Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures is the recollection of three different workers with the UN through their trials and trevails in the 1990s, working in such diverse places as Cambodia, Rwanda, and Bosnia. Each chapter is titled after the alert signals used on UN radio channels to tell what type of danger to expect, and within each chapter the three different authors, Ken Cain, Heidi Postlewait, and Andrew Thomson are given sections in which to weave the diverse yet parallel courses of their UN careers. The well-educated writers of each section write beautiful, engaging prose that draw the reader to continue to be engaged with the development of the story, from the intial optimism at the beginning to the sudden loss and hurt in the middle as the action gets more dangerous, then finally to, if not cynicism, doubt about where their careers have taken them.

The diverse careers of the authors help create a well-rounded world from which to view each of the missions the authors are engaged in. Ken Cain is a law school grad, and given tasks that vary from arranging elections in Cambodia to setting up a court system in Mogadishu. Heidi Postlewait was a social worker in New York who decides starts as a secretary at the UN offices and then ends up with a massive responsibility in developing situations in Somalia. Andrew Thomson began as a Red Cross doctor in Cambodia and got sucked into working with the UN in their various missions in Haiti, Rwanda, and Bosnia.

These three people were centered in the middle of the action of some of the most gruesome insurgencies of violence in the post-World War II world. The reports from Ken and Heidi in Somalia and Andrew in Haiti put a lot of things that our legacy media friends might have skipped over in its reporting of those events, as well as the tack U.S. and UN foreign policy have taken since the incidents that occured in Mogadishu. It's refreshing to hear the stories of three people, optimistic and happy go-lucky at times about their missions, and seeing the colossal forces of the UN, U.S., NATO, as well as the media that supposedly keeps these forces honest, or corrupts stories and national politics agains them, and how the outcomes for different countries and their populations could have been different.

I am not a totally against the actions or inactions of the UN as many from various politcal strata may be but it is worthwhile to see the dirty part of the 'benevolent' UN. Unfortunately, Cain and Postlewait have nearly lost their jobs with the organization because of the book. Instead of trying to reform and rethink some of the issues that continuously come up in the work, it seems the UN would rather squash dissent from within the ranks.

Emergency Sex is a worthwhile read, for both those interesting in the seedy side of foreign politics, sex and corruption as well as for its overall message of thinking of how things could have been and still could be better, and how we and the international community might have failed some countries in our actions. Honest, erotic, refreshing, gruesome, it works and makes your brain work.