  • Conversion Therapy is Fake Medicine, Progressive, November 30, 2018.
  • The Abortion Battle Continues, CounterPunch, November 30, 2018.
  • It’s Time to Decriminalize Sex Work, CounterPunch, November 9, 2018.
  • Trump’s HHS & the Renewed Cultural Wars, CounterPunch, October 26, 2018.
  • Fake Abortion Centers: “We’re Fighting Satan,” CounterPunch, October 5, 2018.
  • When is a Kiss More Than a Kiss, CounterPunch, September 7, 2018.
  • It’s Time to Decriminalize Sex Work, The Progressive, August 4, 2018.
  • Prostitution in the Age of Trump, CounterPunch, July 27, 2018.
  • Trump’s Supreme Court Pick Escalates America’s War on Sex, CounterPunch, July 20, 2018.
  • Lest We Forget:  Recalling the Second Culture Wars, CounterPunch, June 29, 2018.
  • The Trial of Nina McCall: Sex, Surveillance, and the Decades-Long Government Plan to Imprison “Promiscuous” Women by Scott W. Stern, New York Journal of Books, June 26, 2018.
  • Trump’s War on Sex, CounterPunch, June 22, 2018
  • Why Do Establishment Feminists Hate Sex Workers?, CounterPunch, June 15, 2018.
  • Thin Red Line: Flirting v Harassment, CounterPunch, May 9, 2018.
  • The War on Sex Trafficking: A Culture Wars’ Racket, CounterPunch, April 27, 2018.
  • Trump v. Kennedy: Presidential Sex and the Transformation of Shame, CounterPunch, April 13, 2018.
  • The Further Adventures of the President and the Porn Star, CounterPunch, March 22, 2018.
  • Donald Trump’s Pathetic Sex Life, CounterPunch, February 13, 2018.
  • From Moral Outrage to Moral Panic: the Limits of Public Rage, CounterPunch, January 29, 2018.

2017

  • Male Sexual Violence:  As American as Cherry Pie, CounterPunch, October 20, 2017.
  • Trump & the 21st Century Family, CounterPunch, October 10, 2017.
  • True Sex: The Lives of Trans Men at the Turn of the Twentieth Centuryby Emily Skidmore, New York Journal of Books, October 2, 2017.
  • “Bag-the-Fag”: Entrapping Sex Offenders,  CounterPunch, September 29, 2017.
  • What Gender?: The Evolving Definition of Sexual Identity, CounterPunch, September 15, 2017.
  • Do Americans Have a Right to Sexual Pleasure?,CounterPunch, September 1, 2017.
  • Sex Robots: The Sad Future of Sexual Fantasy, CounterPunch, August 25, 2017.
  • Trump & Sex: From Up-Market Hedonist to Down-Market Moralists, CounterPunch, August 11, 2017.
  • America’s Five Sex Panics, CounterPunch, July 21, 2017.
  • The Sex Offender: The 21stCentury Witch, CounterPunch, June 23, 2017
  • An End to Conversion Therapy?, CounterPunch, June 12, 2017.
  • The War on Sex, David M. Halperin and Trevor Hoppe, editors, New York Journal of Book, June 5, 2017
  • The Sexual State of the Nation: Less Sex, Higher Anxiety, CounterPunch, May 12, 2017.
  • Melania Trump: Another First Lady as Good Wife, CounterPunch, May 5, 2017.
  • Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America’s Origins to the Twenty-First Century, by Geoffrey R.  New York Journal of Books, April 11, 2017.
  • Why Did Trump Target Transgender Youth?, CounterPunch, March 24, 2017.
  • Respectability on Trial: Sex Crimes in New York City, 1900–1918,by Brian Donovan, New York Journal of Books, March 20, 2017.  
  • Sexual Violence: Who Perpetrates It & Who Suffers, CounterPunch, March 3, 2017.
  • Suspect Feedoms: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Cubanidad in New York, 1823-1957, by Nancy Raquel Mirabel, book review, New York Review of Books, February 13, 2017.
  • Return of the Repressed: Trump & the Renewal of the Culture Wars, CounterPunch, January 13, 2017.
  • Secrets of the Bible Belt: Trump, Porn & the Making of the New South, CounterPunch, January 6, 2017.

