The highly astute Joanna Williams at Spiked Online has written an excellent article debunking the new sexual counterrevolutionaries, particularly the self-proclaimed "reactionary feminists" like Mary Harrington and Louise Perry. She does not mince words about why it would be a bad idea to attempt to roll back the sexual revolution, particularly for Women, and why blaming all or most of the modern world's real or supposed social ills on The Pill (let alone doing away with it) is foolish at best. Women's freedom, sexual or otherwise, is NOT the problem. And she notes how it really does Women no favors the way the reactionaries essentially rob them of agency and autonomy, infantilizing them. And the real kicker is that she actually does so from a somewhat conservative perspective (keep in mind that "reactionary" is politically well to the right of "conservative", properly understood).
And one need not agree 100% with every word of her article to conclude that she is nonetheless correct overall. Contrary to what some may believe, one cannot simply roll back Women's sexual freedom to 1950s (or earlier) levels without also (deliberately or inadvertently) rolling back Women's political and economic freedom as well.
Last year I had written an article about the follies of the sexual reactionaries, and why "reactionary feminism" will backfire on any Women who embrace it. And a while back, I also wrote another article about how sexual freedom for Women is essentially the "kill switch" of patriarchy.
(In case you were wondering, one should note that there has never been a society where Women had sexual freedom but men did not, not even in the most Matriarchal societies past or present. The reverse has unfortunately been true under patriarchy, but even that has often backfired on men as well.)
In contrast, attempting to roll back the half-finished (at best) sexual revolution is to accomplish nothing but to get stuck in a quagmire of perpetual limbo at this point. We would be wise to reject the bluster of those who seek to do so.
To quote the legendary Guru Rasa Von Werder:
My associate Ajax the Great & I agree, sexual freedom is the KILL SWITCH FOR PATRIARCHY. When Women do whatever they want sexually, & no longer fear men, men will have nothing to fight for. Consider a ram with his harem. The harem runs off & mates with the other guys in the woods. No more head banging, lol. We will end war by being sexually free."
Liberty (sexual or otherwise) is NOT a zero-sum game. In fact, liberty like love: the more you give, the more you get. Let the planetary healing begin!
UPDATE: The independent and largely conservative news site The Free Press recently hosted a live debate on September 13, 2023 on "Has the Sexual Revolution Failed?" Given the conspicuous lack of gloating from either side afterwards, it's pretty clear that the right-wing reactionary side (i.e. against the sexual revolution) largely lost the debate.
