In this book, Wilhelm Reich summarizes the criticism of the prevailing sexual conditions and conflicts as it resulted from his sex-economic medical experiences over a period of years. He demonstrates, by way of individual examples, the general basic traits of the conflicts in present-day sexual living, dealing particularly with the institution of marriage and the revolution in family life as well as with the problems of infantile and adolescent sexuality. He also presents a detailed and revealing study of the sexual revolution that occurred briefly in Soviet Russia in the first few years of their economic revolution.

"What we are living through," Reich states, "is a genuine, deep-reaching revolution of cultural living [which] goes to the roots of our emotional, social, and economic existence...The senses of the animal, man, for his natural life functions are awakening from a sleep of thousands of years."