2016

  • Trump’s Hedonism vs. Pence’s Puritanism, CounterPunch, November 25, 2016.
  • New Conception of Sexual Violence, CounterPunch, November 11, 2016.
  • 16 And Not Pregnant: A Shift in the Culture War, AlterNet, November 7, 2016.
  • Was Bill Clinon the Most Sexist President?, CounterPunch,October 20, 2016.
  • What Happened to the Culture War?, CounterPunch, October 7, 2016.
  • Sex-Crime and Punishment, CounterPunch, September 9, 2016.
  • Love & Terror: Sex as a Weapon, CounterPunch, September 2, 2016.
  • The Great Fear: Miscegenation, Race “Pollution” and the 2016 Election, CounterPunch, August 19, 2016.
  • Meet Ela Darling:  The 21st Century’s First VR Porn Star, AlterNet, August 8, 2016.
  • Culture War & the 2016 Election, CounterPunch, August 5, 2016.
  • Birth-Control Wars: Two Centuries of Struggle, CounterPunch, June 29, 2016.
  • VR Sex:  The Future of Porn?, CounterPunch,  May 13, 2016.
  • Culture War Zombies: The Latest Anti-Gay Campaign, CounterPunch, April 8-10, 2016.
  • Donald Trump & the Crisis of Masculinity, CounterPunch, February 26-28, 2016.
  • 21stCentury Public Shaming, CounterPunch, February 19-21, 2016.
  • When Trump Confronted a Transsexual Beauty, CounterPunch, February 12-14, 2016.
  • New Dogs, Old Barks: The Culture Wars Recalibrate, CounterPunch, January 29-31, 2016.

2015

  • 16 and Pregnant:  Can Realty TV Promote Positive Social Change?, Documentary Television, September 1, 2015.
  • 4 Reasons to Decriminalize Prostitution, AlterNet, July 20, 2015.
  • Transsexuals & the U.S. Military:  One More Victory in the Culture War,CounterPunch,July 17, 2015.
  • From Stonewall to Seventy: A tribute to living a full life, 429magazine, April 22, 2015.
  • Thrill-Killer: Sexual Pathology and the Leather Fetish, 429magazine, April 21, 2015

2014

  • AIDS: Rise of Killer Virus. Documentary Television, November 30, 2014
  • HIV & Ebola & the Zoonoses Wars:  The Other Ecological Crisis.  CounterPunch, November 21-23, 2014.
  • Ambitious new documentary, airing on World AIDS Day, will trace origins of HIV.429magazine, November 26, 2014.
  • Sex Toy Industry Has Quietly Turned Into Multi-Billion-Dollar Business. AlterNet, November 18, 2014.
  • Point of No Return?:  Gay Marriage and the 2014 Elections.  CounterPunch, November 3, 2014.
  • Has the U.S. finally reached a tipping point with same-sex marriage?, 429magazine, Oct 14, 2014.
  • We are all sexters now: America’s favorite amateur porn, Salon,August 16, 2014
  • How Much Sexting Do Americans Do?:  Ask the British Surveillance State. AlterNet, March 21, 2014
  • Who’s a Virgin?: The Sexual Practices of Young Americans, CounterPunch, March 21-23, 2014.
  • Alienated Bodies: The Boom in Plastic Surgery, CounterPunch, March 7-9, 2014.
  • Incest Panic in America!: Woody Allen and the Oldest Taboo, CounterPunch, February 14-16, 2014.
  • Super Bowl Sex:  The Sex Trade and the Crisis of Masculinity, CounterPunch, January 31-February 2, 2014.

