Why the sexual revolution has been a disaster for women

[MalagaNights]

I wonder what people's thoughts are on this article?

I've been thinking about this for a while, reflecting on my own views and experiences when younger and many of the threads I see on here now, from younger women unhappy with dating or fwb situations, or men who won't commit.

It's interesting she uses the line about sex having become separate from reproduction, which is something I've heard the USA right wing commentators make.

While the pill and access to abortion have undoubtedly allowed women expanded opportunity because we can now control our reproductive choices, do we need to recognise some of the negative aspects of this in our relationships with men which has led to a hypersexualising of women and lack of men's responsibility around sex?

I'd be interested in people's perspectives on this.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10862331/Why-sexual-revolution-disaster-women-Feminist-Louise-Perry-sparks-fierce-debate.html

I think the article is a bit of a mess lurching around all sorts of issues. My initial response would be the internet has had more of an impact of the issues she raises than the availability of contraception.

It's not a bad article, but I've seen a few by Mary Harrington on the same topic which I think were better.

I don't really think there is much question about it, overall the sexual revolution has been bad for women. And really men as well in many ways. see people now rowing back from some of the effects of this in practice, but one thing I find very noticible is that many have lost the language to really object. Pop culture, especially in progressive circles, may see that something is hurting women, but because the only langugage we have is around sexual ethics are about consent and freedom, it becomes difficult to articulate objections.

unherd.com/2022/01/why-do-men-hate-women-2/

unherd.com/2021/11/the-sexual-revolution-killed-feminism/?=refinnar

I'm actually a very big fan of casual sex, one night stands and no strings attached sex. So for me, the sexual revolution has been great. I also enjoy a dick pick from time to time, though not an unsolicited one.

I dislike the suggestion that women prefer sex in a loving relationship, because for me that simply isn't true. And the suggestion that sex as a physical act rather than an expression of love, again, isn't an issue for me.

So basically I disagree with most of the article!

led to a hypersexualising of women and lack of men's responsibility around sex?

Well that’s true but that has more to do with the backlash against feminism than feminism itself.

As well as the fact that men want sex mostly and see women as the gatekeepers to that.

I think a lot of women like me are now looking at the world for women and thinking, what the actual fuck?' because one set of oppressions have been swapped for another, with some of the original ones actually still there in disguise.

So men get women's bodies, the fruits of women's labour, and women's emotional support. Women get ... well, even their legal rights are on very shoddy scaffolding, especially regarding property and pension rights if they're not married. Their human rights are fucked if most of the political parties have their way over gender ID (which in turn vastly dilutes women's voting rights, as female voters feel disenfranchised).

I'm glad this is being talked about, though. But none of this is the 'fault' of most women or feminists and neither is it reason to gloat about us 'getting what we wanted'. This fucking social mess is testament to the enduring strength of the patriarchy, and the way in which recent societal changes - definitely including the internet - have rushed in to serve its needs.

I'm especially interested in the roles of certain women and their luxury beliefs in trashing the vast majority of other women and calling it 'feminism' - see, just in the past couple of days alone, Stella Creasy MP and Judge Michelle Brewer. It needs analysing and discussing.

Hard agree. It's so depressing. I couldn't be more despondent about women's position in society right now.

This fucking social mess is testament to the enduring strength of the patriarchy, and the way in which recent societal changes - definitely including the internet - have rushed in to serve its needs.

Exactly, people talk about about a backlash against feminism but I see it as an ongoing resistance. A backlash would imply that feminist ideas were accepted by society at large then rebelled against, when really I think they’ve been fought against since the beginning.

I mean look at MeToo. It was deemed from Day One that it had “gone too far”.

I agree absolutely. I thought the Women's Liberation movement of the 1970s was partly a reaction against the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s. A lot of the freedom won in the 60s was freedom for men to make new demands of women. The men wanted us liberated from conventions that kept us sexually unavailable -- they were much less enthusiastic about our liberation from servicing men.

