The “sex” in in the book title is not what one might first think; it is not referring to gender or one’s biologically assigned, or reassigned, status. “Sex” is referring to the physical act of having sex (of all sorts): reading, learning, and speaking about sex; nudity; watching sex; and reproduction. How Sex Became a Civil Liberty traces the fascinating history of the ways in which sexual behavior and sexual expression became matters of civil liberties, legally, socially, and culturally. It starts when sexuality was immaterial to rights and liberties granted in the U.S. Constitution and continues to the present period in which the Constitution protects a wide range of sexual expression. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Leigh Ann Wheeler contends, was pivotal in this transformation. The work also exposes the controversial nature of many sexual rights, even among liberals.

This is not a typical political science book. Indeed, the author is a historian, and her research covers the ACLU from its formation in the early part of the twentieth century to the 1990s. Some parts more than others will interest political scientists; the early sexual forays of the founding men and a few women, while interesting, are not so relevant. The description of different ACLU staff personalities would also not commonly be found in political science research. But the gradual incorporation of sexuality into constitutionally protected civil liberties through carefully chosen lawsuits, well-argued legal briefs, grassroots activism, coalition building, media, public education campaigns, and lobbying public officials—all in effort to change public discourse and legal interpretation—will be of great interest. The book reveals how legal conceptions of rights and liberties are historically flexible and subject to persuasive discourse.

Wheeler weaves together a richly detailed history of the ACLU with other formative historical episodes, such as Margaret Sanger’s birth control movement, Alfred Kinsey’s seminal reports on human sexuality, the sexual revolution and women’s rights movement of the 1960s–70s, the gay rights movement, the pro-life movement, and the general culture wars over sexuality. “Cross pollination” of many groups and movements enhanced the ACLU’s work and is one important factor as to how and why sex became a civil liberty, though coalition building was not always easy.

The breadth of the book is remarkable. It covers, in great detail, nearly a hundred years and the gradual incorporation of varied components of sexual rights. The ACLU history starts with the defense of birth control rights and Margaret Sanger, as well as nudity, from 1910 to 1930. The ACLU’s next move proves to be pivotal. Labeling it “Are you Free to Read, See, and Hear,” Wheeler details how First Amendment rights began to be claimed as consumer rights in the 1940s–50s. Consumer rights—the rights of individuals to have access to information and images, that is, anti-censorship— brought the ACLU into partnership with commercial, for-profit producers such as Playboy magazine. These consumer rights are something we now take for granted, but this claim had to be conceived, articulated, and defended, and the conception of such rights was made possible by the culture of consumption that permeated the United States after World War II.

The ACLU teamed with Hugh Hefner to defend sexual imagery and with Henry Miller to defend his “blockbuster sex-capade” (p. 81) Tropic of Cancer(1961). The success of these lawsuits was due to the argument that the value of the First Amendment lies not in protecting the right of the publisher to earn a profit but in the “public’s right to read” and to have “free access to ideas and publications” (p. 84). The marketplace of ideas deserves constitutional protection, the ACLU argued, and the Courts agreed.

Wheeler covers familiar territory in her chapters on the establishment of the right to privacy, contraception, and abortion and on the anti-sterilization and anti-sodomy movements, but she specifies and clarifies the important role played by the ACLU. Because ACLU leaders were involved in a “constellation of organizations” (p. 117), their thinking was expanded, and the ACLU leaders and various organizations together developed the concept of a constitutional right to sexual privacy that protected sexual conduct. In turn, various organizations learned to frame their concerns in civil liberties terms. The author rightfully points out that timing mattered; the earlier consumer-oriented right to access, the Kinsey reports on sexuality, and the sexual revolution of the 1960s, to name only a few items, had changed sexual mores. The Supreme Court ultimately agreed and granted a constitutional right to privacy in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). We are still debating the parameters that bound this notion of right to privacy, but it is presently being constricted in terms of women’s reproductive rights.

“I have been deceived by a bait and switch technique,” Wheeler quotes Andrea Dworkin as stating (p. 179). In the 1970s, feminists and women’s rights advocates wanted sexual freedom but also wanted to be protected from unwanted sexual advances, that is, sexual harassment and rape. The ACLU did not take the lead in these areas, and internal disagreement prevented them from speaking in a strong voice. The quandary of liberty versus equality, women’s rights versus rights for “all,” and how some rights inevitably conflict with other rights is known to most political scholars, but Wheeler acutely details how the “issues of rape and sexual harassment pulled civil libertarians out of their comfort zone” (p. 211). Her book also reveals the complexity of fighting for racial justice and women’s rights, as sometimes strategies supporting one effort sabotage another. For example, the author concludes that the ACLU’s involvement in defending black men falsely accused of rape by white women initially prevented it from supporting feminist “rape shield laws,” rules that disallow the use of a complainant’s sexual history as evidence at trial. When such sexual history was provided in some interracial rape cases, it provided the needed ammunition to show probable consent and hence the false accusation of rape. As opposed to earlier eras in which issues centered on freedom to, played a more minor role regarding fights that centered on freedom from.

The importance of interactions, experiences, and the values and desires of the ACLU leadership cannot be overstated, Wheeler notes. The ACLU’s agenda was not born in some rational, legal analysis of the Constitution. It was born from lived experience. Thus, the author includes much personal detail about the ACLU leadership throughout the years. As this is a history book, I wonder how a political scientist writing on this subject would incorporate such important material; I fear it might be left out. As historians often do, the story is told in a chronological order, noting the differences in the eras and how earlier eras influenced later ones. A political scientist would probably categorize and present the information in a different format (by “variables” or conceptually), but some of the richness of the details might be lost. A political analysis might also offer some comparison of the different arenas of “sex” that have been deemed a civil liberty. For example, why have we witnessed a broadening and acceptance of gay rights but a restriction on reproductive rights? How has acceptance of the freedom to “read, see, and hear” about sex been applied in newer technological forms, such as the Internet? How has the consumer-oriented focus of the First Amendment’s freedom of speech fared throughout our history: Has it been broadened or restricted? Has it remained stable?

How Sex Became a Civil Liberty would be useful in many types of political science classes—women’s policy, gay rights, law and society, and constitutional law, to name a few. But its breadth of coverage is also its potential pitfall. For any particular class, there might be material only tangentially related to the course’s main focus, but in defense of the book, it would show how any particular sexual right is interrelated with the attainment of other sexual rights. This is a great read and provides a crucial and rich historical background for our present-day debates around sexuality and sexual rights. It chronicles the sometimes forgotten struggle that led to the present consensus on the sanctity of freedom of speech and sexual privacy, as well as the important role that the ACLU played in that achievement.