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

This to me is exactly the message from the Patriarchy - encouraging us all to look elsewhere for the solution to improving womens lives & choices because it can’t just be mens responsibility to take up that workload.

Maybe but there has never been a time in history when women were well served by men. Men have never undertaken that workload. And LP doesn’t seem to be arguing that men should be doing lots of caregiving and child rearing. She seems okay with the traditional gendered roles, as long as the family unit is intact.
We do need men to do way more of the work that women currently do but the family unit actually allows men a pretty easy time. Lots and lots of men do almost nothing at home because their wives pick up all the slack and damage their careers in the process. In fact, divorce or separation with 50/50 shared childcare can be the first time many men have to fully step up and is a positive in that sense. It also then gives women in that position a break.

“Maybe but there has never been a time in history when women were well served by men.”

What about on the Titanic?

Not being rude but is this a joke? Are we also going to talk about our favourite incel gotcha about how men are so hard done by because they get conscripted to wars and women don’t?

''Sinking the Titanic 'women and children first' myth''
www.newscientist.com/article/dn22119-sinking-the-titanic-women-and-children-first-myth/

Not exactly joking @GCAndProud . I think it does show that men are capable of a vast range of behaviours.
If myths have grown up around the Titanic, @Thelnebriati it doesn’t mean it didn’t actually happen - like the blitz and Dunkirk.

I can see that men are not always a good bet. However, an alternative support structure usually means grandma, and/or it means financial support for childcare from the state. It seems to me more efficient and realistic to encourage men to invest time and resources in their own children and to live in close proximity to them where possible. If you look at men as a potential social problem, I think that can be part of the solution.

user1477391263

I'm watching the monkeypox stuff being covered on Twitter and elsewhere, and I'm fascinated by the extent to which it apparently isn't OK to question the idea of male promiscuity. We just had COVID--women were forced to give birth alone, and leave toddlers dumped in front of TVs all day while working; our kids have sustained serious emotional, development, physical and educational harm from a lot of measures that were brought in, and we were all expected to just suck it up. And yet, in the case of monkeypox, it seems like public health people and general commentators are having huge difficulty even hinting that men should refrain from casual sex with a bunch of strangers, chemsex, buying and selling sex, Grindr and so on. It's making me really pissed off. I think LP is right to talk about a lot of the stuff she's discussing.

Absolutely seconded. We had people being told they couldn't buy "unnecessary" items in a supermarket they were already in, because it would extend the length of time they were in the shop, and thus increase their chance of catching Covid from another shopper. Didn't a police force even make noises on social media, backing this up?

And now we have public health commentators being hesitant about advising men to avoid meeting strangers for close physical contact? Do viruses not get spread if someone is having an orgasm, then?

Oh God, supermarkets! Remember the tossers telling parents to leave quite young children outside in their cars rather than bringing them in?

It seems to me more efficient and realistic to encourage men to invest time and resources in their own children and to live in close proximity to them where possible.

In terms of women's and children's welfare, a society where women simply raised their children with the support of other women and the state could be just fine, as far as I am concerned. The children of single mothers by choice who never know a father turn out about the same as other children, research suggests. But I think that society should encourage involved responsible fatherhood as much as possible because of what fatherhood does to men, rather than because of anything it does to children. Men undergo psychological and even endocrinal/physiological changes when they play fatherhood roles and are actively involved in caring for their young children; they become gentler, more cooperative, trust strangers more, and even vote for more socially caring and responsible social policies. This is super important for a socially cohesive democratic society---and one that is safe and supportive for women and children.

That is a big reason why polygynous societies have much higher rates of violence: you have large numbers of men who never become involved fathers because they have no female partners; plus, the men who are in polygynous relationships are usually barely involved with the direct raising of children and tend to sit aloof from family life [because in order to reduce (perfectly understandable) jealousy among co-wives, the usual pattern in polygynous societies is for each co-wife to have somewhat separate living quarters with her children, while the husband rotates around these and avoids spending too much time with any one co-wife or set of children].

So, I'm all for encouraging monogamous marriage as a general thing. But NOT to the point where women are encourage to waste their lives with awful men who are horrid spouses and parents. That I can never support. Divorce will always happen sometimes and I think we can mostly judge women to make the decision on this, rather than trying to legally clamp couples together; I see no evidence that it's common for women to divorce men for trivial reasons.

Mary Harrington has been mentioned. She's an interesting writer in some ways, but yes, trad wife central.

I haven't read the article yet but I will. I just wanted to get my perspective, my answer down before responding to it.

Going by only the title: I'd say without a doubt that it was bad for ME. I can't speak for other women.