The recent drive to reduce women's rights (via the gender-identity movement) is led by the same men who demand sexual freedom for themselves.

the sexual revolution has been bad for women

I honestly think you have to be ignorant of what things were like before to really believe this is true.

None of the male behaviour in this article is new. Men have always raped and forced their wives/women they had power over/prostitutes into sexual acts they didn't want. Men have always tried to use women as discardable commodities. Porn is as old as photography. The sexual revolution didn't create any of this.

Anytime women start to try and gain freedoms the patriarchy fights back harder. Blaming women for that is sick.

Whilst I agree with some aspects of this, overall I disagree. I've had lots of casual sex and for me it was a journey of discovery ti find out what I liked and didn't like. I've now wound late in life with a man I love and have great sex with. I don't think it's anyone's right to tell me I can't do that. Just because some women can't handle that freedom doesn't mean it should be taken away from me. Porn on the other I think should be severely restricted and sex work is not work.

Interesting perspectives.

I like the idea we don't have the language to describe it beyond consent and freedom. As I'm finding hard to articulate what seems to have some truth without feeling it sounds judgemental or moralising to today's ear.

When what I'm trying to talk about isn't what people should do, or how it should be, but more the reality of what works for women generally and what doesn't.

It's as if we reached a point where we were given all the freedom, in theory at least, legally and free to control reproduction, but the removing of any boundaries around this has damaged women in other ways. Many of those boundaries demanded more of men and protected women.

I think our expectations of men have decreased as our 'freedom' has increased and the resulting lack of responsibility from men is devastating for women, particularly mother's and our children.

I don't see everything through a prism of a patriarchy I think it's a more dynamic relationship in which women and men respond to each other and shape expectation and at the moment from nearly every angle women seem to be shafted by the dynamic.

Unless you want to be a single mother, or childless, and a high flying career women, which seems to be advocated by many feminists as the solution but doesn't actually seem to correspond to what most women actually want which is children and a decent partner.

My experience has been very similar to yours and I don't think anyone is suggesting freedom should be taken away?!?!
But a reflection on some of the negative outcomes of the use of such freedom is surely no bad thing when we are in the position of so many dissatisfied women?

Every woman can make her own choices around sex, I'm 100% on board with that.
Who isn't?
Doesn't mean on a societal level it doesn't change dynamics, relationships and interactions in a way which may not be totally positive.

I read it as wanting to put back societal restrictions on casual sex. Bring the shame and pressure back for breaking the norms? Did I get that wrong?

Hmm, I think the difficulty with it is if we say: there are some choices around sex which have better outcomes for women (in general) it's interpreted as a moral judgement with associated shame. As you did.

We need a way to talk about things which ensures individual freedom but also recognises that in general there may be some optimal choices for women. Or some choices less likely to lead to their desired outcomes.

IF what you want is a long term commited partner (obviously again anyone is free not to choose that and will make their choices accordingly).

I think we don't have the shared language to discuss this.
It's either pure freedom no consequences.
Or moral judgement.

I think there's a reality between those, that we seem unable to talk about.

I think we don't have the shared language to discuss this.
It's either pure freedom no consequences.
Or moral judgement.

I think there's a reality between those, that we seem unable to talk about.

Yes, I think that's it exactly. It's like the fankle you can get into where any suggestion that women be taught ways to stay safer becomes 'victim blaming', so you're supposed to send your daughter out into the world without ever telling her to avoid dark streets or drunk men or whatever because she ought not to have to worry about violent/abusive males.

I do note the change in women's lives that comes between when we are the young women going out and looking for freedom and when we become mothers, having experienced both the benefits and the risks and pitfalls of said freedoms, seeing our daughters going out looking for the same freedoms.

I wonder if that is a pattern that repeats generally over time.

I think there are positives about it: the pill, the fact that women can be independent/don't need to build their lives around a man and less stigma for women who don't want committed relationships and just want to enjoy sex and the realisation that women should not put up with abusive relationships.

But I think relationships/sex are still very much based around the needs and expectations of men. Society has not changed from that point of view.

