As a feminist more or less from the left, not everything Perry says will be embraced by those who are conservative and/or religious. But when you have someone like this making a fairly strong case for the differences between men and women, the importance of marriage, and the depersonalising nature of the sexual revolution and porn culture, then you know you need to sit up and take notice of the arguments that are being made.
Over the past few decades there have been a number of excellent works critiquing the sexual revolution, the porn culture, sexuality divorced from morality, and so on. While many of these are penned by those who are conservatives and Christians, not all are. Some are written by secular, liberal feminists. Perry falls into this camp, so she cannot simply be dismissed as just some right-wing religious type.
Her new book makes a powerful case for how the much-vaunted sexual revolution has actually been a massive failure, and certainly has not been beneficial to women and children. Indeed, wealthy men tend to be the main beneficiaries of all this.
In her first chapter, “Sex Must Be Taken Seriously,” she explains what her main topic is: “the effect of the sexual revolution on relations between the sexes.” As many before her have documented, relations have suffered greatly, and women especially bear the brunt of all this.
And again, the bitter fruit has long been documented. But when someone normally associated with supporting what the 60s has wrought speaks out against it—at least in good measure—then you know maybe things are not really right, and a closer look is needed.
So in well-documented chapters she looks at a number of shibboleths that her own side has pushed, noting their very real shortcomings. Imagine for example taking on one of the big liberal dogmas of our time: that men are actually the same as women.
Since Perry has been involved in rape crisis work, she knows that this is more than just a theoretical discussion. She states that she used to buy the standard yarn that there are no real differences between the sexes, and that what we have is just socialisation processes.6
But the more she worked with rape victims—and the more she read some countervailing research—the more she became convinced that this must largely be rejected. She says human beings are animals, members of the Great Apes. And there we see very real differences between male and female. She notes physiological distinctions, among others. The trans debate arises here of course, and she writes:
But recognising these kinds of physical limitation does not sit well with a liberal feminist project that aims to challenge any restrictions on human freedom. If we acknowledge that there are immovable differences between the sexes in terms of strength and speed, then we are also forced to acknowledge not only that natal males cannot fairly compete in women’s sports, but also that natal females experience a permanent physical disadvantage. And the consequences of this disadvantage go well beyond sports, particularly when male upper body strength is set beside the fragility of the female throat and skull. In the modern West, it has become increasingly possible to become detached from the sexually dimorphic body when one does not do a manual job, compete in sports or bear children. But the unwelcome truth will always remain, whether or not we can bear to look at it: almost all men can kill almost all women with their bare hands, but not vice versa. And that matters.
Getting back to the rape issue, she suggests that we may need to ease up—at least somewhat—on the common assertion that it is just “an expression of political dominance rooted in patriarchy” and might better understand it as “an aggressive expression of sexual desire.”
This is examined further in her next chapter, “Some Desires Are Bad”. It discusses the porn culture in general and paedophilia in particular. The tsunami of sleaze—including things like child porn—that we now have raging all around us must be challenged and we might have to admit that many defenders of the sexual revolution were on the “wrong side of history.” As she says: