Over at Public Discourse today, I have an essay reviewing two new books that critique our sexual culture: The Case against the Sexual Revolution by U.K. writer Louise Perry and Rethinking Sex by Washington Post columnist Christine Emba. Here’s a snippet of my review:
Their critiques are interesting not because they’re fresh—they’re decidedly not—but because they’re coming from the sort of people who aren’t often found critiquing feminist dogma or casual sex. . . .
These are two modern women, purportedly the primary beneficiaries of the Sexual Revolution’s loosening of mores, who instead are preoccupied by what they’ve come to see as its significant flaws. . . .
As efforts to chronicle the breadth of the problem, these books are nearly unimpeachable. But neither goes far enough in recognizing exactly how deep the rot of this ideology goes. Both Perry and Emba are reluctant to jettison or even criticize essential aspects of this worldview, which significantly limits their imagination when it comes to developing solutions beyond the obvious, such as temporarily delaying sex or eschewing pornography—though, to be sure, these are fairly radical ideas in the present landscape. . . .
The idea of more radical change, in short, seems almost inaccessible to both authors. The solutions they do suggest come across more as efforts to tinker around the edges of the problem or limit their harms at the level of the individual reader, which is fine as far as it goes. But when it comes to suggestions for positive change at the cultural level, both authors have little to say, often reverting to sentiments such as “the cat is already out of the bag” or “the traditional models of the past weren’t ideal either.” Neither of these assessments grapples with the possibility that our current scenario is rotten to the core, that its ill effects can’t be mitigated or refurbished but are instead an inextricable part of the deal.
I hope you’ll read the review in full and, if you’re interested in the topic, consider perusing both books. Most of the arguments won’t be new to traditional or religiously minded conservatives and many of the anecdotes are fairly depressing, but even so, the books actually gave me a lot of hope. It’s becoming clearer by the day that the promises of the Sexual Revolution and radical feminism have fallen flat, and even the supposed beneficiaries are starting to take notice.