The American Spectator

p> strong> em> The Thrill of the Chaste : br> Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On /em> br> by Dawn Eden br> (W Publishing Group, 212 pages, $13.99 paper) /strong> /p>

SEX USED TO HAVE SOMETHING to do with marriage. That was then, this is now. Now, sex happens in more ways and places than perhaps ever before; but people don’t seem much happier for it. Consider the fact that sex is everywhere, men and women claim to be looking for love and commitment, and the singles industry is booming; but the marriage rate doesn’t appear to be keeping pace and people seem to spend much more of their lives being single. In such a light, the sexual revolution appears to have been more limiting than liberating.

Dawn Eden’s new book, The Thrill of the Chaste, makes the case for shaping one’s sexuality and life without assuming stereotypical conservative or liberal rhetoric. Following the genre of easy to read, self-help-ish books, Eden writes from her perspective as a self-identified agnostic Jew who became a Christian as a young adult. She realized, as much as she wanted to be married, that casual sex and even the ensuing relationships weren’t getting her any closer to her goal. In fact, she found herself nowhere near her goal of meeting the type of man she’d want to marry.

Extremely honest and forthright, Eden details her decision to pursue chastity as a way of ultimately being happy, whether or not she ever meets Mr. Right. Fortunately, her writing style lacks the saccharine drama commonly found in inspirational books. Rather than condemn a particular lifestyle for pages on end, she helps the reader to understand the lifestyle. Whether one is on the outside looking in or completely immersed, Eden provides a framework that helps explain the choices that so many people assume are “natural.”

But it would be a mistake to think Eden simply attempts to make the case for a return to traditional sexual mores. She identifies a condition that generally has been reserved for discussion in the academic circles of philosophers and psychologists.