I came of age in the 60's and 70's (born 1951) so I know the before and after of the sexual revolution.

As a teenager I knew for sure that I wanted children, a family, a true love, and that I would not have sex before marriage.

Then "free sex" came along and men began to expect sex from their girlfriends. I was in love with one boyfriend and he wanted sex and I said no, and he dumped me. I witnessed one after the other my closest girlfriends "giving in" to have sex with their boyfriends -- after saying no at first, but being persuaded. My very closest friend had sex for the first time in my bed with a boy who had pestered her for months, and was known as a playboy; he was 20, we were 16 and 17. I stayed outside the room while they had sex.

Later we were all in England and they were both having sex, and I wasn't. I still wanted love first. They began to tell all the boys interested in me that I was a virgin, and pestered me so long till I gave in and had sex. I was 17. It wasn't anything at all to write home about.

I do think men and boys were more respectful in the "before" era. They did not think they had a right to sex after a few dates, back then. I remember well the first time I came across that attitude - I had met an American in Bombay, hung around with him for a few hours, and then he thought he had a right to sex and got really annoyed when I said no. So all the more, I said no and didn't care about his "you frigid cow" insults.

Once you've done it though you've crossed a barrier. I had sex with lots of boys/men after the first one, and just about all of them, when I look back, I can only cringe and think what the hell. Some of them real eejits. They would mostly wear condoms.

Then, when I was 29, I got pregnant from a boyfriend I really liked. I thought he liked me too and was excited because I really wanted a baby and I was getting on in years. But he didn't. He persuaded me to have an abortion.

That broke my heart. From that day on I knew things had to change. I swore to myself that I would never again have sex unless I knew for sure that the man would welcome a child with me. Sex became almost sacred for me.

The next man I had sex with, two years later, was the man I married and had children with. We were together almost 30 years and then he dies after an illness of many years. I had not had sex for many years when he died and will never have sex again. I don't need or want it and find that I am a far more rounded, fulfilled being without it.

I know that sex is important for many women but not for me. I am lucky that I came out of that whole free sex thing with two wonderful children, now adult. I have three grandchildren. It's as if for me, the only reason I ever had sex was to have children. It's completely bound up with reproduction. And I wish I had been strong enough, when I was young, to stick with my no thanks; I think that "No" was my strength and I gave it up too soon.

So that's it; your experience may differ, but linking sex back to reproduction absolutely changed my life. Yes, I am old fashioned, but then -- I am 70 and don't give a ff what younger women think of that view. Remember I was a flowers-in-my-hair, pot-smoking, back-packing-round-the-world hippie for many years! So old-fashioned is not necessarily what you think it is.

Btw, both my kids, a boy and a girl, adopted my ideas on sexual liberation and I like what they have both become.

Sorry this was so long. Now off to read the article.

I've just read LP's book. There is a lot in there that chimes with me. Where I part company with LP is on marriage/divorce and on the way she places the responsibility for male violence on women rather than men.

The premise of the book is that men are, by nature, predisposed to promiscuity, aggression etc. She has a classic evolutionary biology view of differences between men and women. Her beliefs in marriage and in avoiding divorce seem inconsistent with that position. If men are so ill suited to monogamy, and prone to violence, how on earth are there going to be enough good men for women to marry? And why should women stay in marriages with men who are, as LP sees it, acting in a way that is their natural tendency.

I have a lot of friends who want marriage and children but their blokes just want their freedom. Either no kids and no responsibility so my friend has to live her life on chemicals with the threat of an abortion if she gets it wrong. Or some live in a marriage situation with a kid or kids (fewer then my friends would like in both cases) and won't get married. Which I think leaves my friends in a precarious situation in all sorts of ways money, pensions, rights on deaths, etc. It seems like reproductive rights, for women who want marriage and kids, just gives men power.

For women that don't want marriage and kids it is great. But it seems like choice has been taken away. A bit like the choice to stay at home or work when you do have kids. Society now expects women to work.

We never really get choices. The pendulum just swings extremely one way or the other.

So interesting & positive to see everyone’s posts & personal stories here. The underlying narrative seems so bleak to me, still. Agree with a few pp’s that in ‘history’ the choices women had were pretty dire; if any choice. Doesn’t seem great now. I was born late 80s; in London- my mum
& all my friends’ mums worked ‘big jobs’- I feel like now we have no choice really in working or staying home! X

I came of age in the 60's and 70's (born 1951) so I know the before and after of the sexual revolution.

