As a young woman that’s sort of just now figuring out how to navigate the modern dating scene I find myself often questioning if the sexual revolution actually benefited society or if it has done more damage than we’re willing to admit.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for supporting personal liberty so I believe women should have access to contraceptives, birth control, and abortion if they so please without government interference. But I also cannot ignore the broader impact that has led to a rise in hookup culture and the erosion of the family unit
Has the sexual revolution led to more harm than good?
“Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for supporting personal liberty so I believe women should have access to contraceptives, birth control, and abortion if they so please without government interference. But I also cannot ignore the broader impact that has led to a rise in hookup culture and the erosion of the family unit.”
My Answer:
That is from a very skewed perspective and I don’t blame you for that take because on paper that is what appears to be happening.
However, what led to millions of family units? World War II. After the war ended, a lot of young men were ready to get back to their girlfriends and wives then settle down beginning a family of their own. Baby Boomers 1946-1964 is called that for a reason, the war ending led to a rise of reproduction than before or since.
Separately, I’m going to discuss marriage… A lot of people would have marriages in their 18 - 21 years of age which was rushed due to societal pressures and rushing into things (sex leads to pregnancy, pregnancy leads to marriage). So a lot of those family units were unstable, alcoholic husbands beating their spouses / children with less rates of divorce since there weren’t laws in place to really help stay at home mothers.
All this isn’t to say “Modern” is better, but to add perspective. Birth control, abortion, etc. makes it less so a woman is going to marry from pregnancy and end up in a toxic marriage out of sex. This ‘movement’ didn’t destroy the ‘Family Unit’, World War II couldn’t last forever and so Baby Boomer ended 1964 which the rise of reproduction reached its peak. It wasn’t due to anything else other than the passage of time.
I'm pro-choice, and honestly I don't think contraceptives, birth control, and abortions are significant causes for hookup culture. I think there are much bigger factors such as social media, dating apps, OnlyFans, and modern feminism that's caused it.
I believe having sex with your partner before marriage is completely fine, and if anything it should be encouraged as sexual chemistry/compatibility is a pretty important aspect of a healthy relationship. What should not be encouraged is sleeping around with many people. You should always date with the intention to potentially marry someone.
Having sex is not immoral as people make it out to be. It's an act of physical intimacy that helps to bond couples. I don't mind if a girl has had sex in the past. I don't mind if she's had a few partners, as long as she was always in it with the intention of it potentially lasting a lifetime. I myself have had a few partners.
It's unreasonable to expect people to get things right the first time in life; expect a virgin as some men do.
I actually think they were a major cause for promoting modern hook up culture due to how they simply removed a lot of the natural consequences of sex for women. In the past women, more women prioritized marriage because it gave them protection and stability if they got pregnant but now if you’re a woman and end up having a kid out of wedlock you can basically force the government to play the role of surrogate father.
I’m also not religious either so I don’t think sex before marriage is inherently immoral. But I do have an issue with the idea that’s promoted of casual sex automatically being empowering. I think a lot of the social pressure for women to give more than they’re truly comfortable with. I can agree with you though on the fact that people generally should date with long term intent !
I'm not in love with hook-up culture or anything, but I'd rather people be free to make their own mistakes rather than suffer being forced into a system that pushes bad choices onto them in the first place. I don't want people feeling like they have to do things like get married, have a biological family, stay married to a harmful partner, etc, even if it means we have fewer traditional family units and committed relationships. There's more than one way to live a full and decent life that I don't think we can class the moderate decline of a single way of living as being more important than free will.
I’m not disagreeing with you, I just don’t think it needs to be black and white. My issue is the moral implications, I just disagree that we should for example normalize celebrating abortion like it’s this amazing empowering thing. Like I disagree fundamentally with pro choices that believe a fetus is just a “clump of cells” we were all clumps of cells once and multiple things can lead to a baby dying before coming to term naturally which is why I don’t believe abortion is murder but I do believe it shouldn’t be praised and viewed as an “empowering choice” if that makes sense.
I also don’t agree that it’s only been a moderate decline, it’s been a pretty sharp decline - less than 63% of children live in 2 parent households now.
I agree that it’s best for people to not be partnered up with harmful people which is why I support gender equality but I believe reaching a middle ground is best for society because hook up culture and the lack of community/strong family units is making people miserable in my opinion
On the topic of abortion, I believe the "empowerment" comes from the ability to make a choice that has huge impact on one's life, so I'm not going to hate people celebrating that choice. It's just not my place.
I also disagree on your second point, I do believe that we have a balance. At least in my personal life, most people in all age groups I know act fairly monogamously and have clear ideas about what they want in their futures. For a lot of people my age, that's a partner, for plenty it's children. And while I relate to your statement that lack of community might be detrimental, I don't think that trying to reinforce the family unit will necessarily solve that, especially when you look at how frequently that unit fails, whether a marriage is maintained or not. Before divorce, lots of children were still functionally growing up in a single parent household, it just wasn't legally acknowledged. The current presence of divorce and the social acceptance of casual sex doesn't mean that previously marriages didn't fail and people didn't hook-up, it just means we didn't have statistics on it.
If we are going to espouse anything it should be honesty, integrity, compassion etc in whatever lifestyle you choose, not to choose a specific lifestyle.
Fair enough, but how truly empowering is it to lose something? I still view abortion as the loss of a potential life, is that not something to mourn?
