Viva La....Counterrevolution? Why "Reactionary Feminism" Is An Anachronistic Oxymoron That Will NOT Help Women

Some on the interwebs are recently claiming that a "sexual counterrevolution" is afoot, one that is ostensibly led by Women on both sides of the Atlantic (USA and UK) who are fed up with the sexual revolution as it were.  From Mary Harrington (who apparently coined the term, as well as the term "reactionary feminism" with which she herself identifies) to Louise Perry to Christine Emba to Katherine Dee to Evie Magazine to a few others, including some men as well, there does appear to be a trend back towards sex-negativity, or at least against the perceived excesses of sexual liberation.

The sexual revolution, like the industrial revolution, was a mixed bag overall.  Contrary to what some believe, it was neither an unalloyed good nor an unmitigated evil.  But overall, it was on balance a good thing I think.  Yes, even for Women too.  If anything, it is still unfinished to this day.  It is not a simple case of "men won and Women lost", just like the industrial revolution was not merely a simple case of "bourgeoisie (capitalist class) won and proletariat (working class) lost".  Sexual liberation does NOT need to be a zero-sum game at all.  Only the male-defined sexuality of patriarchy is truly a zero-sum game, which has existed long before the sexual revolution.  Female-defined sexuality is not.

As for the idea that there should be some sort of counterrevolution, as author Louise Perry advocates in The Case Against The Sexual Revolution, well, some good rebuttals from many different angles can be found here, here, and here.  Even Christine Emba's new book, Rethinking Sex: A Provocation (the thesis of which is neither  new nor particularly provocative) can be criticized here, here, and here as well.  These rebuttals for both, all written by Women, are far, far better than anything I could ever write.  And while these two authors occasionally make some decent points here and there, they are both quite heavy on problems and light on solutions.  Emba's solutions are far too vague and anodyne, while Perry's are far too retro (if not extremely non-starters as well), to even be considered solutions.  

But truly the only real solution is the one that these authors don't seem to consider:  MATRIARCHY.  It's like they are afraid to even utter the word, or something.  Not surprising, of course, given how utterly infantilizing and agency-denying some of their arguments are to Women in general.

It is true what they say that mere consent should be the floor, not the ceiling, of sexual ethics.  No argument from me there.  Even most sex-positive feminists would agree as well.  What Emba in particular calls "radical empathy" is also crucial, as well as respect, honesty, and basic human decency/dignity, of course.  But beyond that, their arguments really start to coast into confusion if not utter incoherence overall.  And the relatively short shrift they give to non-heterosexual folks (both Women and men), who they barely even acknowledge at all, also does the reader a serious disservice as well.

But back to Mary Harrington.  Her brand of "reactionary feminism" takes it a step further and apparently wants to roll back not only the sexual revolution, but also the industrial revolution as well, and possibly even the Enlightenment too.  The 1950s is apparently not traditional enough for her, as she quite literally seems to prefer....the 1450s.  (Riddle me this:  If that time period was so great, then why all the peasant revolts, in which revolutionary Women, eventually persecuted as "witches", played an outsized role?)  She is really quite the anti-modernist, it seems, and the title of her upcoming book, Feminism Against Progress, kinda says it all.  She comes dangerously close to sounding just like the Neoreactionary movement at times.  Oh, and she also denies that patriarchy ever even existed either.  Thus, her vague "solutions" would essentially preclude the only real solution of Matriarchy as well.  And yet she calls herself a feminist, go figure!

(To be fair, Harrington is not the first person to ever criticize the notion of "progress" either.  Christopher Ryan, co-author of Sex at Dawn, also wrote a sort-of sequel, Civilized to Death:  The Price of Progress, in which he also criticizes the unquestioned notion of progress, albeit from a different and clearly sex-positive angle, and with VERY different solutions compared to the reactionaries.  I triple-dog dare Harrington to debate him, lol.  But much like Lynn Saxon, author of an unconvincing rebuttal titled Sex at Dusk, she would probably just resort to cad-shaming and other ad hominem attacks.)

Oh, and finally, one of her most ridiculous articles ever is literally titled, "Middle Aged Women Don't Want Sex", and presumably that applies to Crones as well.  Somehow that sounds a bit like projection perhaps?  And besides, the legendary Guru Rasa Von Werder has clearly and famously debunked this utterly specious notion to be not only inaccurate, but almost a full 180 degrees wrong as well.

Thus, so-called reactionary feminism occupies that awkward space between where extreme sex-negative radical feminism and extreme sex-negative anti-feminism meet per Horseshoe Theory.  Much like how the far left and far right become dangerously close to each other as well.  It is essentially the worst of both extreme worlds, and its pied pipers should really be avoided like the plague and not discussed further.  Except insofar as sunlight is the best disinfectant, of course.

