Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

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Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

by Kenneth Cain, Andrew Thomson, Heidi Postlewait

4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 · rating details · 1,420 ratings · 209 reviews

It's the early 1990s and three young people are looking to change their lives, and perhaps also the world. Attracted to the ambitious global peacekeeping work of the UN, Andrew, Ken and Heidi's paths cross in Cambodia, from where their fates are to become inextricably bound. Over the coming years, their stories interweave through countries such as Rwanda, Bosnia, Somalia a...more

Paperback, 352 pages

Published February 3rd 2005 by Ebury Press (first published June 1st 2004)

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Feb 21, 2009 Kate rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have been a little obsessed with this book for the last week or so. The three authors worked on peacekeeping missions (all were in Haiti at one point or another) and wrote about their daily lives during this period. Living under such intense circumstances leads to some interesting/scary/funny stories. It was fascinating to read how their perceptions of peacekeeping changed over time, from the idealist to the realist really. I also really appreciated the commentary on the UN and its ability to...more

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Aug 29, 2007 Colleen rated it 3 of 5 stars

I came to this book grappling with my own issues of having volunteered abroad for the "greater good". Are you really "helping" people? Can you really "help" without being an imperialist? And what happens when you develop relationships, either as friends or lovers? This book was helpful because I could journey with the writers as they explored some of these questions themselves. It's not a particularly good book, per se, but I would recommend it to someone grappling with similar tensions.

At the s...more

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Aug 15, 2007 Mollie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Contrary to what the title suggests, this is not a funny, lewd book. The authors are UN staff, who in various circuitous ways, end up as a tight trio in Cambodia and serving in missions in Rwanda, Haiti and Liberia in particularly bloody, and probably avoidable, times. These are their personal accounts in journal-like entries that bounce from person to person.

The UN made a big stink about denouncing it because it was "unfairly" critical; the mainstream press and non-profit orgs got excited abou...more

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Jul 10, 2007 Anthony rated it 4 of 5 stars

Incredible. Three UN aid workers - one trained as a lawyer at Harvard, a doctor from New Zealand, and a divorcee from New York and homeless shelter worker - pen their memories of life on the front lines of conflict zones in the 90's. The book starts in Cambodia, where Dr. Andrew has been providing medical care for victims of the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror, and the first mission for Ken and Heidi as UN peacekeeper staff. The book follows them through Haiti, Rwanda, Bosnia, Liberia, and Ethiopi...more

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Nov 05, 2011 Ken Deshaies rated it 5 of 5 stars

Most of us learn about the more daring aspects of life through the news media, via gossip and through friendly conversation. It takes a rare breed to launch into learning where guts leads a truly inquisitive nature, where danger is the morning meal. The authors are three of those people. Unsettled or unhappy with just living out their professions at home, they each join the U.N. at a young age as volunteer peacekeepers. What follows is staccato learning, being thrust into situations where they f...more Most of us learn about the more daring aspects of life through the news media, via gossip and through friendly conversation. It takes a rare breed to launch into learning where guts leads a truly inquisitive nature, where danger is the morning meal. The authors are three of those people. Unsettled or unhappy with just living out their professions at home, they each join the U.N. at a young age as volunteer peacekeepers. What follows is staccato learning, being thrust into situations where they forsake apprenticeships for quick thinking and accelerated decision making. Gripping narrative that compels attention, even as you may be revolted by what you witness through the narration.

You grow to love Ken, Heidi and Andrew as they make it through their first mission - overseeing the first democratic elections in Cambodia following the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge - and accept further missions in Mogadishu, Haiti, Bosnia, Rwanda and Liberia. In each case, they follow events involving genocide, mass killings of ethnic populations. In many cases, those killings continue while the U.N. volunteers are trusted with documenting the carnage, and they must deal with the leaders of rebel groups engaged in the obliteration of life. At the same time, they must handle internal politics and find ways to make progress in spite of often insipid leaders of their own.

