Young women today are more sexually liberal than ever, but this could be extremely damaging - as the modern Mary Whitehouse has warned us. Photo / Getty Images
Young women today are more sexually liberal than ever, but this could be extremely damaging - as the modern Mary Whitehouse has warned us. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION:
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 toit. 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.
What kind of sexual revolution was this then and why have so many liberal feminists not only gone along with it but actively promoted it? I am sure at points I must plead guilty, but for a decade or so now I have become more and more uncomfortable with what is thought of as sexually progressive.
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. Consent here is a murky area, as clearly they have felt they couldn't say no and when they feel bad afterwards, they blame themselves. In other words, a good time was not had by all.
According to Philip Larkin "Sexual intercourse began in 1963 (which was rather late for me)". The advent of the Pill (as well as the washing machine – never underestimate how many hours a day women spent in domestic labour before that) was indeed liberating. 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.
Ridiculed by opponents as a puritan who found fault wherever she looked or listened, Mary Whitehouse became a moral crusader who became a bugbear for broadcasters. Photo / Getty Images
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".
Of course, for some it is but someone surely has to look at the distress amongst our teenagers and ask why they are not thriving. Academics who have never been addicts, trafficked or impoverished write papers on sex work being just another job. 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.
Whether one generation can learn from the mistakes of another is questionable but I would say for every young woman who behaves as if "anything goes" there is another who is insecure and unsure and would quite like romance as well as hot sex. What else explains the huge draw of Sally Rooney who explores all this so well?
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.