UPDATE:  Oh, and about those revolutionary Women of the 15th century, eventually persecuted as "witches", did you know that many of them believed in and practiced communal living and even (gasp) free love?  You know, the same things that are absolutely anathema to those self-proclaimed "reactionary feminists" discussed above?  According to the actual feminist Sylvia Federici, they apparently did.  So far from being the granddaughters of the "witches" they couldn't burn, today's reactionaries are more like the granddaughters, or at least ideological descendants, of the sellout Women who collaborated with the witch-hunters and threw their sisters under the bus.  That is true not just for these reactionaries, but also for all slut-shamers, SWERFs, forced-birthers, victim-blamers, and rape apologists as well--all of which being just a very short walk away from one another.

In fact, I decided to name this new-but-not-really-new virulent strain of reactionary pseudo-feminism "Serena Joy Syndrome", after the rather infamous character from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.  It fits perfectly. 

UPDATE 2:  New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg has a good response (if anodyne) to the sexual counterrevolutionaries.  Even if it is still not well-received by some of the counterrevolutionaries and reactionaries themselves, of course.

Why Sex Has To Be Expensive And Hard To Get (For Men, From Women) Under Patriarchy

(And how this ultimately serves and maintains the patriarchy)

One thing that not everybody fully appreciates is just how many levels and layers the patriarchy really has.  Like peeling an onion, when you dig in you just keep finding more and more layers.  And nothing about patriarchy has more levels and layers related to it than the topic of sexuality, which under patriarchy is quite a complex topic to say the least.

Patriarchy has had a very long history of repressing Women's sexuality.  And such sexual repression has been proven to do more harm than good, and essentially all of patriarchy's archaic and repressive rules about sex were designed to control Women. That was originally done so men could be at least somewhat certain of paternity, as descent was reckoned (and inheritances were passed) through the male bloodline, though with the advent of modern birth control and paternity testing such a reason has basically become obsolete.  Note the double standard of patriarchy in which Women are far more likely to be punished for sexual transgressions, and how men who sleep around are considered "studs" and "legends" while women who do so are considered "sluts" and "whores".  In contrast, Matriarchal societies have historically been far more sexually free in general, since knowledge of paternity was basically a non-issue as descent was reckoned through the female bloodline.

Additionally, patriarchy's rules against masturbation, homosexuality, and birth control are really a result of the fact that patriarchy is one big Ponzi scheme (and protection racket) that requires very high birth rates to keep it afloat.  Thus, anything that frustrates that goal is deemed sinful.  Patriarchy considers Women to be the brood mares, while men are the work horses.  And in today's overpopulated world, such rules are also obsolete as well.   In Matriarchal societies, on the other hand, overpopulation would never even have occurred in the first place as Women would have complete sexual and reproductive freedom, and thus not have pregnancies forced upon them by men.

But wait, that is only the very first layer of this massive onion.  Read on for more.

Of course, less often appreciated is how such outmoded rules also have the purpose and effect of indirectly controlling (non-alpha and non-elite) males as well, by keeping the "cost" of sex artificially and arbitrarily high as well.  But on balance, the effects are far worse for Women, making patriarchy a negative-sum game overall even if a few come out ahead.  This is basically the "commodity model" of sexuality, in which sex is something that men "take" from Women, as opposed to being a mutually beneficial and pleasurable act in itself.  And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how this model inevitably leads to rape culture.

So how does the commodity model ultimately benefit the patriarchy?   It keeps non-alpha, non-elite males subject to the oligarchs at the top by working harder and harder to get sex, basically.  And under patriarchy, that work is generally of the sort that serves to make the rich even richer, in the hopes of "earning" the "prize" of sex at the end of the rainbow.  And it also makes men that much more aggressive, which patriarchy loves.  But again, it is a massive Ponzi and pyramid scheme.  Meanwhile, Women end up enforcing their own oppression by slut-shaming each other to artificially prop up the "cost" of sex in the "sexual marketplace", which undermines any attempt at a sisterhood which would be the greatest bulwark against the patriarchy.  Divide and conquer, basically--both men against Women, and Women against Women.  And the oligarchs just sit back and laugh.

(See a pattern here?  This is the same sort of "artificial scarcity" that the patriarchy and oligarchy create with money, goods, and services in general.  To them, sex is just another commodity or currency with which to control the masses.)

Too many layers yet?  Well, we're still just barely scratching the surface here.  Additionally, Women in general can gain power and psychological influence over men via their sexuality, and patriarchy would logically do everything they can to keep this from happening.  Thus, Women's sexuality needs to be repressed even further.  This is particularly true when older Women date or hook up with younger men, which is of course extremely taboo under patriarchy for primarily that very reason.  A young man with an older Woman as a sort of "mentor with benefits" would seriously undermine the patriarchal agenda in so many ways.

The next layer is sexuality between Women themselves, i.e. lesbianism and bisexuality.  A majority of Women, if not nearly all of them, have some sort of capacity in this regard to one degree or another.  And as we see with the bonobos, what better way to encourage a strong sisterhood than through bonding sexually with one another?  Of course, patriarchy would HATE that!