2013

  • Psychic Change: How Homosexuality Became Normalized. CounterPunch, December 6-8, 2013.
  • The Mainstreaming of Sexual Perversion:  The Fetish Has Become an Endangered Species.  CounterPunch, November 22-24, 2013.
  • The Unspoken Epidemic: 1 in 10 Young People Is A Victim of Sexual Violence.  CounterPunch, October 25-27, 2013.
  • Hell on Earth: Sexual Victimization of the Criminally Insane. CounterPunch, October 18-20, 2013.
  • Pawns in Their Game:  The Politics Sex of Trafficking, CounterPunch, September 20-22, 2013.
  • Politics of Impotence: The Crisis of the Imperial Penis, CounterPunch, September 20-22, 2013.
  • Trading Flesh for Cash:  Inside the Strip Club.  AlterNet, August 8, 2013.
  • Sex Crime Charade: Why Have Prostitution Arrests Dropped by 50 Percent?  CounterPunch, August 2-4, 2013.
  • Could Porn Be Censored in America?AlterNet, July 31, 2013
  • A Tale of Two Pols:  Carlos Danger v. Beau James.  CounterPunch, July 26-28, 2013
  • The Flesh Trade:  Sex Work in America.  AlterNet, July 18, 2013.
  • New Pornographers Claim Their Work Is Ethical, Feminist and ‘Sex-Positive,’ But Will It Sell?AlterNet, July 4, 2013.
  • sex, lies and the great recession: What’s the Sexual Health of the Nation?  CounterPunch, June 21-23, 2013.
  • Is the Rise of Filthy Gonzo Porn Actually Dangerous, Or Are People Overreacting? AlterNet, June 7, 2013.
  • Is Success Killing the Porn Industry?AlterNet, May 27, 2013.
  • Weiner Redux:  Political Rehabilitation & the End of the Culture Wars. CounterPunch, May 23, 2013.
  • How the Women of Good Vibrations and Babeland Have Helped to Liberate Female Orgasms.AlterNet, April 18, 2013.
  • Genital Casualties:  Military Failure & the Crisis in Masculinity, CounterPunch, April 12-14, 2013.
  • Amazon Sells 60,000 Sex Toys and Related Products?:  Welcome to Sex 4.0. AlterNet, March 22, 2013.
  • What the $15 Billion Sex Toy Industry Tells Us About Sexuality Today. AlterNet,March 8, 2013.
  • End of the Culture Wars?: Is the Christian Right’s Fury Spent For Now?  CounterPunch, January 25-27, 2013.

2012

  • Pregnant Women are NOT Incubators!: It’s Time to End the Right’s Campaign Against Women, CounterPunch, December 28-30, 2012.
  • The Return of Infidelity: The Last Frontier in the Culture Wars?, CounterPunch, November 12, 2012
  • Inside the Gulag:  Rape in America’s Prisons, CounterPunch, October 12-14, 2012
  • Passion, Perversion and Politics:  The Folsom Street Fair and the 2012 Election, CounterPunch, October 5-7, 2012.
  • The New White Slave Trade:  The Truth About Sex Trafficking,CounterPunch,August 24-26, 2012.
  • The Other Sex War:  Porn, Sex Toys & Consensual Adult Get-Togethers, CounterPunch, June 15-17, 2012.
  • Paying the Price: The Sexual Politics of Poverty. CounterPunch, May 11-13, 2012.
  • Enforcing the Culture Wars:  The State as an Instrument of Sexual Repression.  CounterPunch, April 13-15, 2012.
  • JFK’s latest extramarital affair and the 2012 election. CounterPunch, February 22, 2012.
  • Sin, Sex and South Carolina:  Culture Wars in the 2012 Election.  CounterPunch,January 20-22, 2012.
  • Lest We Forget:  Mitt Romney: Banker and Pornographer, CounterPunch,January 13-15, 2012.

