Source: The American Conservative
May 28, 2025
Photo: psychologies.ru
A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century by Louise Perry. Polity, 176 pages.
The birth of my daughter radicalized me. Stereotypes of the next generation of young women as liberal and lonely, sexually liberated yet secretly miserable, were once just numbers. Now they wear a precious, familiar face. While the challenge of raising sons in the 21st century is not to be glossed over, the challenge of raising daughters is unique and distinct, particularly in the wake of the sexual revolution. Young women today have everything they once demanded—jobs, money, stigma-free sex, and dishwashers to boot—yet have found themselves not more fulfilled, but less.
In her 2022 book The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, Louise Perry argued that the so-called sexual freedom of the 21st century has benefitted a few powerful men at the expense of most women, who find themselves spiritually impoverished by the liberal feminist approach to sex. Liberalism’s toothless response to rape and sexual abuse (consent!), the pornified minefield of casual sex, and especially the breakdown of traditional marriage have served only to make women less happy, not more free. In other words, the sexual revolution really was terrible for women, and those who pretend otherwise are foolish. A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century, Perry’s young adult edition of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, applies these lessons to practical scenarios for girls who wish to escape the debased culture of Tinder and OnlyFans but don’t know how.
“Instead of asking ‘how can we all be free?’” as feminism did, “we must ask instead, ‘how can we best promote the wellbeing of both men and women, given that these two groups have different sets of interests, which are sometimes in tension?’” Perry writes. Or, put another way, what should mothers teach their daughters about sex, love, and marriage, since clearly, the liberal feminist line isn’t cutting it?
While reading, I asked myself: Would I give this book to my daughter?
… Read the rest at the American Conservative.
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