Still another layer, and probably the most complex and puzzling at first glance, is patriarchy's perennial love-hate relationship with sex work (i.e. prostitution, pornography, stripping, and stuff like that).  On the one hand, patriarchs absolutely love to objectify and exploit Women sexually, both directly and in terms of profiting from it all, while on the other hand, they also fear the potential for Women gaining any sort of power through this avenue.  So they tolerate it, but only insofar as men can totally control the trade, not Women.  And they use the law as a cudgel in one way or another to do so.  For porn specifically, those who control the propaganda essentially control the agenda.  Additionally, this is also related to the patriarchy's love-hate relationship (you can see a pattern of ambivalence here) with nudity as well.  They make it naughty and illicit, and hypersexualize it, because otherwise people would be desensitized to it, and would probably be a lot saner too.  Can't have that, of course!

And still another layer to all of this is the fact that male-defined sexuality is the only kind of sexuality that patriarchy promotes, prioritizing male pleasure and conquest and rendering Female pleasure and well-being irrelevant.  It is essentially men using Women as masturbation machines, and plays right into the hands of the patriarchy.  Female-defined sexuality, the sort that prioritizes Female pleasure and perspective, of course, is what really throws a monkey wrench in the works of the patriarchy.  And patriarchy will be damned if they ever let men learn about that.

Thus, we see how keeping the "cost" of sex artificially high ultimately serves and maintains the patriarchy, regardless of whether some individual Women may benefit from it.  It's a Faustian bargain, and one that can never lead to a real Matriarchy in practice.  (If it could, it would have already.)

And when Women finally reclaim their rightful position as the new leaders of the free world, I believe that our society will become truly sexually free once again, albeit with some concessions to modern times of course.  In the meantime, we all need to stop slut-shaming Women yesterday.  A "sexual cartel" is no substitute for a genuine sisterhood.

Let the planetary healing begin!

2022 UPDATE:  Two new articles on PsyPost really seem to dovetail nicely with this thesis.

What "Liberated" Gets Right--And Wrong At The Same Time

The new documentary, Liberated: The New Sexual Revolution, is a textbook example of how one can be both very right and still very wrong at the same time, to the point where the latter utterly vitiates the former.  The film, produced by the Christian anti-trafficking group Exodus Cry teaming up with Netflix, is a profoundly disturbing look at the intersection between "hookup culture", rape culture, and pop culture among young Millennials, particularly college students.

First, let's discuss the things they get right.  There should be no doubt amymore that rape culture exists, and not only among college students or young people either.  So much of it is exposed on display in this film, in ways that are both shocking and banal at the same time.  And it is very pervasive indeed, infecting the general culture as well, while fueling and being fueled by pop culture in the process.  That much is certainly true, no argument from me there.

That said, the film (and its commentaries) really starts to coast--scratch that, takes a nosedive--when the filmmakers' apparently conservative Christian and neo-Victorian biases rear their ugly heads in the following ways:

• This cherry-picked sample of a few groups of Spring Breakers in a rather notorious location is hardly a representative sample of an entire generation or culture.
• It is questionable whether "hookup culture" even exists, since Millennials are actually having LESS sex with fewer partners than the most recent previous generations (Baby Boomers and Gen X).  That is true for both students and non-students as well.
• The idea that casual sex of any kind somehow must be inherently objectifying, exploitative, and otherwise linked to rape culture is fallacious, says a lot about the people saying it, and only goes to show that when one looks upon sexuality with evil eyes, that can artificially turn it into something evil.  (This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy by then blatantly misunderstanding and misusing sexual energy as a result of such beliefs.)
• The concept of consent is unfortunately effectively relegated to secondary at best in this film, which is both agency-denying and victim-blaming at the same time in its zeal to conflate rape culture with "hookup culture".  Thus, it ends up being demeaning and infantilizing to Women as a result.
• If you torture the data enough, they will confess to anything.  Especially when all you have is anecdotal evidence.  The plural of "anecdote" is NOT "data".
• And finally, the idea that "hookup culture" somehow acts as a "gateway" to human trafficking is really, really reaching here, and reeks of a desperate attempt by Exodus Cry to link two unrelated agendas.  Nevermind that during the actual Victorian era proper, human trafficking was rife despite (or perhaps because of) the priggish sexual mores then.

Of course, the biggest flaw of all is the most glaring omission:  PATRIARCHY.  That evil system is the real root of rape culture, human trafficking, and so many other social ills for thousands of years, yet the makers of this film seem to ignore its overarching role.  Perhaps that is because they are steeped in, I dunno, a patriarchal religion?

What really exists within patriarchy--which still exists by the way--is not really a "hookup culture", but rather a persistent culture of negativity around sex and relationships generally, as Amanda Hess notes.  And neither abstinence nor the protection racket of patriarchy is the solution.  The only real solution here is respect.  And the only solution to rape culture is the eradication of patriarchy, period.

For a better documentary about rape culture itself, I would recommend The Hunting Ground instead.  Don't waste your time with this film though.