2011

  • Shame of the Nation:  Sexual Violence in America, CounterPunch,December 23-25, 2011.
  • Sex Scandals & Cover-Ups:  Waiting for the Second Shoe to Fall, CounterPunch,November, 15, 2011.
  • AIDS at 30:  Things Will Likely Get Worse for the Most Vulnerable. CounterPunch,July 8-10, 2011.
  • Weiner Roast:  The Politics of Narcissism.  CounterPunch, June 15, 2011.
  • Arnold’s Decade of Deceit:  Schwarzenegger’s Sexcapades and the Plight of the GOP, CounterPunch, May 27-29, 2011.
  • Lust Murder:  Prostitutes as Victims of Throwaway Capitalism,CounterPunch, April 15-17, 2011.
  • A New Dark Ages:  Sexual Health and the Republican Counter-Revolution, CounterPunch, April 8 – 10, 2011.
  • Condoms and Skins:  America’s Changing Sexual Appetites, CounterPunch, February 25-26, 2011.

2010

  • Sinner Men: The Rehabilitation of the Sex Sinner, CounterPunch, February 18, 2010.
  • The New Morality Police:  Corporate Censors Flex Their Muscles, CounterPunch, March 5, 2010.
  • Third Front: Sexual Assault in the U.S. Military, CounterPunch, March 19-21, 2010.
  • Selective Journalism?: The New York Times vs. the Pope, CounterPunch, April 16, 2010.
  • The New Abortion Wars:  Recalling the Lessons of the 1920s, CounterPunch, June 25-27, 2010.
  • Tea Party Panic:  The Fear of Sex & Race & Interracial Sex, CounterPunch, September 17, 2010.
  • The Sexy Sisters:  Tea Party Infatuation with the “New” Republican Woman,CounterPunch, October 15, 2010.
  • Conservatives’ Big Hypocrisy:  Turning Women Candidates (Who Are Anti-Sex and Anti-Woman) into Sex Symbols, AlterNet,October 15, 2010.

2009

  • Sexting:  Latest Innovation in Porn, CounterPunch, March 25, 2009.
  • Sexual Torture, Yet Again:  We Will Ever Know the Complete Truth?,CounterPunch, May 15-17, 2009.
  • Porn Wars:  One Step Forward, But Too Many Steps Backward in the Culture Wars, CounterPunch, May 22, 2009.
  • Cry, Hypocrite, Cry: Politicians & America’s Grand Tradition of Sex Scandals,CounterPunch, June 26, 2009.
  • Prison Rape as Policy: The Domestic War on Terror, CounterPunch, July 8, 2009.
  • System Failure in the Garrido Case:  Sex Offenders, Media Hype and the Bureaucracy, CounterPunch, September 18, 2009.
  • Bankrupt Morality:  The Staying Power of Republican Sinners, CounterPunch, October 8, 2009.
  • America’s Failing Sexual Health:  An Unacknowledged Crisis, CounterPunch, December 1, 2009.
  • 10-Plus-1 Top Sports Sex Scandals:  All’s Fair On & Off the Playing Field, CounterPunch, December 4, 2009
  • Sexual Politics in the Age of Obama:  Year 1 Assessment, CounterPunch, December 22, 2009.

