Photo by Nick Night
Traditional Christian conservatism is going through a sex revival. Raquel Debono, the founder of Make America Hot Again, which organizes mixers for young conservatives in New York City, said, “There’s been a mega-shift.” Adding, “It’s like the Mar-a-Lago face. Look at Fox News. Everyone’s got Botox, filler, and their tits out. It’s the bimbofication of maga.”
Make America Hot Again is but one of a growing number of youth-oriented get-togethers for Republicans with more “liberal” socio-sexual attitudes than traditional MAGA conservatives. Debono, who hosted a “Good Genes” party, said, “Literally the reason I’m hosting this ‘good genes’ party is that I just genuinely find it fun to troll. I just actually wanted to piss people off.”
Perhaps the most explicit expression of this new Christian spirit is represented by Evie magazine. Co-founded in 2019 by the married couple, Brittany Hugoboom (formerly Brittany Martinez) and Gabriel Hugoboom — and backed by billionaire and Trump-supporter Peter Thiel — it’s been described as a “conservative Cosmo.” The Wall Street Journal reports it has “roughly 175 million views across all platforms each month and counts 192,000 Substack followers.”
One of Evie’s most controversial issues was the “Sex Issue”. The editors insist:
“We made The Sex Issue because no one else would. It’s the most honest, detailed, and bold thing I’ve ever seen in print on this subject. It’s going to make people blush. Some will clutch pearls. But the real ones know that this is an incredible turning page for society, and it’s something that should have been done a long time ago.”
However, Amanda Marcotte, writing in Salon, was very critical of the magazine. “Evie Magazine is the latest iteration of these long-standing efforts to sell fundamentalism to young people with ‘hip’ packaging,” she wrote. She described an issue:
“The cover features a bride in wedding-night lingerie, and the contents are positively NC-17: illustrations of naked couples copulating, how-to manuals for performing oral sex, bodice ripper-style descriptions of sexual intercourse and full-page photographs of models in suggestive poses, like eating cherries or drinking open-mouthed from a hose.”
She added, “Old-school religious conservatives would be appalled, and in fact, many complained.”
Fundamentalist Christian and orthodox Jewish women participate in what are dubbed “passion parties,” i.e., sex toy get-togethers. They are postmodern “Tupperware” parties — in-home, invitation-only direct-sales social gatherings offering adult intimate discussion, sex education and erotic marriage-enhancement products
In addition, a host of websites also welcome married Christians to enhance their sex lives, especially their married lives. These sites include Christian Love Toys (i.e., “a Christian sex toy store for married couples”), Covenant Spice (i.e., “enhancing intimacy in Christian marriage”) and Married Dance (i.e., “Christian sex toy store run by a husband and wife since 2011”).
And then there are “lingerie showers,” which have been described as gatherings “used to prepare a bride for her wedding night and honeymoon. Ideally, they provide her with attire that is attractive and/or comfortable for the intimate moments she will spend as a new bride.” At these get-togethers, “These pieces are more than alluring undergarments used to entice her groom.”
In 2025, Newsweek reported, “the era of so-called ‘closeted conservatism’ recedes in Trump’s second term.” These and other efforts among young Christians, especially women as well as the erosion of Pres. Donald Trump’s popularity suggesting a growing fissure in the half-century-long culture wars.
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The current round of the culture wars was launched in the early 1970s by Christian conservatives in reaction to the likely adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and the Supreme Court’s momentous Roe v. Wade (1973) decision. After a half-century of social “wars” over cultural values, the Christian right secured victories in the 2024 elections. It saw Donald Trump reelected as president and Republicans gain control of both the House and Senate. Trump’s appointed three Christian conservatives to the Supreme Court — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – establishing the most conservative Court in half-a-century, thus consolidating the religious right’s control of the nation’s legal authority.
Until Trump’s election in 2016, the religious right appeared to be contained, it’s scope of struggle narrowed to two issues: abortion and gay rights. However, his election renewed the religious right’s moralist campaign, energizing conservatives of every stripe, including antiabortionists and white nationalists.
When Trump and other top administration officials first took office in 2017, they pledged to fulfill the 2016 Republican Party’s platform that asserted:
“Traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a free society and has for millennia been entrusted with rearing children and instilling cultural values. We condemn the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Windsor, which wrongly removed the ability of Congress to define marriage policy in federal law.”
Most surprisingly, as the Christian right waged culture wars targeting abortion, transgender youth, book censorship and other issues, sex among Americans became “freer” — less restricted by traditional values and legal prohibitions — than any time in the nation’s history. Today “consenting” adult Americans can engage in almost any form or act of sexual practice they desire. Most revealing, a2026 YouGov survey of 1,107 adults found that 81 percent of those surveyed have had sex and that nearly half (46%) had sex between the ages of 16 and 20 years of age.
