Equal parts investigative reporting and cultural criticism, The Second Coming is a look at the sex lives of young adults in post-Roe America.
As a college student, award-winning journalist Carter Sherman, along with several members of her sorority, was interviewed by a writer eagerly looking for salacious details about their sex lives. But the sex the girls were having—or the lack thereof—seemed disappointing, and they didn’t make the book’s final cut. A decade later, young Americans are still having less sex than past generations, and the sex they are having has become infinitely more complicated. Carter, who has spent years traveling the country and reporting on gender and sexuality, wanted to find out why.
Based on more than one hundred interviews with teenagers and young adults, activists, and experts, The Second Coming is a comprehensive investigation into how (mis)education, the internet, and politics are changing the ways in which young people experience sex, love, and relationships. From “Dating with Dignity” seminars at the National Pro-Life Summit to abortion clinics crowded with young people to school board battles over what students are allowed to read, think, and feel, we meet folks from both sides of the aisle who are well-informed, empowered, and active (even if not always sexually). And as measures are taken to limit young people’s access to rights and resources, they are fighting back.
In the tradition of Rebecca Traister and Lisa Taddeo, The Second Coming is a nuanced exploration of how life outside the bedroom directly impacts everything within it, and the breaking point as a nation we’ve reached as a result.