The world of online dating for example is full of lazy, entitled, porn-inspired men who can't be bothered with building real relationships with women and instead just see them as commodities. Not to mention the toxic ''rough sex'' expectations and men who seem to think that porn is what sex should look like.

Women are sold the idea that in the dating world they should provide sex quickly and should be happy with men who don't want to make any effort in the name of ''liberation'' and being ''cool''. It might work for some women who are also casual sex seekers and that is fine. But I think those of use who want more it is pretty bleak environment.

I've just gone back and read her 11 rules. What else are they? I'm not into this at all. How on earth could you have rules like that without shaming people?

Completely agree with your point!

And here is where I then admit to reading the article after reading the thread.

It's not bad, some reasonable points among some iffier ones.

'hook-up culture is endorsed by feminists as a form of liberation.'

Is it? If a feminist endorses not shaming a woman for having many partners or not being in a committed relationship, that's not actually 'endorsing hook-up culture'.

This subject does seem to go from one extreme strawman to the other and back again.

Here is Victoria Smith's take on it which I thought was interesting thecritic.co.uk/the-sexual-revolution-has-failed-generation-x-women/

I wouldn't want to get rid of the gains made by the contraceptive pill and Women's Lib, but those gains may have resulted in new problems even as they solved old ones.

Shame has a social function, and a useful one. But we have a tendency at this point in time to say that any social boundaries or pressures around sexual or physical things are somehow shaming, in a way that strongly implies prudisness and also a desire to opress.

Part of the problem is this assumption built into much of our culture that freedom comes through individualistic choice, and the possibility for increasing that is infinite, and there is no trade off.

A simplistic and slightly banal example being something like pubic waxing for women. Isn't this simply an expression of individual choice, sel-stheniticity, and sexual fredom? Well no, it's not, because despite what people might like to think sexual norms are learned collectively and many of our expectations and even preferences are mediated culturally. So if you are a young man who has come to expect certain things in terms of grooming through pop culture and your own sexual experiences, you and many other you men may well be put off sexually when you encounter something different. And so of course this affects the young women who want to be active in the sexual marketplace.

Under the sexual revlution, sex becomes something non-serious, something casual, and without shame attached. What's the effect of that thinking going to be on a culture-wide level? And there will be an effect, it's deeply naive to think otherwise.

Feminism has been inconsistent on this, there have certainly been some feminists who see this problem clearly. THey've been somewhat undone, though, by the fact that the progressive left has tended to be somewhat uncritical in accepting the general proposition that increased freedom (whatever that means but especiallly phycical bodily freedom) is the proper goal of society and has no serious trade offs or limits. This is part of what has got it into trouble in terms of the idea that the physicality of the body is itself in an unacceptable limitation on freedom. Or to put it another way, the integration of who we are as women, or sexed beings, imlies an acceptence on not only limitation, but a realization that freedom is also positivly related to recognition of limit and form.

the general proposition that increased freedom (whatever that means but especiallly phycical bodily freedom) is the proper goal of society and has no serious trade offs or limits

That's a neo-liberal view of the world, I suppose. Mapped onto sex/bodies. 'Anything and everything is yours for a price'

The crucial factor being the transaction between individuals - who has the power, the consumer or the seller? Who profits?

The concept of shame is interesting, and the current view that no one should ever experience it.

We don't just want legal freedom under the law, we want total freedom as an individual to live without judgement and associated shame. But this requires no expected self limitations even on the choices you are free to make and even no linking these to negative consequences because this could be seen as shame.

But this removes the ability to even discuss which choices may lead to better outcomes or what norms we choose to live with, whilst still accepting the freedom to reject the norms.

It is this concept that has lead to the queer movement. Total freedom, no norms, no boundaries, no shame.
And the Trans movement within this that even your body cannot limit your freedom to be and choose what you want.

Freedom without any self imposed limits or group norms agreed to be functional is just another type of tyranny.

Shame has a function in imposing limits but can also be utilised deliberately oppressively.

But what happens to a society when shame is eliminated? I don't think the outcomes for women & children are going to be good.