Ditching the stuffy hang-ups and benighted sexual traditionalism of the past is an unambiguously positive thing. The sexual revolution has liberated us to enjoy a heady mixture of erotic freedom and personal autonomy. Right?
Wrong, argues Louise Perry in her provocative new book. Although it would be neither possible nor desirable to turn the clock back to a world of pre-60s sexual mores, she argues that the amoral libertinism and callous disenchantment of liberal feminism and our contemporary hypersexualised culture represent more loss than gain. The main winners from a world of rough sex, hook-up culture and ubiquitous porn - where anything goes and only consent matters - are a tiny minority of high-status men, not the women forced to accommodate the excesses of male lust. While dispensing sage advice to the generations paying the price for these excesses, she makes a passionate case for a new sexual culture built around dignity, virtue and restraint.
This counter-cultural polemic from one of the most exciting young voices in contemporary feminism should be read by all men and women uneasy about the mindless orthodoxies of our ultra-liberal era.
Title: The Case Against the Sexual Revolution
Author: Perry, Louise
ISBN: 9781509549993
Binding:
Publisher: Polity Press
Publication Date: 2022-06-03
Number of Pages: 200
Weight: 0.3101 kg
'This clear-sighted, compassionate book challenges the reigning sexual orthodoxy of anything goes , showing the many uncounted costs it imposes on women. A must-read for conservatives and feminists alike.'
Mary Harrington, Contributing Editor, UnHerd
'In this thoughtful, timely and witty book, Louise Perry exposes the travesty of sex positive feminism as neither positive nor sexy and argues for new thinking which puts women's true interests, desires and happiness at its heart.'
Janice Turner, Times columnist and feature writer
'books such as Perry's matter [...] many of her arguments - that consent is an inadequate measure of what is and is not abuse, that the valuing of sexual freedom over mutual dependency benefits the most privileged at the expense of the least, that physical strength differences between men and women matter enormously - seem to me hugely important, yet completely absent from so much of the feminism I have known.'
The Critic
'tackles the costs of the sexual revolution head-on... a brave and unflinching book'
Nina Power, author of What Do Men Want?
'This is a marvellously essential book, brilliantly argued. Perry has written the most radical feminist challenge to a failed liberal feminism.'
Phyllis Chesler, writer, feminist and psychologist, author of Women and Madness
'Brilliantly conceived and written, this highly original book is an urgent call for a sexual counter-revolution. A book as stimulating as the splash of icy water that wakes someone from a nightmare.'
Helen Joyce, author of Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality
'Those feminists who assume this book is not for them - give it a go. Brilliantly written, cleverly argued, packed with fascinating ideas and information: agree or disagree with the central premise, it is fresh and exciting.'
Julie Bindel, feminist and writer, author of Feminism for Women
crisply readable polemic
The Times
It's a combination of beliefs that will outrage almost everyone. Radical feminists, the old-guard 1960s firebrands, will agree with her on porn, but be aghast by the chapter on marriage; social conservatives will love the marriage chapter, but bristle at Perry's approval of abortion; the new generation of liberal feminists, who have known nothing but sexual freedom, may well despise it all.
The Sunday Times
clear-sighted
Suzanne Moore, The Sunday Telegraph
She's right - and courageous.
Mary Kenny
urgent and daring and brave. It may turn out to be one of the most important feminist books of its time.
Rachel Cooke, The Observer
...Louise Perry lobs a grenade into feminist discourse.
Irish Examiner
This is a provocative book. More than once, its author says the unsayable. It makes you think, and it makes you want for a better world. It is urgent and daring and brave. It may turn out to be one of the most important feminist books of its time.
Rachel Cooke, The Guardian
challenging and thought-provoking
Hugo Rifkind, The Times
will ruffle liberal feathers all over the coop.
London Magazine
Perry undeniably has a sharp eye both for the ways in which contemporary feminism risks eating itself [...] and for those guilty feminist moments where emotions awkwardly refuse to comply with the theoretical ideal. Any woman who has ever had what was meant to be a gloriously hedonistic no-strings fling, only to find herself anxiously checking her WhatsApps just to see if he's called, will recognise something here.
Gaby Hinsliff, the New Statesman
This could be a movement in its nascent days.
Prospect