They never portray themselves as heroic, but rather, you get a close-up inspection of their inner thoughts, their doubts about the work in which they are engaged, their inability at times to comprehend and absorb the hell on earth they are required to witness. Quick to document also the failures of the U.N. and the U.S. in preventing further carnage, they fault administrations for abandoning missions when a simple surge would have save thousands of lives. Be happy that you can learn about our worldwide missions without having to participate on the ground. The days are fraught with immediate danger, and often it is only quick wits that allow them to return to base alive.

Ten years in the heat of battle makes for a dramatic coming of age. The "sex" part of the stories, while never graphic, is realistically and honestly characterized as immediate, providing relief from the ultimate stress of their daily work. The authors convey their tales in first person, and in rotation, so you get a real sense of how each is handling (or not handling) events independent of each other. After Cambodia, while they occasionally connect in one country or another, their assignments are often on opposite sides of the world.

This is non-fiction that reads like an historical novel, entertaining, enlightening and full of tension and mystery. (less)

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Oct 26, 2011 Marion Grace Woolley rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I spent two years in Rwanda. In the Programme Office, one wall was devoted, floor-to-ceiling, to books that people had brought with them or received in aid parcels from home. Every now and then something so special would come along that people would literally write their names on a list to read it.

This was possibly the most widely read book of my time overseas. It tells the story of three American civilians who wind up working for the UN during one of their most volatile periods in history. It c...more

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Sep 28, 2011 Patrick McCoy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-autobiography, non-fiction

Emergency Sex is a book that I've wanted to read for a long time since I read a review of it online. It was written by three people who initially met in Cambodia in the early 90s during the UN inspired elections following the fall of the Khmer Rouge. After that time they found themselves in some of the other humanitarian hotspots throughout the world: Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, Liberia, and Bosnia. They each give first hand accounts of their experiences in these hostile areas. There are two America...more

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Apr 09, 2011 Jeffrey Otto rated it 3 of 5 stars

Ken Cain, Heidi Postlewait, and Dr. Andrew Thomson have given their readers a realistic account of something most will never have to see with their own eyes, let alone experience in person. From Nigerian soldiers murdering nine year old sex workers in Liberia before decapitating them and placing their severed heads inside their genitals to mass graves with thousands upon thousands of intertwined bodies in Rwanda to Scud missiles trailing across Israeli skies to pitched combat in the middle of a...more Ken Cain, Heidi Postlewait, and Dr. Andrew Thomson have given their readers a realistic account of something most will never have to see with their own eyes, let alone experience in person. From Nigerian soldiers murdering nine year old sex workers in Liberia before decapitating them and placing their severed heads inside their genitals to mass graves with thousands upon thousands of intertwined bodies in Rwanda to Scud missiles trailing across Israeli skies to pitched combat in the middle of a failed state, this book graphically details exactly what no one wants to think about. War is an unimaginable horror that victimizes even those people who dedicate their lives to high-minded ideals that might lessen the burden of those in its wake.

Beginning in Cambodia in the early 1990s, the three narrators forge a friendship that would withstand distance, time, and the pains of war. Cain was just out of law school when he took up the democracy building mission in Phnom Phen. Postlewait, recovering from a painful marriage and an emotionally taxing job working with New York's homeless population during the late 1980s, sought out more tropical climes in which to undertake her secretarial work for the UN. And Dr. Andrew Thomson, disenchanted with the medical establishment in his native New Zealand, was moved by tales of the Killing Fields from a Cambodian refugee met during his studies. The work the three did in Cambodia, while challenging, whet all of their appetites to be the contractors for a new world order. The Cold War had ended, walls were falling, the global community suddenly felt much smaller than just a decade earlier. Ambitions were grand.

Their fellow peacekeepers and aid workers were young, cosmopolitan, beautiful people from around the world-an envious set with which to keep company. But Cambodia and the nascent new world order would be short lived. Interventions in Somalia, while successful at first, would soon turn deadly, and idealism would give way to cynicism. After the death of 18 US Army Rangers in Mogadishu in 1994, rebel factions across the globe were emboldened to stand up to an empire that had little taste for blood. Haiti's thugs would drive away a US Warship, within weeks genocide on a scale three times as intense as the Holocaust killing would begin in Rwanda. The UN mission quickly went from keeping peace to prosecuting war crimes.