So I'm only a decade and a bit younger than you but I think your view is rather rose-tinted. Those so-called 'perfect' marriages for true lurve really, in most cases, were not. He still had perfect liberty to screw around or go to the local brothel and she, out of shame, kept her mouth shut and, usually, her legs open for him whilst being financially dependent on him and still putting a meal on the table for him every night and cleaning his toilet, often taking what housekeeping he'd deign to give her out of which she had to try and feed and clothe the children. On the other hand, women who didn't want to settle for a patriarchal marriage were called sluts and 'town bike' on the back of some pretty amazing double standards.

Growing up in the late 60s and 70s even as a child I recognised that was a crock of shit for women. Maybe the sexual revolution didn't work for some but the grass was not greener before it.

I actually wasn'r referring to "perfect" marriages and I know they weren't. My mother was divorced and so was an aunt of mine, who had been cruelly jilted.

I was referring to my own life. A teenager coming of age and having to deal with the continuous onslaught from men trying to get into your pants. It WAS better then because you could have a boyfriend for months on end without him bothering you for sex; there wasn't this expectation that you had to screw him or else you were a frigid cockteaser. In my own experience, boys didn't expect to get sex from you, and because of that they were a lot better-mannered -- sure, in the hope that eventually you would give in! They were still assholes, most of them.

But somehow it wasn't all so deadly serious. There are a lot of quite funny calypsoes about sex -- and they weren't rude and vulgar like todays rappers. Pop music was about falling in love, not about tits and ass.

I never had a rose-tinted view of marriage. My own marriage was a solid one, and I had a good husband, but it wasn't easy. But I know for sure he did not watch porn, and he did not expect to choke me and did not demand blow-jobs. I don't think he even knew what a blow-job was, and would have been horrified at the idea of choking.

I am 29 but I feel like I can't relate to the sexual revolution. I met my DH at university (he is from an orthodox jewish background so he still has a more traditional mindset despite being a eater of pork and shellfish) and we married 1.5 years after we met. We have been together ever since.

There are a lot of men out there who would commit but they are not likely to be on tinder or any other dating apps. Its easy to believe that everyone is sleeping around with lots of partners or that men only want to have lots of sexual partners because of the media's portrayal (sex sells), but actually a lot of people don't necessarily want that. Such men would typically be quite low key so its easy to overlook them.

That is the thing about freedom, you can choose to be sexually liberated but you can also marry your high school sweetheart (just like they used to do in the 50s and 60s and 70s). Thats why even though I have never had casual sex, I still support the sexual revolution because it gives women choice and their lives wouldn't be ruined because of their decision to have casual sex.

There are plenty of men who would commit.My DH married me when he was 24! My DH thinks a lot of women choose the men who are least likely to commit perhaps when they are the stage when they aren't sure whether they want to commit. And then are stuck with the men who don't want to commit.

As for working mothers, its a myth that poorer women haven't worked in the past. they have always worked, they were just badly paid and had v informal childcare provision or no childcare provision. Its the middle class women who didn't work. Middle class people have also been priced out of detached houses (in cities like London and affluent suburbs) and private education even with 2 salaries; so it has less to do with sexual revolution as it has to do with societal shift. People need 2 salaries nowadays because property is a lot more expensive (low interest rates and high demand) and also because we are a consumer society (and many of these consumer goods are now essentials to function in society i.e. smartphones).

Interesting views on the thread. It's not a topic I've seen women discuss much.

I do find the suggestions that women are better off raising children alone with the support of the state, depressing as a goal, and ludicrously naive as a vision for society.

Most heterosexual women want a long term loving sexual relationship with a man. Most women want children. Most women want to bring those children up with support.

So surely the aim should be: how to maximise the likelihood that men will perform these vital roles.

The biggest risk factor for nearly all negative childhood outcomes is fatherlessness. Men play a vital role in the bringing up of children and you take that away with devastating detriment to them. Especially boys, but not exclusively.

So the aim should be how to maximise the likelihood that men will perform the role of father positively.

If you break the link between biological father and partnership with the mother, what we get is non biologically related men in children's lives (as women want romantic partners) and children with a non biologically related man in the home are 100x more likely to experience abuse.

Just a quick look at the step parenting boards on MN should illustrate it doesn't really work for children. (As a generalisation).

And the idea that men who are half the population, with a propensity for risk taking, aggression and individual freedom are released from any societal expectation or roles which expect them to integrate and control this, will have positive outcomes for women, children or the men themselves is insanity. It would be hell. For everyone.

What would be the role of men? What would we be raising our sons for?

For me the aim is: how do we create structures in society which are optimal for most people? In the past we've had oppressive narrow structures leading to people stuck in unhappy lives and situations, now we seem to have a lack of structure which we though would bring freedom but which in fact has led to a lack of adult responsibility around sex and child rearing, with women carrying the burden.

