'The Case Against the Sexual Revolution', Louise Perry

[she-dernatinus]

EDIT I mean HOW do we decide what is inherently misogynistic?

I already gave my personal guidelines, It's not highly detailed but I think it's encompassing enough. I don't really understand why you keep asking me things that I already adressed. I'm not sure what you want more.

it all boils down to the impact on one's place in society, relationship dynamics between sexes, and overt or covert connotations associated with your overall gender. These are recurring criteria used to frame the underlying significations and potential degree of hostility any form of sexual expression might induce.

Unless you are actually trying to communicate your disagreement with these criteria. Do you have anything else you want to add ?

 

[Deleted Account]

I'm confused as to why you're quoting my signature here.

Just a philosophical reflection, never mind.

 

[Deleted Account]

I paid ten bucks for a Lensa avatar pack, this one suits this particular forum to a T.

 

[onceaking]

Yesterday I listened to a debate between Louise Perry and Jill Filiopvic. It made me more interested in reading the book. I avoided listening to or reading her because I thought I'd feel like I'd be attacked if I took any notice of what she was saying. But she came across as being rationally compassionate and helped me understand some of my behaviour when using porn. I was impressed by what she said that I started a thread with one of her quotes from the debate which can be seen here.

Here's the link to the debate:

https://www.thefp.com/p/honestly-sex-porn-feminism-a-debate

She's also going to be on The Big Conversation which should be good.

 

[Meshuga]

Thanks @onceaking , I’m going to check that link out.

 

[onceaking]

I recently watched this. Bridget Phetasy reads an essay she wrote in reaction to the book and reacts to the range of responses it got.

 

[Deleted Account]

The failure of the sexual revolution is its an abuse of freedom which never leads to anything good. This is because freedom is the ability to do what you ought not the ability to do what you want. All humans beings act because they perceive, whether real or imagined, something good. By this we know then that the pursuit of and the adherence to goodness is why we have our freedom.

A big problem now is agreeing on what is good and what leads to true human flourishing.

Part of the driver of the sexual revolution was the abuse of power in a patriarchal system. This abuse was rightfully seen as bad but this doesn’t necessarily mean patriarchy is not good; notice you don’t see a feminist saying they must be unshackled from men who are selfless, loving, respectful, just, merciful, compassionate, honest, and accountable; qualities of a true patriarch —of course I can’t speak for all systems of belief around patriarchy, but in Catholic/Christian patriarchy Christ is the standard and He said those who want to be leaders must be servants to all, as He who is God didn’t come to be served but to serve. He also didn’t unhealthily shame people for their sins and failings, which brings me to my next point.

The other catalyst of the sexual revolution was from the bad example of others in regards to the employment of shame and guilt when it came to sinful behavior. Again, like patriarchy, shame and guilt aren’t in themselves bad things, however, the abuse of them will lead to bad outcomes. The problem here is the effects of sin, emptiness, addiction, will be felt even if you deny their shamefulness, so those who subscribe to sexual liberality will typically double down and say the issue is we’re still not free enough and so they conclude the only thing to do is to destroy more boundaries thinking this will lead to more freedom, when it will just leads to more danger and more subjugation.

At the end of the day boundaries are good things and a lack of them invites a lack of respect. Boundaries also provide us with identity, just like how the borders of country provide it with its identity or the boundaries within a game provide it with its identity. Human beings, in order to find our identity, likewise need boundaries and this is the purpose of the commandments given by God.

In conclusion the way back to a healthy, happy, and joy filled life is to order oneself back to God and His law.

 

[Meshuga]

I recently watched this. Bridget Phetasy reads an essay she wrote in reaction to the book and reacts to the range of responses it got.

Never heard of her, but damn. That was a hard thing to listen to. Knowing she's spent so much time processing this, and she's still choking up going over it again.

One thing though. Why does she, and Perry, seconded by thousands of women, talk about how they can't have emotionless hookup sex "like a man?" Why do they say the Sexual Revolution has benefited men? Is junk sex meaningless for men? Or is it scarring them, the way it scarred Phetasy and Perry? A lot of men, maybe most, claim they are fine, but could they be in as much denial about it as these women used to be? I mean, we're under more pressure. Phetasy here talks about how she had self-harming sex for decades, and kept ignoring her own emotions about it, because she believed if she didn't she wasn't a good feminist. That is, a version of a woman she aspires to be. Boys are told to have as much sex with as many partners as they can, or they aren't good men. That is, fundamentally flawed not just on a moral level, but cutting deep into our sense of being.