2008

  • The Great Disappearing Act:  The Presidential Candidates and the Politics of Sex, CounterPunch, January 23, 2008.
  • Playing the Race Card:  Barack Obama, Love Across the Race Line and Political Dirty Tricks, Counterpunch, February 27, 2008.
  • Rape as an Instrument of Total War:  Women, Rape & Modernity’s Self-Negation, CounterPunch,April 4, 2008.
  • The New Texas Two-Step:  Polygamy & State Regulation of Sexual Life, CounterPunch, April 19, 2008.
  • Sexual Terrorism: The Sadistic Side of Bush’s War on Terror, CounterPunch, May 13, 2008.
  • Looking for Safe Harbor:  Teen Prostitution in America, CounterPunch, August 2-3, 2008.
  • The Culture Wars Are Over:  But Culture Warriors Still Terrorize America, CounterPunch,August 23-24, 2008.
  • The GOP’s Outed All-Stars,CounterPunch,August 29, 2008.
  • One Billion Pills Later:  The Viagra Decade & the Crisis of Masculinity, CounterPunch,September 20, 2008.
  • The Great Fear:  The Sexual Politics of Sarah Palin, CounterPunch, September 27, 2008.
  • A New Sexual Agenda:  Nine Proposals for President-Elect Obama & the New Democratic Congress to End the Culture Wars, CounterPunch, November 28, 2008.

2007

  • The Teen Abstinence-Only Crusade:  Bush’s Domestic Sex Policy,CounterPunch, January 12, 2007.
  • Pay-to-Play:  The Double-Life of Prostitution in America, CounterPunch, January 27, 2007.
  • To Cut or Not to Cut:  Male Circumcision in America, CounterPunch,March 2, 2007.
  • An American Obituary:  Anne Nicole Smith and the Exploitation of Nature, CounterPunch,March 24-25, 2007.
  • The New Disappeared:  Sex Offenders, Civil Confinement & the Resurrection of Evil, CounterPunch, May 10, 2007.
  • The Hidden Cost of War:  American Women Warriors & the War on Terror,CounterPunch, June 23-24, 2007.
  • Moral Hypocrisy, Yet Again:  The Christian Right, Sexual Scandal & the Sexual Pleasures of the Courtesan, CounterPunch, July 17, 2007.
  • America’s Top Ten Political Sex Scandals:  James Buchanan, the First Gay President, and Other Tales of Sex and Power in Washington, CounterPunch, August 1, 2007.
  • The Case of Genarlow Wilson:  Racism, Justice & Age-of-Consent Laws in America, CounterPunch, August 14, 2007.
  • The GOP Outed All-Stars:  The Forced Freeing of Gay Men from the Republican Closet,CounterPunch, August 29, 2007.
  • Slugger Sex:  Athletes, Violence & Male Sexuality, CounterPunch,September 22, 2007.
  • Women Warriors & the War on Terror, Z-magazine, October 1, 2007.
  • Deviants on Parade:  Folsom Street Fair & America’s 4thSexual Revolution, CounterPunch, October 20, 2007.
  • The Scarlet Hypocrites:  Republican Politicians, Christian Conservatives & the All-American Sin of Adultery,CounterPunch,November 17, 2007.
  • Senior Sex:  The Real Sex Life of Aging Americans,CounterPunch, November 24, 2007.
  • Porn in the Closet:  Mitt Romney’s Secret Life as a Pornographer,CounterPunch,December 20, 2007.

2006

  • Bush’s Foreign Sex Policy:  Imperialism’s Second Front,CounterPunch, December 22, 2006.
  • Sex Toys:  Made in China, CounterPunch,December 2, 2006.
  • Those Who Preach in Glass Houses:  Ted Haggard & the Eclipse of Evangelical Fury, CounterPunch, November 15, 2006.
  • Perversions of Power:  Mark Foley and the Bush Administration, CounterPunch,October 27, 2006.
  • Sex Panic on Capitol Hill:  Rep. Foley & the Politics of Sex in America, CounterPunch, October 10, 2006.

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DAVID ROSEN is a widely published author whose books include
Sex, Sin & Subversion: The Transformation of 1950s New York’s Forbidden into America’s New Normal (2016); Sex Scandal America: Politics & the Ritual of Public Shaming (2009); Off-Hollywood: The Making & Marketing of Independent Films (1991), originally commissioned by the Sundance Institute and the Independent Feature Project. He is author of many scholarly articles, book reviews and popular pieces on media-tech, telecom, politics, sex and American life.

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