Ferocious Romance: What My Encounters with the Right Taught Me About Sex, God, and Fury

Intrepid Village Voice reporter Donna Minkowitz thought she knew what she was getting into when she set out to go undercover among the religious right. She was going to observe "the enemy" close up, on its own turf. But Minkowitz, a feminist, lesbian, and "sex radical" who has won awards for her coverage of gay issues, found something else entirely-- a guide to some of the stormiest contradictions within her own soul. Sex and love, good and evil, rapture and safety-- the religious right, it turns out, is as obsessed with these matters as Minkowitz is, as many of us are. During her adventures with the Christian right, Minkowitz finds all-women Pentecostal services that are as sexually supercharged as her own experiences having group sex with strangers in a lesbian backroom bar. The Promise Keepers, trying to be good in an age when "good" men are branded as sissies, alternately move Minkowitz to tears and provoke her mirth when she disguises herself as a teenage boy to join one of their all-male gatherings. With hilarious, sympathetic writing, Minkowitz explores the things she and the Christian right have in common-- from their in… (more)