@DyingForACuppa

Porn is as old as photography.

It's a lot older than that. There are plenty of "porn" paintings hanging in arts galleries, plus "porn" sculptures". Not to mention "porn" in cave drawings, tombs, and even 2000+ year old buildings with "phallic" pillars. It's been around as long as humans!

Thank you. I didn't want to mention my son as people would say I'm biased/ have no idea what he's up to -- but he is 37, good looking, and is dying to marry and is actually not sleeping around but hoping desperately to find the right woman. He also wants lots of kids (already has a daughter of 12, whom he adores, but who lives with her mother). His problem is that it is women who are too casual.
He's often been approached for sex by women and that's not what he wants. He is living with me at the moment because Covid ruined his self-employed business. That's good because he does almost all of the cleaning and laundry and washing-up.
There ARE men out there. You just have to find them. And sleeping with them usually won't help; that'll get you the men who aren't interested in marriage.

If I were young again and eager to marry I would probably use a dating website that is expressly for people looking to settle down. I would not date casually. I'd make sure from the start that marriage and kids is what they are looking for, similar to arranged marriages in India, when you know right from the start that it's serious.

The real problem actually is that marriage/family life is very unattractive for men who are not from a traditional background and in the bottom half of earners.

For people from a traditional background, they get affirmation from people of their peer group when they marry i.e. Dh did not think it was unusual for him to marry at 24 as there were girls in his school marrying at 19-21 (they still went to university and continued working post DC and I suspect their parents helped them out a lot financially; plus they married older men who were well established). His NDN married at 22, 1 month after university graduation.

However, if you are in mainstream society, most people do not marry that young and they probably don't get help with deposits/weddings. If you are in the bottom half of earnings, you would probably feel crap getting married because you can't afford that picture perfect wedding on your earnings and you probably can't afford to buy property either. Thats why in mainstream society, many men prefer to postpone commitment until they feel 'ready'. Actually they are trying to protect their fragile male egos. You can feel like a king of the world as a single bachelor.

Because men are treating women badly under this particular set of sexual standards doesn't mean we should go back to men treating women badly under the older set of sexual standards.
The only thing that will solve this is for men to start showing some respect for women, not for women to be held accountable responsible for men's bad behaviour.

In fact, I think that for me it would be a lot easier today than back in the day, when you had to be really coy about the fact you were looking for a husband and not just someone to have loads of fun, sexual and otherwise, with.
That might sound like a contradiction to what I said above, but back then I made the mistake of thinking that giving them sex would help bind them to me, when the opposite was the case: here today, gone tomorrow.
That's why my rule "no sex except with someone who'd want the kid if I got pregnant" was perfect for me. I learnt not to be coy about it any more, but to be discerning and make sure he was marriage material before he got anywhere with me.

@onthefencesitter I think that's true.

Statistically marriage is declining but much more steeply within lower economic and educated classes. This sexual freedom is then disproportionately impacting already disadvantaged women and their children and widening outcomes between the middle class and lower classes in society.

I also agree about sons. My sons are young men (late teens) and DH and I had a discussion the other day where we agreed we thought they'd probably both get married in the future.
Because this is within their model of what a good man is. They've observed their father & grandfathers taking the role of family man very seriously. They've seen that men provide, are involved in the home and with children, and that they respect the women in the family.

They are still red blooded testosterone men like any other but they integrate this to take on a role of a strong committed man which they have seen as valued.

This has been by luck rather than design on my part but I can see how beneficial it's been to them, their future families and society.
They may fail and get divorced, quite likely, as marriage is a hard thing to keep going, but their aim will be to fulfill this role if they can.

We need good men. And the idea that creating good men is nothing to do with women is illogical and just spiting yourself.
Women's role is to make good careful intentional choices. Men respond to the expectations of women.
If your expectations are low you'll get crap.

The idea we'll go: sort yourself out you're nothing to do with us, and men will change, is not how changes in societal expectations and relationship dynamics work.
Women will just end up with shit men and damaged children.

Women shouldn't take responsibility for men, but they should take responsibility for what they expect and tolerate from men.

I don't think women should stay married to crap men. They should divorce them.

But I also think women should from early on be clear about what they expect e.g marriage before children, and how they expect this to work around money child care etc. Then only marry and have children with men who want the same arrangement.

Obviously it's not perfect, often you can't tell who will actually be a good partner in the long run, but it would be an improvement on where we are now, with young women going along and just hoping for marriage and commitment even after they've had his baby.

Your message should actually be empowering for young women.
You decided what you wanted and stuck to that and waited for a man who met those expectations.

Many young women now (and myself in the 90s) instead do what we hope men will like and want in the hope they'll then pick us.