Classically Abby - Sexual ＂Liberation＂ Is NOT Empowering Or Fulfilling - My Interview With Louise Perry

00:00:00.000 Hello Classic Crew and welcome to today's video where I'm sharing a preview of a

00:00:04.520 special episode of my podcast, Classically Ever After.

00:00:13.440 If you are new to my channel, here we talk about classic living and traditional values

00:00:17.440 and I would love if you would consider subscribing and hitting that notification bell.

00:00:21.080 We're keeping this intro a little bit casual, I'm recording on my phone,

00:00:24.520 but I'm really excited to share with you this preview of my podcast, Classically Ever After.

00:00:29.800 So if you don't know, I have a free podcast called Classically Ever After and it's available

00:00:34.440 anywhere you listen to podcasts and usually it is with my husband and we talk about maintaining

00:00:40.180 traditional values in this modern era. But this is a special episode where I interviewed Louise Perry,

00:00:47.860 the author of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution. We read her book for my book club and we all learned

00:00:53.800 quite a bit and I asked my premium subscribers to submit their questions for her and I asked

00:00:59.800 her those questions in the podcast. So please enjoy today's episode and if you want to hear the

00:01:04.940 whole thing, make sure to head over to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and you can hear

00:01:09.820 the entire episode. I would also love if you would consider subscribing to my Substack newsletter where

00:01:14.660 you can join and be a part of my book club, my AV club, get access to a lot of exclusive content.

00:01:20.260 So now let's get into the interview.

00:01:22.100 I mean, I was actually told this because I got engaged quite young and particularly young for

00:01:28.960 someone who coming from a secular liberal background. So I got engaged when I was 24 and

00:01:33.460 married when I was 25. And I remember speaking to a friend who was a bit older than me about at the

00:01:37.860 time. And she said very explicitly, like, you are making a mistake. You should be spending your 20s

00:01:44.120 having as many like different sexual romantic experiences as possible and experimenting and finding

00:01:49.340 out who you are. And then you can settle down in 10 years or something. And luckily, I didn't follow

00:01:56.220 her advice. Terrible advice. What terrible advice?

00:02:08.060 Hello, and welcome to a special episode of Classically Ever After. On today's podcast, I'm interviewing

00:02:14.700 Louise Perry, author of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, a book we read for book club,

00:02:20.240 and she's answering your questions. I'm really looking forward to sharing this podcast with you

00:02:25.460 all today. So make sure to take a listen all the way to the end. And we'll be back to our regularly

00:02:30.740 scheduled programming next week. So thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of

00:02:37.580 Classically Ever After. I'm so excited to have you. We recently read your book, The Case Against

00:02:43.420 the Sexual Revolution, with our book club. And it was a fantastic discussion. People were

00:02:49.900 really into it. They enjoyed it immensely. Also learned a lot because there's so much to talk

00:02:56.800 about with this book. So I'm going to ask you the question that I'm sure you've heard ad

00:03:02.500 nauseam at this point. But what inspired you to write The Case Against the Sexual Revolution?

00:03:07.220 I wish I had a better answer because yes, you're right. People do ask me a lot.

00:03:11.100 And I wish I had some beautiful anecdote of the moment, you know, the moment where I decided

00:03:15.360 to do it. Sadly not. I mean, I've been working around this space in a lot of different ways

00:03:23.440 for a decade, really. Initially, in what I studied at university, and then in working in

00:03:32.640 rape crisis, and then as a journalist, and then as a campaigner. And I kept sort of being led

00:03:39.220 back to this narrative of the sexual revolution, this idea that it had been done for women by

00:03:46.980 women, that it was unambiguously a good thing. And I kept, I just kept thinking how flawed that 0.97

00:03:55.260 narrative was. And I felt as though no one had really written down my specific objections

00:04:03.360 to that. And so I probably should.

00:04:06.620 Well, it seems like you have the background for it. But the thing that I found fascinating

00:04:13.260 was that, you know, I went online to search Louise Perry, like on any streaming streaming

00:04:19.060 platform to see kind of what you'd said before, who'd interviewed you. And what's fascinating

00:04:24.880 is how many people have interviewed you on both sides of the political spectrum. I mean,

00:04:29.440 you've got people on the far left talking to you about this book. You've got people on the

00:04:34.100 far right talking to you about this book. So did you expect your book to strike a chord

00:04:38.640 with so many different people, people on both sides of the aisle?

00:04:45.240 No. Well, I mean, I didn't expect it to be as big a deal as it's been, because this is

00:04:52.200 my first book I published with a very small academic publishing house. I don't think anyone

00:05:00.200 thought that it was going to be quite, make quite as big an impact as it has, which is obviously a

00:05:04.820 great problem to have. I've had such an exhausting summer, let me tell you, because

00:05:08.000 I can't believe it. Because we have a toddler at home, and I've got all these other work

00:05:12.800 commitments. And everyone wants to talk about this book all the time, which is obviously wonderful,

00:05:16.360 but it's slightly overwhelming. And yeah, I mean, I would say that it's probably been a bit,

00:05:23.040 I've probably had a little bit more positive attention from conservatives.