If you see a balance in your personal life that’s fair but from what I’ve observed in the culture lately young people have absolutely zero clue what they want in relationships, a lot of people have zero long term goals.
I argue for a strong family unit simply because when we have people in happy stable partnerships they tend to raise children in stable households that grow to be mentally stable adults that contribute positively to society. Part of the reason why I feel the way that I do about the sexual revolution is for the role it’s played in degrading the institution of marriage.
As a young woman I’ve literally been told by older woman that I’m too young to be looking for if the guy I’m with could be a good father and I feel that should tell a lot about the current climate we’re in today. When it comes to romance the advice given to young women is insanely vague, confusing, and borderline toxic. A lot of people will straight up encourage miscommunication in relationships, I’ve even Personally had women I actually look up to in my life that have told me I’m way too young to think that I should be looking to see if the man I’m with would be a good future father to my kids even though my desire it to have kids in the future so why shouldn’t I make sure whatever man I’m with is someone that is capable of being a good father?
I will say though, I’m libertarian so I don’t agree with the government intervening excessively in marriage - ultimately in cases like abuse and what not it’s simply unhealthy for kids to be raised in a house.
Imagine you had a job, great benefits in theory, but that job was incredibly draining emotionally, took up all your time, etc. If you quit, then you've lost your job, but you still might feel empowered to have made a choice that hopefully will positively affect you in the long run. Now jobs and prospective children aren't exactly the same thing, but they're both major decisions that tend to affect a significant portion of your life.
As for the rest, I'm not against the family unit, I just don't think it should be heralded above any other relationship or form of personal fulfillment simply because it's about as flawed as anything. The family unit works when it works, but it doesn't work enough of the time that I can't morally tell someone they have to have it in order to live a good life.
Maybe.. for example now I’m trying to save myself from lesbian rapes too. Those who have high body counts are considered more important than me. Boys basically don’t care about something so important as sexual purity. Many don’t care about consent.
So you think we should (and can actually) legislate intelligent behavior or socially slut shame women into "good" behavior. What about men, the other half of this "damaging" trend? They want pussy. Until they can't find a "good woman" any longer and they realize women are behaving like men only women can get sex all the time with no effort. Then the men are butthurt as hell, LOL.
Nah, I don't think we can legislate the stupidity out of the general population. Nor will social pressure work very well. I think we have to let the stupid happen and just get better at recognizing stupid people while making better decisions for ourselves. Some will do well. Most will not. Same as everything else with humans.
Previously there was strong social pressure to form family units and to keep them intact. Cheating was punished. Whilst conflict certainly occurred in marriages overall individuals hurt themselves if they sought conflict and there was good reason to maintain harmonious relations.
All those mechanisms have gone. We are now more inclined to seek novelty and a new sex partner is more exciting than an old one. Emphasis on sex pretty much necessitates frequent new "partners". It is called the Coolidge affect after the US President of that name.
I think you have to see stable family units working to common goals as superior to a serious of short term relationships.
For myself I now consider myself excused from the prior male duty of supporting a woman's life and her desire to have children. All I have to decide now is what is good for me.
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You're confusing several different things, kiddo.
Women suffrage was a different law and event from women equality and liberation.
All three are very different from Row vs Wade as women do NOT have any sort of liberty to abort children at will. The father and state also made that baby possible.
So your question is a cluster fuck as you're not sure what you're asking, and it's why your dating game is also failing. Men are ditching you fearing you're a child killing Israeli, or something.
No idea whether the so-called sexual revolution led to more or less harm or good, but I do know is that evolution continues, whether we like it or not.
In any case, too little freedom combined with the resulting frustrations can only lead to more mental problems in society. One can only talk about too much liberty in case of lack of maturity, which is case sensitive. Someone intelligent and sensitive will be able to use liberty without useless risks.
Whatever the ultimate results, revolutions always come with lots of harm. Over time a correct balance will occur through natural selection. I mean the balance between risks, diseases, pleasure, obligations, love, family, etc.
Well ever since it happened, we have had more single parent homes, more abusive relationships, more emotional problems in regards to relationships, a decline in birth rates a spread of STDs and over half the population and woman alike have been run through. So yea this was a shit idea and for a lot of reasons not even just these ones.
mostly it's porn the sex revolution got women going to college better jobs miniskirts i had anal at 14 where did guys get this from porn not the sexual revolution we got liberated do you want to be like iranian women i wear a miniskirt because i want to not for men i am woman hear me loud i am woman i'm proud
The ability to separate sex from procreation through reliable contraception gave women unprecedented control over their bodies and reproductive choices. This was a massive step towards gender equality.
But how has that affected society socially, I don’t disagree. I take issue to the liberalization of how socially we now have normalized casual sex/hookups to the point I’ve seen people justify that even immoral/harmful sexual acts are okay as long as consent is involved; I view this as bad for the culture
It has absolutely done more harm than good, the dating and relationship scenes have become so much more toxic in the years since the sexual revolution. Whether it's men being viewed as walking ATMs by women or women being entitled to think that they are always perfect and never needing to improve as well as countless other issues, things are exponentially worse now
Feminism, the sexual liberation of women, and all these movements for the empowerment of women have done mostly harm for women. It's all women wanting to have their cake and eat it too kind of thing, and life doesn't work that way.
I don't think you can see it in a vacuum like that; The internet has brought so overwhelmingly many changes to society that things are bound to be different and confusing for a while.
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