I'm asking honestly. I've always been counter-cultural, I only had sex with one woman. I'm here, in this porn recovery forum, so you know my relationship with sex isn't awesome. But I am hearing from men, here on the forum, and out there, and I can tell you, they don't feel like they are benefiting from the Sexual Revolution. According to a recent survey, 60% of young women report actively dating or at least pursuing dating, and only 30% of young men are. When asked why they say, "what's the point?" The analysis universally has said that young men have failed to adapt, they need to learn to be emotionally vulnerable, they need to learn what modern women want. If you ask young men, though, they know what women want. They want the Uberchads. It's the Pareto Principle applied to dating. But you turn to the Uberchads, the ones actually hooking up, and they aren't happy either. Chads say yeah, the sex is ok, but when they feel ready to settle down and have a real relationship, the women bail. Those women know he's been a player. They don't trust him. In these guys' experience, promiscuity is not the double standard feminists claim. Men are also punished for playing the field.

I don't think it's just women who were sold the lie. I think being able to seduce a woman is great for the ego, but it doesn't help you at all in the long term. Plenty of guys have said they don't respect a woman if she gives it up easily, they say it makes them wonder how many others she's been with, how it makes them nobody special. They say if she'll sleep with him when she barely knows him, what about ten years from now? Will she sleep with a guy she barely knows then, too? Will it make a difference if she's married? If she has kids? It's often framed as promiscuity shaming, but these are valid questions and they are as applicable to men as they are to women. If a man has a high body count and now he's trying to bed this new girl, that doesn't make her special. She knows she's just another proverbial notch in his bedpost. And if a guy is promiscuous now, odds are better he'll be promiscuous later. He devalues himself as a long term mate as well. I think women have just been brought up to have low expectations of men, and it devalues all of us.

 

[onceaking]

Why does she, and Perry, seconded by thousands of women, talk about how they can't have emotionless hookup sex "like a man?"

The way I see it we are all shaped by our upbringing, life experiences and education. A lot of what Louise Perry says seems to have been shaped by her experience of working in a rape crisis centre. For the most part, people see things from their own point of view and it takes a lot more work to see things from someone else's view. So for a woman, it is going to be easier to see things from her gender's perspective. To be fair to Perry she does acknowledge that the sexual revolution has been bad for most men because only a handful of men can have success with women but you're right that they both seem to take the view that men can have meaningless sex.

But do they have a point? An old friend of mine said for men sex is like a sport. I have a complicated relationship with sex and I expect that has a lot to do with growing up in evangelical purity culture. I don't partake in casual sex because I think I'll feel awful after. I like what Perry says about waiting months rather than days before having sex and only having it with someone who you can imagine having a child with. Still, there's a part of me that would love to have sex with many different types of women but thinking something doesn't mean I will do it and I can't imagine myself ever doing it. My reluctance to not have casual sex may have something to do with my evangelical upbringing. I was told I shouldn't date many women let alone have sex with them. Somehow I had to figure out whether I was going to marry them before dating them. Would you say you wanted to have sex with many different types of women?

 

[Meshuga]

I also have a complicated relationship with sex, in part from from that same Evangelical purity culture. You and I were told sex is too sacred, too dangerous. I experienced the same ambivalence about sex; dread and fascination. I chose purity culture (most of the time) for a few reasons, mostly telling myself that it was the smartest and the most morally correct choice, but in retrospect it was also the most prideful and easiest choice. Phetasy, Perry, and others chose promiscuity culture, because at the time they thought it was the smartest and most morally correct choice. It sounds, however, like for them it was also a prideful and easy choice. Phetasy, at least, was given the choice between Catholic ethics and feminist ethics, but one required restraint and was reinforced with shame, neither of which are fun. Feminism threw in with the S.Rev., and told them they could indulge their impulses and free themselves from shame, and the argumentation made sense... but just listen to that essay from Phetasy. After years, decades, of trying to make it work, she found indulging her impulses made her feel disgusting and unwanted. Purity culture made sense to me but it didn't work, and it doesn't work. Joshua Harris popularized purity culture in 1997 with his book "I kissed Dating Goodbye." He split from his wife in 2019, after 19 years of marriage, and renounced Christianity.

