The Sexual Revolution Has Backfired on Women by S. Moore
Before I paste in excerpts from the editorial, and though I’m a conservative, I’d like to say that I don’t agree with the usual conservative response to the “sexual revolution.”
First of all, too often, too many conservatives blame “women’s lib,” and the 1960s “sexual revolution” with any and all societal ills – conservatives will blame sexual promiscuity and so on for all that, but sexual promiscuity existed prior to the 1960s, and in other cultures.
Secondly, while I am not opposed to parenthood, the nuclear family, or marriage – or to the notion of waiting until marriage to have sex – too often, most conservatives instruct people that the way out of cultural rot is for everyone to marry, marry by the time they are 23, and have ten children. I disagree – for several reasons.
Marriage and parenthood do not keep people from sin, sexual or otherwise (see examples of what I mean in this post and in this post).
If you’re a Christian conservative, you should be aware that the Bible does not say that a “cure” for the individual or for society is marriage and parenthood – for more on that topic, please see (Link): this post, (Link): this post, and (Link): this post on this blog.
The Bible actually advises that singleness is preferable to marriage (see 1 Corinthians 7), and recall that Jesus of Nazareth never married, never had children, and he actually made some anti-nuclear-family-esque type comments (see posts linked to in the aforementioned paragraph for examples of that).
There are adults – like myself – who are single by circumstance (I had hoped to marry but it never came to pass). Some adults are single by choice, which is fine – nobody should be shamed or guilt tripped for being single by circumstance or for choosing not to marry.
The problem is not one’s martial status.
A person can remain single and celibate over a life time and manage NOT to rob liquor stores, not participate in looting and rioting, not pelt police officers with rocks, and not rape and murder people.
The problems stem from lack of self control and choice – do you choose to be a law abiding citizen or not? Being a law abiding citizen is not contingent on being married or on having children.
Hopefully, the editorial below does not fall back on the usual tropes of, “Oh dear me, if only everyone would marry young, have kids, and form their own nuclear families, society would be crime and sin free” fairy tale.
If women of any age are having difficulties getting a mate, or in staying married, the answer is NOT always or necessarily to return to stifling, sexist, 1950s American “pro marriage and pro nuclear family” positions.
Things are not always mutually exclusive or do not have to be – life for women does not have to consist of only two choices (this is a false dichotomy):
1. be a “sex positive” feminist lady who has sex with any body and every body or 2. be a traditional, stay-at- home wife and mother
You can cook up a third or fourth way of living life. Life does not have to be lived by only one or the other parameter above. I don’t know why most on the right and some on the left continue to depict life as though only two avenues for women are possible.
I don’t entirely fit into either the left’s or the right’s notions of how women should live, and the older I get, I resent individuals, groups, or organizations (whether right, left, religious, or secular) condescendingly trying to define me or tell me how they think I should live, and at that, based on my biological sex.
There were a few aspects of this I didn’t agree with, but most of it seems okay enough:
(Link): The sexual revolution has backfired on women
Young women today are more sexually liberal than ever, but this could be extremely damaging – as the modern Mary Whitehouse has warned us
by Suzanne Moore
May 31, 2022
Who wants to be thought of as uncool, uptight and no fun? Certainly not young women who have been brought up to be “sex-positive”. This means being open, tolerant and progressive about sex, removing all judgment and shame and believing anything goes as long as those involved consent to it. It’s a beautiful idea: sexual freedom and enjoyment for all and personally I cannot wait for this revolution to happen.
It’s something of a shock, then, to be reminded that we are supposedly living in post-revolutionary times. As feminist author Louise Perry makes plain in her clear-sighted new book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century, what this actually means is a flood of pornography and hook-up culture, where a few swipes lead to casual encounters, “rough sex” is seen as routine, prostitution is viewed as just another career choice and we have the lowest rate of conviction for rape in a decade.
… It certainly is “progressive” for some men, who get to sleep with women who have been taught that all desires are acceptable and transgression is erotic, but the number of young women who tell stories of being choked and spat on or pushed into sexual acts they were not sure of, during what used to be called “one night stands”, is disturbing.
…But there is a case to be made that today’s aggressively sexual culture does not make many women happy; indeed quite the opposite. Some are paying such a high price for our so-called freedom that we might question what it all means.
…Perry has been compared to a modern Mary Whitehouse, but she is no prude. “As a younger woman, I conformed to liberal feminist ideas that saw nothing wrong in porn, bondage, sadomasochism and hook-up culture,” she writes. “Women were just expressing the same casual and adventurous approach to sex as men did.”
She let go of these beliefs after working at a rape crisis centre, where she witnessed the reality of male violence up close and began to wonder why so many women desired a kind of sexual freedom that so obviously serves male interests.
Perhaps Perry’s most revolutionary move is to take apart the predominant feminist idea that rape is always about power, not sex – and turn to evolutionary theory. She argues that men and women are biologically different and that rape is somehow hard-wired into some males. This view runs counter to those of trans activists and liberal feminists and some will dismiss it as straightforwardly conservative. It isn’t.
She is facing head on the idea that rape cannot be stopped by “consent workshops” and rapists re-socialised. This is patently not working. In fact, she points out, we have created the perfect environment for rape: porn, booze and dating apps, while girls are commodifying themselves in the sexual marketplace and repeatedly telling us this is “empowering”.
…All labour they argue is exploitation anyway. Sure, but working in McDonald’s doesn’t mean you may end up pregnant and sexually violated. Porn stars have to anaesthetise themselves to perform. None of this is liberating. None of it shows any care for vulnerable and poor women. Liberal feminism’s concept of “choice” works for the privileged few not the many.
Perry’s answers are not mine, nor do they have to be – she is asking the right questions. She wants a return to marriage and for girls not to have loveless sex, to be on the lookout for sexually aggressive men or anyone who is aroused by violence.
…What has got lost in the pursuit of revolution is the very thing that was promised: pleasure. For every woman who gets off on casual encounters, there will be another who wanted something more. That may be a relationship, or it may simply be an orgasm (only 10 per cent of women experience one during a one-night stand).
The sexual revolution has been responsible for so many women faking it for the sake of men whereas a real revolution would focus on what women actually want.
(Link, video on you tube): The Sexual Revolution is Terrible for Women – Louise Perry – 1.12 hour long. I may not necessarily agree with everything expressed in the video.
Related:
(Link): We’re Casual About Sex and Serious About Consent. But Is It Working? by J. Zimmerman
(Link): Atheist Video About Being a Virgin of Sexually Abstinent – My Critique of the Atheist’s Critique
(Link): Why Sex-Positive Feminism is Falling Out of Fashion
(Link): Progressive Are Now Marketing Their Own Version of Christian Purity Culture as “Radical Monogamy”
(Link): Where the Sexual Revolution Went Wrong by Maria Albano
(Link): Why Are We Cheapening Women, Marriage, and Sex? (via PragerU and Candace Owens)
(Link): CDC Report: Virgin Teens Much Healthier Than Their Sexually Active Peers (2016 Report)
(Link): Why are young feminists so clueless about sex? by M. Wente
(Link): Craigslist confessional: I’m in my 40s, never married, and a virgin—but I’m happy by Abigail
(Link): Nearly 4 in 10 American Adults Live Without Spouse or Partner As Single Population Grows: Pew
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