00:05:25.820 Yeah. Sort of centre-centre-right range. But you're right that there's been feedback from

00:05:35.660 across the political spectrum. And it has mostly been positive, amazingly, because I did think

00:05:39.860 when writing it, sometimes I'd write sentences and I'd be like, that's it, I'm done, that's

00:05:44.660 my career room. Because there's so much cancellable stuff in this book. But I made the decision

00:05:52.660 early on that I thought that trying to kind of pander to any particular audience was going

00:05:58.180 to make it ring false. So I thought it was better to just be as honest as I felt I could

00:06:04.300 be, and kind of let people say what they will. And I mean, it's interesting that there have

00:06:12.220 been a few other books. There's this funny thing about publishing that it has quite a long

00:06:17.560 lead time. So you're talking, when you sign a contract, you're expecting a book to come

00:06:21.300 out maybe two years later. So it was quite, so you quite often have this phenomenon where

00:06:25.680 people are sensing something in the air, and then there ends up being books coming out at

00:06:28.940 the same time that are on roughly the same topic. So I've had that. So there have been

00:06:33.280 a few other books roughly in this space in the last year or two. But I think so far, at

00:06:41.320 least, mine is probably the one that most sort of, that kills the greatest number of progressive

00:06:47.200 sacred cows. And that seems to be what people want. I think actually people are desperate for

00:06:55.780 what, I mean, what the probably the most common piece of feedback that I've had from readers is

00:07:02.640 I've been thinking this for years, thank you for saying it, because I didn't feel like I was,

00:07:08.180 I could say it before. And now I, and now I feel able to because of, you know, having seen it set

00:07:12.940 down on paper. So I suppose what I suppose the reason that it is how the impact that it's had

00:07:18.860 is because a lot of us must have been thinking the same thing for a long time.

00:07:24.040 Absolutely. I mean, it's, it's coming from a more religious perspective, perspective, I'm an

00:07:29.840 Orthodox Jew. You know, this is something that I, I talk about in maybe less explicit of a way,

00:07:36.060 although sometimes explicitly, but more saying dating for marriage is a good thing. Dating with purpose

00:07:41.940 is a good thing. You're putting yourself in bad situations when you are dating for quote unquote

00:07:48.360 fun and constantly and consistently getting hurt. Now that can be like emotionally, but even, you know,

00:07:55.620 in the book, we're also talking about physically in both danger and just getting, making decisions

00:08:01.720 that you regret. Um, and I think that hearing that from somebody who isn't explicitly religious

00:08:07.440 can give people permission who are not religious to, to agree instead of saying, Oh, this has to be

00:08:17.160 from a religious perspective. And if I'm not religious, then I have to say, Oh no, I'm, I'm

00:08:23.100 entirely in favor of the sexual revolution. I feel like your perspective, given that at least from the 0.59

00:08:29.340 way that you've portrayed it throughout your interviews in your book, I don't know if you're

00:08:32.720 religious, but it seems that you're not, um, it gave women permission to say, I, I also don't

00:08:37.660 feel great about the things that I've been sold as something I should be doing with my life.

00:08:44.440 It's funny that we feel that need for permission, isn't it? But it is such a common human,

00:08:48.740 human trait. Yeah. Yeah. Especially as women, I think. 1.00

00:08:55.040 Yes. I think so too. I think it's partly to do with us being, um, more agreeable than men

00:09:00.640 on average. I was just thinking that. Yeah. And femininity is all about being, so I think 0.92

00:09:07.200 probably what happens is that women are naturally more agreeable than men. And I think that probably

00:09:11.020 has a lot to do with, um, our minds being primed for motherhood because you have to be so wildly

00:09:17.820 agreeable with your baby. It's because it's all about, because motherhood is all about putting

00:09:22.800 your children's needs first. Um, and so I think we're, we're already sort of primed for

00:09:28.600 that. And then femininity that when we're in being feminine involves being even more agreeable. 0.73

00:09:37.500 And obviously there are upsides to that because agreeableness is lovely. It's really nice to

00:09:42.600 be around agreeable people. It's, you know, um, it's what kind of keeps the social show on

00:09:49.240 the road, but the downside of it is that you do sometimes have a tendency to, to, to sort

00:09:54.280 of, um, put your own needs second to the point of being self-destructive.

