When it comes to Americans’
understanding of sexual privacy and public sexual expression, most
of us are effectively members of the American Civil Liberties
Union. That’s the takeaway from How Sex Became a
Civil Liberty, Leigh Ann Wheeler’s dense but fascinating
account of the ACLU’s wildly successful efforts to bring sex under
the purview of the Bill of Rights. Wheeler, a Binghamton University
historian, has combed vast archives, including personal
correspondence of the ACLU’s founders and decades of files from the
national office and local affiliates. From these papers,
Debbie Nathan reports in her review, Wheeler has assembled a
story about men and women working through their own sexual passions
and contradictions as they shaped a legal and political practice
for the entire country.

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