After Somalia and Rwanda, when it seemed as if it could get no worse, war broke out in Liberia. The human rights tragedies were extreme and graphic. Drugged child soldiers running amok with AK-47s and grenade launchers, foreign soldiers mandated to keep peace instead plundering diamond mines and committing equally appalling human rights violations. Innocence had given way to reality and shortly after, all Cain, Postlewait, and Thomson were all back in New York dealing with the depression of loss, the trauma of combat, and the horrors of complicity that each felt in the face of mass suffering.

There wasn't much optimism to be taken from the book, but hidden within was the vaguely inspiring message that their human ideals still exist. If future generations of young people from privileged lives choose to go about the same work, to devote their lives healing the suffering of those less privileged, then vindication will seem possible. The stories in this book are human stories, of suffering, of misery, of death, but also of life, of celebration, and even of sex.

The subtitle of the book, A True Story from Hell on Earth, however, better explains the compilation of stories within. Some are better than others, even entertaining. Cain writes with particular grace and humor, at one point explaining his bewilderment at seeing the Palestinian Intifada (or so he thought) play out in the middle of the Cambodian jungle while hoping that his inept Bulgarian accompaniment wouldn't get him killed. Thomson evokes the true passion that would seem to motivate the life of a peacekeeper. He is serious and calm, but also human and frail, a stoic man of seemingly modest pleasures. He is the most human of the three characters. And Postlewait is perplexing beyond her seemingly forthcoming manner. At one point she describes wanting the blood of a rebellious people to flow through her veins, the best explanation we might have for the importance she subscribes to her sexual exploits throughout. What emerges, in the end, is an important series of stories that one cannot imagine reading in any other form than the series of memoirs in which they are presented.
(c) Jeffrey L. Otto April 29, 2008
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Oct 02, 2009 Ardita rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A personal accounts on the life of three people who embarked on a career with the United Nations in some of the global hot spots in the 1990s: Cambodia, Haiti, Somalia, Sierra Leone and Bosnia.

It reads like a blog. It echoes the frustration and desperation of sane and normal people on the work of the United Nations.

If you ever wonder how the reality of the often glamorous image of United Nations staff and personnel, you may want to have a glimpse of the book. Some of them were there for the mone...more

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Aug 16, 2009 Jens rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was ready not to like this book. The first chapters, with the easy joy over the first election in Cambodia and the easy despair in Haiti, were somewhat hard to read for a funny reason -- you know that the authors must realize the flaws of their younger selves. I asked myself how I'm supposed to get emotionally involved in two of the three -- the doctor was always compelling. Sure enough, by the end, it's hard to read for another reason -- it's brutal, and they're all grown up.

So while few par...more

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Apr 07, 2009 Libby rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: social-commentary

In a word this book is intense. Parts are brutal, graphic, disturbing. I never read books about war and I was reminded why whilst reading this one. The UN has always been a subject of interest and frustration for me and reading this book only intensified those feelings. This quote sums the UN up for me "If blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers show up in your town or village and offer to protect you, run. Or else get weapons. Your lives are worth so much less than theirs" And there also lies the crux of...more

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Feb 28, 2011 Adam rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Adam by: Chelsey

Shelves: cambodia, war, united-nations

An incredible tale of three intertwined lives played out on a backdrop of bureaucratic and political chaos. This book was awesome!

Ken, Heidi and Andrew have lived the lives that so many lie awake dreaming about. Saving lives in a Cambodian hospital, briefing international tribunals on war crimes, directing traffic through war zones, working in the name of peace, justice and democracy.

But is it all that its cracked up to be?

I'm sure none of them would trade their experiences for anything, but tha...more

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Jun 26, 2007 Melinda rated it 4 of 5 stars

I just finished reading this book that my friend Sara passed on to me with extremely high recommendations. In this memoir written by three international workers for UN peacekeeping efforts, the friends take turns telling the stories of why they joined the UN effort, how they met, and the inside stories of the war-torn countries where they worked together. Funny, tragic, heartbreaking, irreverent and thrilling--I couldn't put it down.

