A YOUNG PERSON'S GUIDE TO THE RABBIT CULTURE.

A self-styled feminist called Louise Perry recognized reality three years ago.  There's nothing in her work that skeptics of the new dispensation hadn't recognized thirty years ago.  "Some of us have known this for two score years.  Reality is socially conservative, and sometimes reality dawns after all life's illusions have disillusioned."

Now she's re-cast her writing in a young adult format.  (What does that mean, using shorter words?)

In A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century, Perry offers a young adult adaptation of her excellent 2022 book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution. She dedicates the book to "the women who learned it the hard way," among whom she includes herself, and she hopes to spare a new generation of women from doing the same.

In brief, pithy chapters, Perry outlines persistent fallacies about the sexual revolution, including the idea that the contraceptive pill, access to abortion, and freedom from supposedly restrictive norms about sex out of wedlock would liberate women. The revolution in morals did bring new freedoms, she concedes, but they were not enjoyed equally. "The sexual revolution has not, in fact, freed all of us," Perry writes. "It has freed some of us, at a price. Which is exactly what we should expect from such a massive change." She argues that it is past time we set aside the popular narrative about the sexual revolution, which sees it "as a story only of progress."

It wasn't.  If you had scruples or you lacked runway model looks, you paid the price.

Perry acknowledges exceptions to such generalizations; there are women who don’t want children, for example. Yet her generalizations offer a useful way to engage in necessary moral reasoning about the impacts of tectonic changes in behavior and morals. The sexual revolution promised freedom from a great many things in theory (old-fashioned shame, for one) but for whom did it offer more liberation in practice?

Perry argues that it is men, not women, who gained the most. One of the most powerful sections of the book examines the realities of the 21st century sexual marketplace. As Perry describes the insistence that we accept any and all sexual practices, no matter how extreme, she notes, "The evidence shows that sex acts that have become much more socially acceptable over the last sixty years are acts that men are much more likely to enjoy." She cites prostitution, pornography consumption, and male promiscuity as examples.

Perry questions whether a culture of casual sex—where the expectation is that most women will engage in (if not enjoy) commitment-free hookups—is of benefit to women. Her verdict is certain: It is not. "Hook-up culture demands that women suppress their natural instincts in order to match male sexuality and thus meet the male demand for no-strings sex," she argues.

Plenty of data and anecdotal evidence support her claim.

Reality always bats last, and the score-keeper notes reality in the batter's box.