The Case Against the Sexual Revolution | By Louise Perry

This book gives us permission.

Recently I was listening to a podcast where the hosts had received a sort of “letter to the editor” describing a situation where several men, including the partner of the woman who’d written the letter, had visited a strip club. The woman described that some of the men had been into private rooms at the club and had decided not to tell their partners. The woman was wondering, should she tell the partners?

While this ensued a very compassionate conversation between the two hosts, it was a slightly awkward one, nonetheless. The two writers who host this show have a knack for trying to see other people’s sides of the story. Yet, with them fumbling for a response, with the looming fear of being seen as anti-feminist, or really anti anything, the conversation was halfhearted. It felt censored. Too many caveats were given. Too many concessions were made.

One line that was said “I don’t have a problem with the women making bank from this…I just don’t want my partner funding it”.

(Did it ever occur to them that the woman on TikTok “making bank” from stripping is the exception not the rule?*)

These two hosts were, truly, very uncomfortable with the idea of their partners going to strip clubs and in an unspoken way, they belied their gut feeling that sex is not just like any bodily function. That there’s something different about it.

In her book The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, Louise Perry gives us permission to say this. To stop censoring. To opt out of simply agreeing with rhetoric that tells us, “sex work is work”, and start listening to cries of 89% of people** in prostitution who want to leave the industry. To hear voices besides the privileged minority who advocate for its decriminalisation, as we didn’t have much better solution in the Nordic Model***.

Perry gives us permission to think critically and understand that it’s probably not just stigma that’s causing woman in the sex industry to experience trauma, but perhaps the inherent violence of being spat on, penetrated, called racial slurs and then required to feign enjoyment otherwise risk a bad review.

Perry allows women admit their agreement that pornography — which so often portrays women degrading themselves for male sexual pleasure — is not necessary, healthy or safe. Nor can it ever be. In the words of 19th Century Feminist, Josephine Butler, “Attempted modifications of an essential evil always fail.” No where is this starker than in the fact that it’s likely far more people watch child porn than feminist porn****.

Finally, this book gives us permission to see the mainstream, or liberal feminist movement for what it is — an idealist movement that doesn’t represent, advocate for or often even acknowledge the needs of most women, and particularly the poorest women in our culture. Most of all, it doesn’t speak up for children. “Me too”, while a welcome calling out of the way many women are treated, was for women who work in professional offices and privileged industries. Perry’s book is for all women, and particularly the most vulnerable.

This book is much more than just giving permission. It’s a meticulous, well written and refreshing take down of the sexual revolution. It offers insights into the limits of the consent framework and the irony of our modern snobbery towards attitudes to women we see as outdated, but our blindness towards our culture’s own. In one particuarly tongue in cheek moment, Perry mentions how we are outraged at 1950s articles that suggest a woman “put on some makeup before her husband comes home” or “make sure his dinner is ready”, but don’t bat an eyelid at one from Cosmo that suggests women provide their man with a “rim job” or “dole out some flavoured lube”.

She asks, “In what sense are these guides not encouraging precisely the same focus on male desires, except in this case it is sexual pleasure rather than domestic comfort? The only difference I can see is that the arse licking is now literal.”

What a line.

My husband read it too and felt convicted that men need to change. Does mainstream feminism achieve this goal? The Barbie movie which aimed to speak for women made some right-wing men angry, but mostly we just enjoyed it and the lighthearted jokes about losing interest in patriarchy after finding out it wasn’t about horses. Did it convict any men to fight against misogynist hook up culture, the sexualisation of women and girls, or the rape culture that acts as the underlying narrative in online pornography? I’m not sure.

However, Perry’s book does. I hope this book is read widely and with open hearts and minds.

You can find the book on Amazon, and Lousie Perry can be found here on substack.

Footnotes:

• *Exact numbers can be to ascertain in this industry, but from what I could find most strippers in Australia are making a fairly modest salary, similar to working say in retail. However, the inherent risks and the fact that this job is very dependent on bodily health and youth make the job different. It also seems to be the case that most women have to provide their own costumes, props etc. This is an added cost.

• **Again, exact data can be hard to find, but most studies place the number from around 85% to over 95%. Here is the one cited that states around 89% —https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/prostitution-sexual-violence

• ***The Nordic Model or Equality Model decriminalises all those who are prostituted and aims to provide support services to help them exit, and makes buying people for sex a criminal offence, in order to reduce the demand that drives sex trafficking. https://nordicmodelnow.org/what-is-the-nordic-model/

• ****This article implies that despite a booming pornography market, a boom in people watching “ethical”, “feminist” porn has not really happened. rhttps://www.sbs.com.au/voices/article/a-look-inside-australias-growing-feminist-porn-scene/j4j581ukz

• This article shows how business is booming in the child sex abuse industry: Why we're losing the fight against child pornography on social media (usatoday.com)