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A week ago, in the context of a discussion on some NYT article, @2rafa commented that “there is an unstated (on the progressive side) premise among all people that casual sex is a bad deal for women and devalues or dishonors them in some way”. It generated a few replies but basically no further discussion, even though I’m sure it’s worthy of further discussion, and here’s why: as far as I’m aware, it’s certainly not the case that progressives had this attitude from the beginning of the Sexual Revolution, which is what the context is here. Obviously they used to have a different view in general, but sometime along the way, they changed their minds, because things turned sour, essentially.
Before continuing I think it’s important to qualify, as 2rafa also did, that other ideological groups also share this basic view, but the two main differences are that right-wingers tend to state this view openly, whereas progs are usually reluctant to do so, and that they do so on religious and moralistic grounds, whereas progs concentrate on women’s individual long-term interests, not on any other considerations.
So anyway, I said to myself: surely these people, being progressives, believe that the Sexual Revolution, while a laudable event, went haywire at some point, and didn’t bear the fruits it was supposed to. And I can tell that this is a relatively widespread view, because I can see it expressed in various online venues all the time, not just this forum.
What went wrong then? What did the Sexual Revolution basically promise to average progressive women, and why did that turn out to be a lie?
I’d argue that the more or less unstated promise of the Sexual Revolution to young single women was that: a) they will be sexually free without inviting social shame i.e. normalized sexual experimentation and promiscuity on their part will not have an unfavorable long-term effect on men’s attitudes towards them, and women will not sexually shame one another anymore b) they will be able to leave their constrictive gender roles to the extent they see fit, but this will not lead to social issues and anomie because men will be willing to fill those roles instead i.e. men will have no problem becoming stay-at-home dads, nurses, kindergarteners, doing housework etc.
And none of that turned out to be true.
Am I correct in this assessment?
I'm not convinced that 2rafa is right. I have not gotten the impression from progressives I have personally known, both men and women, that they think casual sex is a bad deal for women. This viewpoint might be unstated because the majority of progressives simply do not hold it, not because they hold it but do not wish to admit it.
And I think that the belief that the Sexual Revolution went haywire at some point is even less common among progressives than the belief that casual sex is a bad deal for women.
Regarding the promise of the Sexual Revolution, I think that probably the more common progressive belief is that to the extent the promise has not been fulfilled it is because the Sexual Revolution has not gone far enough, not because it is inherently incapable of fulfilling those promises.
The original case of feminists revolting against the consequences of the sexual revolution was oversexualization. Back in the 90s I remember feminists railing against women feeling pressured to look good and be sexy as one of their main points. The fact that the world is a zero-sum game and women that show more skin get more attention doesn't seem to register with them. They created a world with no norms or rules for dress, and blame patriarchy for women dressing in the polar opposite way of how the patriarchy wants women to dress.
If women can do whatever they want with their appearance some women are going to realize that translucent yoga pants gets them ahead in life compared to dressing modestly. Being super slim, investing heavily in looks and obsessing over one's instagram can be a better ticket up in life for a young woman than a university degree. When one woman wears a thong bikini to the beach, she gets the attention. The other women follow, and soon the women in a bathing suit looks out of place. The sexual revolution created incentives for oversexualizing oneself, and women followed the winning strategy. The women who don't sleep on the third date and don't post sexy pictures or do conture makeup lose in the heightened competition.
Feminists seem to want to abolish competition and thereby the need for competing. Women can dress how they want, post what they want on instagram and sex themselves up as much as they want. Yet they are not going to use this competitively to try to get ahead. The idea seems to be to blame patriarchy. If men just followed women who dressed modestly and didn't have attractive bodies on instagram as much as they like attractive women, then women could dress like they want and not have to compete. If men's attraction for women was random, women could do what they want and still get an equal opportunities dating market. Their fundamental enemy is that men's preferences are not random.
There seems to be a trend among gen z feminists to simply drop out and embrace the fact that they can't win a zero-sum game. They dress like Billie Elish, have short hair and nose rings and seem to proudly state that they are dropping out of the arms race. Meanwhile, the other half of women are trying to outmanoeuvre eachother by wearing increasingly thin gym outfits.
Making the rules of sexual competition either less or more permissive does not necessarily make the sexual competition less or more fierce. Do men nowadays really perceive there to be a greater difference in attractiveness between the least and the most attractive women than men 200 years ago perceived? To be honest, I am not sure. I am not very well read in the history of sexuality.
I think that there is a pretty common trope in fiction of depicting very intense sexual competition between women even in the supposedly more puritan society of 18th-19th century Europe, isn't there? But I don't know to what extent this trope is grounded in reality.
I also have no hard data but my guess would be that yes, they do see a greater difference between the most and least and attractive women than they did 200 years ago.
Part of it is that, for better or for worse, people have a lot more autonomy than they did back then. There are a lot more fat people and a lot more marathon runners. Competition in everything is more fierce in almost every aspect of life but I think especially in fitness. Professionals from the 1950s would look like amateurs today, much less 200 years ago.
Back then the women you knew would all eat the same diet and do the same work and none of them exercise. Some of them will have better genetics and some were more skilled with makeup but that's about the extent of it. Today you're comparing between land whales in sweatpants vs instagram models who have a scientifically a crafted diet and exercise regime, expensive makeup, cosmetic surgery and photoshop on their side.
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