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Nov 15, 2009 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: africa, book-club, read2009, nonfiction

I have mixed feelings about this book. In the end I settled on four stars because I think it describes important events going on in the world that we as Americans tend to forget about, except for those of us living and working "out in the field" trying to explain things to folks back home. Maybe because I'm a little bit older than the characters were at the start of the book, I found them annoying. By the end I appreciated them more, but I didn't see a smooth development of character in any of t...more

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Jun 30, 2012 Sahar Ahmed rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I find the book is more fiction then true story. What are the sources of the authors’ information? I know that UN Security polices will never allow their staff to be exposed to such dangerous environments without proper protection & most of the time, UN Personnel are not allowed to approach dangerous zone. UN Military & Security Personnel are the first to approach such dangerous area. For example, Stories about Liberia, I find it bit freaky & fiction then real story, because I am cur...more

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Jul 19, 2010 Anne-marie Coonan rated it 2 of 5 stars

A relatively easy read, probably read by every humanitarian, development, and ex-pat person on the planet. The female character is the only one really spicing it up with "Emergency Sex", while the two male characters discuss the role of the UN in humanitarian disasters from the Cambodian elections, to the Rwandan genocide, to the chaos in Liberia.

If you've read much on these issues already it presents itself as more of a personal story of how to deal with working in these situations, if you're n...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Toni added it · review of another edition

I found these stories very confronting and really opened my eyes to the politics within the UN staff. The 3 authors are wonderful, brilliantly honest with their feelings, their idealism and their mistakes. The descriptions of the violence and murders that occurred in the countries they each worked in are absolutely horrifying. But the authors are not judgemental, they just describe things how they found them. It is a book we should all read. It contrasts well the workers initial entheusiasm and...more

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Feb 24, 2013 Matthew rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Absolutely my highest recommendation; the best book I've read this year (2008). The authors were UN Peacekeepers during the 1990s and into the early 2000s and these are their tales. If you are at all aware of the existence of other countries you should read this book. If you are a firebreathing conservative and think the UN should be shut down, you should read this book. If you are bleeding-heart liberal and think the UN should take over the world, you should read this book. If you think it matt...more

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May 14, 2013 Oliver rated it 3 of 5 stars

sort of a trashy humanitarian novel...about 3 people working in the field during the 1990s, and how they change over their careers. Definitely hit home in a few places, but at the same time made me terrified of getting as jaded and hopeless as they became.

I mean, the work they did was hard, and definitely takes a toll, but I am loathe to think that the humanitarian regime, as some refer to it, is just filled with playboys, madmen, missionaries and mercenaries. There have to be some people there...more

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Dec 05, 2007 Amanda rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Overseas aid workers

This book is the true story of three UN peacekeepers and their expereinces through the 1990's. Working overseas my self for Peace Corps there are things I could totally relate to, but there were also lessons I have yet to learn that have made me think hard about my future.

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Jul 23, 2011 Sandra rated it 4 of 5 stars

I came across this book after seeing one of the authors interviewed on Enough Rope with Andrew Denton. This was a gripping story, and I'm fascinated with the situations that international aid workers find themselves in. The adrenaline high of saving lives and trying to make a difference comes crashing to earth when faced with the outrageous corruption of governments, and the inherent uselessness of the U.N. I struggled to relate to the female author in parts, as some of her decisions were ones I...more

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Apr 12, 2009 Caitlin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Quick, entertaining read - but somehow I thought it'd be better. Good look at what it's like working for the UN/any horrible bureaucracy, but two of the three main characters were really annoying - one just fucks her way around the world because she can't get a real job back home, and another seems shocked to realise going to law school doesn't mean you have all the answers. I thought they'd come to some deeper realisation than 'oh wow, we can't really do much to help anyone maybe the UN isn't t...more

