The Sexual Revolution Has Failed Us All | Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
TL;DR
Author Louise Perry argues that the sexual revolution, while granting women autonomy through contraception and workforce participation, ultimately failed women by creating a hookup culture that exploits biological asymmetries, leaving modern feminism caught between ineffective consent education and the reality of male sexual violence.
💊 The Pill and Economic Transformation 3 insights
Contraception changed sexual economics
The pill allowed women to control fertility invisibly, creating the technological basis for contemporary sexual norms and enabling women to delay marriage and enter the workforce.
Casual sex culture disadvantages women
Despite contraception, women still bear the physical costs of unplanned pregnancies and sexual violence, making hookup culture systematically worse for women than for men.
Two-income trap creates fragility
As dual incomes became necessary to compete for housing, families lost the resilience of single-earner households, particularly disadvantaging mothers who pause careers for children.
⚔️ Feminism's Failed Solutions 3 insights
Radical feminists lost the sex wars
Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon presciently critiqued pornography and the sex industry as harmful to women, but lost to individualistic, sex-positive feminists in the 1990s.
MeToo offers limited tools
The movement revived the radical feminist critique of predatory men but relies primarily on reputation destruction and consent workshops rather than structural solutions.
Consent workshops protect institutions, not women
These workshops primarily inform students of legal boundaries to shield universities from liability, proving no match for the hundreds of hours of pornography influencing young men.
🧬 Reactionary Feminism and Biology 3 insights
Sexual violence is biological, not ideological
Unlike mainstream feminist theory, Perry argues rape stems from male biology rather than cultural propaganda, making consent education less effective than acknowledging hardwired differences.
Male energy requires channeling
The same risk tolerance that drives male violence also fuels invention and adventure, requiring societies to develop specific institutions to constructively direct male energy rather than pretending the sexes are identical.
Look to historical solutions
Drawing on anthropology and history, reactionary feminism suggests studying how past societies managed sex differences rather than attempting to roll back the clock or maintain failed progressive experiments.
Bottom Line
Effective gender relations require acknowledging biological sex differences and developing societal institutions to channel male energy, rather than relying on consent workshops or pretending men and women are psychologically identical.
More from Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
View all
Will the Iran Deal Last? JD Vance Is Betting His Future on It. | Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
Vice President JD Vance outlines the Trump administration's Iran peace deal, emphasizing the destruction of enriched uranium stockpiles, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and strict conditions tying any economic benefits to verified behavioral transformation, negotiated from a position of Iranian military weakness rather than the strength they held during the Obama-era JCPOA.
Better Sex, Better Hair, Better Sleep: ‘Human-Maxxing’ is Here | Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
Christian Angermayer advocates for "human-maxxing"—using FDA-approved drugs and technology to maximize human potential without becoming post-human. Through initiatives like the Enhanced Games, he promotes medically supervised performance enhancement, fair athlete pay, and the normalization of hormone optimization for everyday improvements from sleep to sex.
Epstein, J.F.K. and U.F.Os: Anna Paulina Luna Wants Disclosure | Interesting Times With Ross Douthat
Representative Anna Paulina Luna discusses her populist-conservative approach to reforming Congress, emphasizing anti-corruption measures like banning insider trading while pursuing transparency on government secrets including UFOs and the JFK assassination.
Our Military Is Built for the Wrong Century | Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
Chris Brose argues that the US military remains trapped in outdated assumptions of short, decisive wars with technological superiority, leaving it unprepared for the attritional, drone-dominated reality of modern combat against peer adversaries like Russia and Iran.