You, me, Harris, Phetasy and Perry, all practiced self-deception for years. We told ourselves what we were doing was working, but it wasn't and we felt miserable. All of us were contradicting traditional wisdom, though, which is more in line with your friend. Sex, for men, is a sport. It's a contest, between the hunter and his prey, and other hunters. For women, sex is a tool to bait and trap men into a relationship.

I don't like that idea. I don't like it at all. That sounds mean and lonely. I don't want to be locked in an adversarial relationship with women in general or any one woman in particular. The S.Rev. sounds attractive to me, because it promises love and acceptance. Perry is saying that isn't possible, that women don't work that way and she's done lying to herself that it does. I've heard successful single men saying the S.Rev. isn't working for them, either, that they have access to lots of junk sex but are unable to connect in a meaningful relationship. I've seen people claiming their open relationships and poly arrangements are great, that they are practicing the most evolved form of sexual ethics, and others saying no, actually, they tried it and they had convinced themselves while they were doing it that was the best, but they were actually eaten up with anxiety, jealousy, and betrayal the entire time, that they didn't enjoy the sex nearly as much as they told themselves and other people they did, that it wasn't worth it and what they really want is one person to love who will love them back. In short, half of everyone are saying they have figured it out, and if everyone else will just commit to their way we will all be happy, and the other half are saying they tried that already and it didn't work. Then then first half argues back, well, you didn't try hard enough, you didn't try it right, I swear if you do it my way it will work because based on my own limited experience and the limitations of my own intelligence, I know for a fact this will work.

Is there a universal solution? Probably not. Is anyone actually happy? Maybe. But maybe we're all fooling ourselves. Maybe, if you commit to monogamy you run the high risk of locking yourself into a bad relationship, or one that was good in the beginning but will sour later on, and you will feel rejected and lonely and used. But if you commit to promiscuity you're still going to feel rejected and lonely and used. Maybe it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, doesn't matter what you do or don't do; regret and envy are inevitable.

 

[Psalm27:1my light]

The way I see it we are all shaped by our upbringing, life experiences and education. A lot of what Louise Perry says seems to have been shaped by her experience of working in a rape crisis centre. For the most part, people see things from their own point of view and it takes a lot more work to see things from someone else's view. So for a woman, it is going to be easier to see things from her gender's perspective. To be fair to Perry she does acknowledge that the sexual revolution has been bad for most men because only a handful of men can have success with women but you're right that they both seem to take the view that men can have meaningless sex.

But do they have a point? An old friend of mine said for men sex is like a sport. I have a complicated relationship with sex and I expect that has a lot to do with growing up in evangelical purity culture. I don't partake in casual sex because I think I'll feel awful after. I like what Perry says about waiting months rather than days before having sex and only having it with someone who you can imagine having a child with. Still, there's a part of me that would love to have sex with many different types of women but thinking something doesn't mean I will do it and I can't imagine myself ever doing it. My reluctance to not have casual sex may have something to do with my evangelical upbringing. I was told I shouldn't date many women let alone have sex with them. Somehow I had to figure out whether I was going to marry them before dating them. Would you say you wanted to have sex with many different types of women?

I’m a woman and yeah, I wanted sex with many different types of men, especially after I married! I was raised Christian, but both my parents and the church I grew up in talked about sex as an amazing gift from God, to be shared in marriage. That sex outside marriage came with more risks that could harm you than sex within marriage. My family is very open, pro sex, but also realistic ( no shaming at all even if someones choices were not in line with Gods word.). I thought once I got married I could have all the sex I wanted, lol.,Unfortunately, that was not the case. My husband did not believe women could like sex, and he avoided sex. So, I had a lot of temptation for pretty much my entire marriage, especially working in a male dominated profession. The only reason I didn’t give in was I knew deep down it would be fleeting pleasure and would not make me happy. I found my joy in other ways.

 

[onceaking]

Maybe it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, doesn't matter what you do or don't do; regret and envy are inevitable.

I was saying this a few weeks ago in a former evangelical Facebook group I'm a part of. Some people in the group were quite angry that they had all these restrictions when they were teenagers but then you have other people who grew up in a liberal household and they wish they had more rules. Seems to me people tend to think the grass is always greener on the other but it isn't. Maybe we need to accept suffering is a part of everyone's life.