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Aug 25, 2009 Trisha rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, travel, reviewed, favourites

I found this story to be rather depressing, but at the same time I was so glad that they actually wrote about their experiences - yes, it's non-fiction! This book actually made me rethink the way I have always felt about war and peace and all of the above, which is no mean feat. I have always been staunchly against bombing the shit out of cities just to get at some bad guys...but having read this book, I am now thinking it probably would have been preferable for the US to do just that instead of...more

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Apr 22, 2012 Janet rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have just finished this book. Recommended by Sylvia- who has not quite finished it. It is a strong book and quite upsetting in parts with the details of the abuse. The atrocities reported, especially in Africa, are hard for me to comprehend. I don't know how the people that carried out these acts could even think up the crimes they undertook. It has made me question what being a human being is and whether these things have ever happened before. I know I am a bit squeemish but it has opened my...more

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Mar 01, 2009 Nina rated it 4 of 5 stars

Very interesting account of life in peace-keeping / emergency situations with the UN. Renewed my desire to go and live in Cambodia; also gave me a taste of the adrenalin-filled life of the disaster junkie... Thought it was a bit sexist in the way in which the woman's sex life was such an important part of her story (never even found out exactly what job she did in Haiti, her last posting in the book), while the men's stories mainly concentrated on their work with only minor references to their r...more

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Mar 30, 2013 Frances rated it 4 of 5 stars

"Emergency Sex" seems to be *the* book to read among the volunteer/ex-pat/aid worker set in developing countries that have recently survived genocide and UN intervention. Written by three former UN aid workers, it's a mostly scathing appraisal of corruption, impotence, and good intentions in UN missions in the 1990s including Cambodia, Haiti, Somalia, and Rwanda. It's saved from becoming too self-righteous by the fact that the authors are also harsh on themselves and their own naivete (although...more

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Dec 16, 2009 Mitch rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: biographical, travel, favorites

This....is an amazing book. Nothing I can write about it can do more than hint at its contents.

Yes, it's by three young adults who go into hazardous situations in third world countries and try to make a positive difference. All three collaborated and wrote their stories, separate and intertwined. Their unique perspectives and dramas add a lot to an already powerful subject.

One is a doctor, another a lawyer, and the third is a secretary (with many additional responsibilities.) I got involved with...more

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Jan 12, 2010 Bronwyn Lewis rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: global, humanitarian

I just started reading this Saturday night and finished reading it this morning (Tuesday). It’s essentially the memoir of three friends who meet in Cambodia in the early ’90s and all end up working for the United Nations in various war zones throughout the ’90s (Cambodia, Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Liberia).

There was a lot of controversy around the book (published in 2004), because it doesn’t paint a pretty picture of what happened — it gives a raw look at the UN’s successes and failure...more

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Nov 24, 2008 Rebecca rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, historical, 2008, non-fiction

Overall I liked this book. In sections it could be self absorbed by one contributor or another but overall I would recommend it.
It covers three different UN employees travels to various postings in the 1990s. Mixed in with what the individual experienced you are exposed to (mostly breifly) the conflicts in Rawanda, Liberia, Hati, Bosnia and the starting point of the book - Cambodia.
Having grown up in a family where my parents and family friends often talked about working in areas of conflict du...more

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Jun 08, 2008 Noel rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was a fantastic read! I was hooked to it from the beginning and couldn't put it down. It was absolutley not as racy as the title implied. Following the authors from their entry into the UN world and following them on their missions, made me feel like I was there. It was a little hard stomach some of the details and I had to take breaks in between.

While it does showcase the inefficiencies of the UN and how it failed terribly in Rwanda, Bosnia, Somalia etc., it nonetheless brings out the pot...more

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“I'm not ready to let the youthful part of myself go yet. If maturity means becoming a cynic, if you have to kill the part of yourself that is naive and romantic and idealistic - the part of you that you treasure most - to claim maturity, is it not better to die young but with your humanity intact?” — 53 people liked it

“The problem is that no matter how good your intentions, eventually you want to kill someone yourself.” — 9 people liked it

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