The Case Against The Sexual Revolution

where are we with this?

Louise Perry’s very controversial book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, came out in 2022 and I agreed with a lot of what it said, (TLDR - the Pill has been Great for men and Complicated for women). It was kind of a moment: Mary Harrington was also saying a similar thing.

If you missed the Louise Perry book first time round, listen to Helen Lewis’s very thorough interview with Perry here.

Perry has radical views on what should be done with the poisonous slurry that is sex in the 21st Century: young women caught in a panic between hook-up culture and slut-shaming; young men sent boggle-eyed, deaf, floppy etc from too much porn, attempting to strangle the first girl they have sex with because they think this is normal.

The advice to counter-act this is: lock up your daughters; prosecute porn platforms. I broadly agreed. Perry’s book has now been re-written for a YA audience and is titled A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century, which is published on March 7.

But it made me consider it all afresh and ask myself if this is really what I think.