Last Night in Paradise: Sex and Morals at the Century's End

by Katie Roiphe

"A brilliant and contrarian voice, à la Mary McCarthy."
--Kirkus Reviews

Writing with the unerring reportorial instinct she brought to her widely discussed The Morning After, one of our most outspoken cultural commentators chronicles our uneasy passage from the sexual revolution to the new Puritanism in a book that is one part history, one part prophecy, and all provocation.

KATIE ROIPHE depicts the inner landscape of a generation that practices condom etiquette yet fears that even the safest sex may not be safe enough. She shows how educators and ideologues have co-opted the fear of AIDS to promote their own moral agenda. Roiphe also writes about her sister Emily, who is herself HIV-positive, with a candor that makes Last Night in Paradise as much a personal document as it is a barometric reading of our sexual climate. Gripping, incisive, and at times incendiary, the result is a work of reportage in the tradition of Joan Didion's Slouching Toward Bethlehem--a portrait of an era that will be read and debated long after that era has passed.

"Resonant . . . I look forward to hearing from Ms. Roiphe again."
--Jennifer Grossman, Wall Street Journal

Genres: Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published March 20, 1997

About the author

Katie Roiphe is the author of the non-fiction works The Morning After: Fear, Sex and Feminism (1994) and Last Night in Paradise: Sex and Morals at the Century's End (1997). Her novel Still She Haunts Me is an empathetic imagining of the relationship between Charles Dodgson (known as Lewis Carroll) and Alice Liddell, the real-life model for Dodgson's Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. She holds a Ph.D in English Literature from Princeton University, and is presently teaching at New York University.

Reviews

[6655321 · Rating 1 out of 5]

i think the biggest problem, and there are a lot of flaws to this composition, is the way in which Roiphe relies on a linear narrative of the history of sexuality (something along the lines of 1950s puritanism, 60s and 70s sexual revolution, 80s and 90s AIDS and the Sexual Counter revolution) and projects middle class values (obsession with safety esp. regarding sexuality) as a universal norm and ignores anything that could challenge this monolithic narrative (like the presence of bug chasers, the strong defenses of public sexuality and public sex venues, the birth of lesbian cruising culture, etc. etc. etc.) and failure to analyze how the "new abstinence" movement isn't simply a response to AIDS but an attempt to re-ascribe values from a non-existent era of sexual purity. There are some interesting analyses of the nature of celebrity in the AIDS era or on how groups that are most prone to taking up the values of the new abstinence movement are those who are least likely to contract AIDS (white, middle class, straights & etc.) but ultimately even if this is a fast (circa 4-5 hours) read, it doesn't feel like a very rewarding investment of ones time. i have a bunch more nitpicky complaints but i think this is sufficient.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Somehow I seem to be simultaneously too liberal and too conservative for this book. In some parts it's an interesting snapshot of sex twenty (!) years ago, and had some interesting notes on the AIDS epidemic, particularly Magic Johnson, but mostly she derides condoms (and then promotes them?), believes Puritanism not actual health risks is the mastermind behind AIDS prevention, and trivializes date rape.

[Laura McKelvey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel the need to state, for the record, that the young woman in Kids was raped in her sleep. The young man did not “have sex with her” as the author describes.
This was just a small detail in a larger book, but I think it is a telling one.
I did enjoy this blast from the past and the examination of sexuality and pop culture.

[Cole Bon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up at the back of an old bookstore for a dollar, and my lack of expectations helped a lot in enjoying my time with this book. Reading about the fanaticism and paranoia that plagued the 60s and that still parade about today was very interesting. The author doesn’t seem to want to commit to any particular side of what’s correct, but they also don’t feel unbiased? I found it interesting but I had to pause and blankly stare at a couple of ideas the author chose to share.

I’ll probably pick up more random books in the future this was fun :)

[Andrea Dowd · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this to be a decent little sex education/AIDS/abstinence read. It was written in 1997, so things were slightly dated but overall, not much has changed.

'Last Night in Paradise' is all about how we are in the odd crux of being beyond the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s but stuck up against the 'safe sex' revolution and AIDS awareness. The author recounts her tales of numerous sexual partners (many of whom were unknown to her in many ways) and her personal demons after the safe sex fallout.

What I would have liked the most from this book was a more pronounced idea of my generation's banal and blase regard for sex, sexuality, AIDS, STI/STDs, and abstinence. Basically, she sees that we're stuck in a limbo land of Americanism in that if we don't succeed at something, we can just start over. And that sentiment is currently getting us nowhere. I would like to see Roiphe do an update to this after the GW Bush years and the upsurge in the extreme Christian right.

Read this if you enjoy feminism, sexuality or care about sexual reproductive health.

[okyrhoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a series of passages on the waning of social tolerance towards promiscuity and the re-emergence of puritanical attitudes towards sexuality in US society, in the 1980's and early 1990's. The writing style is closer to personal musings and observation rather than stuctured essays with definite conclusions. Many of the questions Roiphe poses remain unanswered.

The trends/attitudes she charts (the spread of the virus of fear) are still very much with us today, especially now with the prominence of neoconservatism. The author's tone is personal and honest, and one is left with a sense of melancholy, that our behavior cannot be as 'carefree' as it once was. Although it must be noted that Roiphe tends to believe one is/was never free to act at will without suffering some kind of consequence, either physical, moral, or social, even the during the decades when sexual permissiveness was more openly tolerated.

[Annie · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The section of the book that still holds up is the one concerning Magic Johnson, the basketball star who contracted AIDS then admitted that he’d slept with 20,000 women. She compares the media’s Johnson narrative with the realities of Johnson’s own self-told story. The fact that George HW Bush and Dan Quayle called this man a “hero” instead of castigating his selfishness and recklnessness still stands as a testament to the double standard that still afflicts public discourse about sex."

link: [http://superfastreader.com/last-night...]

[Laura Rodd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book hit home, almost painfully so. Written nearly 20 years ago it still has relevance today since
much of today's sexual behavior by women is still dictated by the fear of disease, specifically AIDS.
Misinformation, fear tactics and outright lies regarding how and to what extent HIV spread in the heterosexual, white
demographic of America created the necessary breeding ground for religious and conservative forces to gain control once
more over female sexuality in America. A great read for any feminist or anyone interest in American social history.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

not for the faint of heart - this is quite the compelling critique of current views of sexuality.