Penna Dexter

A colleague sent me an essay by writer and podcaster Bridget Phetasy. Its title is “I regret my promiscuity”. Her story moved me to tears, beginning with her statement “...if I’m honest with myself, of the dozens of men I’ve been with (at least the ones I remember), I can only think of a handful I don’t regret.”

Bridget Phetasy wrote this piece after reading and reviewing a new book: The Case Against the Sexual Revolution by British journalist Louise Perry. In a companion essay, Louise Perry writes: “It’s precisely because I’m a feminist that I’ve changed my mind on sexual liberalism. It’s an ideology premised on the false belief that the physical and psychological differences between men and women are trivial, and that any restrictions placed on sexual behavior must therefore have been motivated by malice, stupidity, or ignorance.”

In her book, Ms. Perry takes the reader back to the advent of the birth control pill in the 1950s which, gave women “freedom” to control when they got pregnant. She traces the sexual revolution through the pill’s widespread adoption in the ’60s, a 1965 Supreme Court decision making contraception universally available, and the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion in every state. Feminists celebrated these things, telling women they could have casual sex without consequences, “like men”.

This, she writes “was, is, and always will be a lie.” This freedom has a cost. Gen Z women are now trying to figure out how to navigate a “sex positive” culture where sex is expected, often on the first date. Or, perhaps, there’s no date at all, just a “hook-up” after which she wonders: Will he call?

Women in their late 30s — after spending years having casual sex— are wondering if they’ll ever marry and start a family. If they do marry, there’s baggage.

Louise Perry concludes: “We need to re-erect the social guard rails that have been torn down.”

That would be a start.