A deep tension, if not contradiction, has long shaped the culture wars: patriarchal Christian fundamentalism has been undercut by “free market” capitalism. The sex market is estimates to be a $75 billion business that includes: pornography at $13 billion; prostitution (rebranded as “sex work” is legal only in parts of Nevada at $14.6 billion; sex paraphernalia (rebranded “sexual wellness”) at $9.5 billion; sex-toy retailers (i.e., there are 5,365 “adult stores” and Amazon is the biggest retailer, offering an estimated 60,000 sex-related products) and safe sex” clubs (i.e., 3,995 clubs) as well as sex-enhancement medical procedures and sex-enhancement drugs.
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Phyllis Schlafly, a devoutly Catholic lawyer and a militant anticommunist, long affiliated with the John Birch Society, fired one of the first shots of the culture war in 1972 when she began a campaign to block the adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The STOP-ERA forces opposed women registering for the draft and military service, as well as gender-specific bathrooms, among other issues. Often unappreciated, Schlafly’s campaign not only defeated the proposed amendment but helped lead the campaign against abortion rights (i.e., the Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision). Her efforts helped set the agenda for an awakened conservatism, the remaking of the Republican Party and the culture wars for decades to come.
In February ‘73, three of the nation’s richest conservatives — Joseph Coors, Richard Mellon Scaife and H. L. Hunt — backed Paul Weyrich for the creation of the Heritage Foundation (e.g., Project 2025). In May ‘73, the National Council of Catholic Bishops spun off its National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) into a separate, activist anti-abortion organization. In September ‘73, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) was founded as the Conservative Caucus of State Legislators.
In May 1979 Jerry Falwell invited a select group of Christian conservative leaders to a strategic planning retreat at his Lynchburg, VA, estate. Falwell ran a private Christian academy and hosted a popular televangelist program, “The Old-Time Gospel Hour,” but gained national prominence in 1977 with his support for Anita Bryant’s anti-gay campaign in Dade County, FL. Those who attended the Lynchburg conclave included Richard Viguerie, the direct mail fund-raising guru; Paul Weyrich, who helped found the Heritage Society, the Christian Voice and the Free Congress Foundation; Robert Billings, founder of the National Christian Action Coalition; Howard Phillips, chairman of the Conservative Caucus; and Ed McAteer, an influential Christian organizer.
Initially, the scope of the struggle of the culture wars was initially focused on two issues – abortion and gay rights. In 1992, Patrick Buchanan warned, “There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself.” However, as the conservative commentator Irving Kristol retorted, “I regret to inform Pat Buchanan that those wars are over and the left has won.” But did “the left” win?
Promoted by Buchanan and others, Christian Nationalism became a political movement couched in religious language. It was grounded in the white supremacist belief that America was founded by and for white people; that they are superior to those of other races; and, thus, they should dominate them. They also believed in the traditional family, in patriarchy, and in the need that only Christians should control Congress, state governments and the court system.
The Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2020) foreshadowed Trump’s re-election, permitting the religious right to gain federal power and attempt to impose its moral dictates as national social policy. Conservatives in states across the country moved to end legalabortions (13 states did) and close down Planned Parenthood clinics (60 clinics closed or combined) to end teen sex-education and restrict their use of contraceptives.
Upon his reelection in 2025, Pres. Trump issued an Executive Order declaring: “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
Conservative states and localities have aggressively moved to block further efforts to normalize gay life and the lives of gender nonconforming (i.e., trans) people, and impose restrictive library/school book censorship. (In 2025, PEN America reported “nearly 23,000 book bans in public schools nationwide since 2021, a number never before seen in the life of any living American.”)
Conservative Republican states and localities have aggressively moved to regulate “obscene” businesses because they allegedly have “secondary effects” on the community. Such venues include theatres showing adult movies, sex toy shops, adult bookstores, strip clubs featuring nude dancing and/or selling alcohol. Strick zoning ordinances of a “sexually oriented business” (SOB) have been used to either block such business or set limits (e.g., 500 or 1,000 feet) to where such a business can be located vis-a-vis a residential dwelling, church, park or school. Texas outlaws prostitution and pornography as well as “obscene devices,” which are defined as “a dildo or artificial vagina, designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs.”
Trump and his administration are floundering. The Israel-U.S. war against Iran has stalled; fuel prices continue to climb; inflation is on the rise; tariffs have split the U.S. with its former allies; and individual taxes keep climbing. The 2026 Congressional elections may lead to the Democrats regaining either one or both Houses of Congress, thus potentially stymying the last two years of Trump’s presidency.
The Christian right battled for a long half-century and finally won the counterculture with the victories of the 2024 elections. But it may be a short-lived victory. Trump’s counterculture policies have degenerated into racist anti-immigrant programs involving ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) mass deportations and targeting those covered by the Temporary Protective Status (TPS), like Haitians and Syrians. The apparent growing sex revival among younger Christian conservatives may signal the end of this round of the culture wars.
