On The Fruits of The Sexual Revolution

Six decades after the Sexual Revolution, I’m stuck with a feeling of indecision. It certainly delivered on some of its promises. But today, as I look around at my generation, I see an abundance of discourse about ‘liberation’ and ‘resistance.’ No such fight was put up after the Sexual Revolution, where ‘the pill’ now enabled the kind of hyper-masculine sexual behaviour in women that men could only dream of prior.

A fact about the invention of the pill that’s been seemingly lost to time is that it was intended to give more autonomy to women, instead of enabling the framework of the modern ‘situationship,’ a dynamic that entirely advantages men in the sexual economy. And it was never presented honestly to the women of America, creating the conditions for an unclear structure of ‘consent,’ and what it means to ‘consent.’

Surely, we have done a disservice to the young women of America by presenting such a false dichotomy. Everyone’s sexuality is different. And some young women have more ‘traditional’ dispositions. I struggle to find offence in such a neutral statement.

Feminine sexuality, often, just looks different than masculine sexuality. ‘Men are pigs’ as is often said. And as a man, there is a degree to which this will always be true. The project of mapping hyper-sexualised masculine impulses onto the feminine psyche will not engender anything but discontent and unhappiness. If we truly want to liberate women, I believe we must re-litigate key parts of the Sexual Revolution: perhaps, give the modern young woman a chance. If she chooses to marry, let her. And if she doesn’t? Don’t pressure her.