Has the sexual revolution backfired

Big Think - Has the sexual revolution backfired? | Louise Perry

In human history, there does tend to be a bit of a rollercoaster effect with sexual culture in that you will have periods of greater permissiveness, periods of greater restriction, kind of alternating. The current sexual revolution stuck, and the reason may be because of ‘the Pill.’ That was so radical, and it came along as well with all sorts of changes to the economy. Things like washing machines, central heating, microwaves, nappies, tampons, all the things associated with modern domestic life that our ancestors didn’t have access to. All of this means that it’s now become a lot easier for modern women to live like men, to imitate traditionally masculine roles, whether that be in professional life or in terms of sexuality. There are new social incentives dragging that female bell curve towards the male bell curve, encouraging women to imitate male sexuality and to be more eager to have casual sex, to be more interested in watching porn, to be more sexually experimental, and so on. For some women, that’s fine, that’s a good result. For a lot of women, what you hear is this sometimes slightly non-specific sense of dissatisfaction and distress.

Right up until the Pill’s invention, having sex is probably the most consequential thing a woman can do. You have more than nine months of pregnancy, a dangerous and difficult labor, many years of infant care, including breastfeeding. The consequences for women are enormous, and so of course, it makes sense in that context that women would’ve evolved to be much pickier.

Men and Women are Different:

• The reality for our species is that only one half can get pregnant, the other half can do the impregnating, and that half the population who can get pregnant is also smaller and physically weaker than the other half, which has profound social implications. Most men can kill most women with their bare hands, but not vice versa. Men can, on average, punch with about twice the amount of force that women can, and bench press with twice the amount of force.
• There’s a trait that psychologists call ‘sociosexuality’ which is not quite the same as sex drive; it’s your interest in sexual variety. So someone who has unrestricted sociosexuality is going to be more interested in watching porn, experimenting with kinks, and having casual sex. So on dating apps, what you’ll see is that women are tending to cluster toward the most desirable men: the richest, the handsomest. Those men can have a different date with a different woman every day of the week, assemble these kind of digital harems. In a system where some people are inherently more powerful than others, if they are granted more freedom, there is the risk that they will use that greater freedom to exploit people who are weaker than them. Someone low in sociosexuality is going to be much more focused on monogamy and commitment, is going to be much more reluctant to jump into bed with someone they’ve just met.