00:10:01.000 And I think as well in, in part, it also encourages you to do what you think everyone else is doing

00:10:10.240 and fit in. And so when you are, I think this is especially a problem in college when you're

00:10:18.900 surrounded by women who are telling you that the best way to find fulfillment is to an empowerment

00:10:24.300 is to sleep with as many people as possible and disregard how you actually feel about it at the end

00:10:30.880 of the day. It's very easy to slip into that as a practice and try to justify after the fact why you

00:10:41.760 feel bad. It's society that's making me feel bad. It's other people, it's outside influences that are

00:10:48.160 making me feel the way that I do. If none of that existed, I could have sex willy nilly and no one

00:10:52.720 could hurt me. Um, but I think a lot of the time that's, I think all of the time, that's not the case.

00:10:59.340 I think that women, uh, or rather, I guess, going off of what you said in the book regarding sex

00:11:04.620 with sociosexuality and how, uh, there are those few outliers, perhaps those few outliers,

00:11:10.700 that's the case. But I think for most women, um, it is an innate thing that you're not meant or built 1.00

00:11:18.940 for this random hookups with people you've never met and with relationships that are not going to go

00:11:26.460 anywhere and with men who may not be safe. And it's amazing. The, the, um,

00:11:35.740 the ability that we have most of us to suppress those feelings and to construct or to gravitate

00:11:44.300 towards narratives, which, which retell what's going on in a more palatable way. But then I,

00:11:51.740 I don't think I have ever, I have spoken to so many women both before and after the publication

00:11:56.380 of this book who said that they had this exact journey of doing, doing the hookup culture thing,

00:12:02.460 feeling bad, not quite like knowing why telling themselves the progressive story to make it seem

00:12:07.420 better. And then later on saying, hang on, I can't believe I put up with that. You know,

00:12:13.100 what a mistake I have never found anyone who's gone in the other direction. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

00:12:18.940 it's really telling. It is really telling. And I can tell you as somebody who grew up religious and

00:12:26.220 didn't do, uh, you know, didn't engage in hookup culture because religious perspective, it was wrong. 0.61

00:12:32.140 Then I did. I like what I went into college and I'm very open about this on my channel,

00:12:37.100 even though I come from a very traditional perspective. Um, a lot of that is informed by the

00:12:42.060 decisions I made when I decided to kind of go off the beaten path. So this, um, and I decided,

00:12:49.260 oh, I want to, I want to try this stuff that everyone's telling me is going to be empowering.

00:12:54.620 And I would feel awful the next day. And it had nothing to do. I think there's kind of this

00:13:01.500 misperception or misconception that it would be because I had ingrained in me these religious

00:13:07.660 feelings of guilt, but it had nothing to do with that. It had to do, it had everything to do with,

00:13:14.380 oh, I, I'm, you know, hooking up with someone who I have no feelings for and they really have

00:13:20.380 no feelings for me. And maybe I'm getting more attached than he is or whatever it is.

00:13:25.260 And that just felt bad. And as I moved out of that and into a relationship that, you know,

00:13:31.980 married and I have a child, like this is the most fulfilled I've ever lived in life. And it's

00:13:36.940 because this is, I think is healthy. Like this is protective for me. It's protection for my child

00:13:44.860 from, you know, a very practical perspective. And then from a very not practical perspective,

00:13:49.260 I get to live the best life by having, you know, love every single day from my husband and from my,

00:13:55.260 my baby.

00:13:58.140 Yeah, I think it is so, um, I don't know if you read Bridget Fetasy's

00:14:03.180 essay that she, cause I went on, I went on her podcast to talk about the book and she, she later

00:14:08.860 wrote, um, this amazing essay, which she said she'd been working on for years, but it was reading the

00:14:14.220 book that made her sort of spurred her on to finish it. And there's a, she writes about this feeling of,

00:14:20.700 this horrible feeling of having sex with men who, who basically wouldn't care if you got hit by a 0.98

00:14:24.700 bus next week. There's no, there's no love there. There's no affection there. There's nothing. 0.99

00:14:28.860 And the, and the, and the, the crux for her, the crucial moment is when she

00:14:33.900 gets a text from a guy that she's been hooking up with saying, good night, love you or something

00:14:37.660 on that, something on those lines. And then he immediately follow ups, follows up with sorry,

00:14:42.220 drunk person.

00:14:45.020 Yeah, I know.

00:14:47.980 Yeah. And that's not uncommon.

00:14:51.260 No, it's not. If anything, it's regarded as a rite of passage.

00:14:54.700 Yeah.

00:14:55.420 Not quite that extreme, extreme level of like texting, um, embarrassment, but, um,

00:15:03.100 yes, the, the idea that you should, you should, I mean, I was actually told this cause I got engaged,

00:15:07.900 um, quite young and particularly young for, um, someone who coming from a secular liberal background.

00:15:15.260 So I got engaged when I was 24 and married when I was 25. And I remember speaking to a friend who was

00:15:19.900 a bit older than me about at the time. And she said very explicitly, like you are making a mistake.

00:15:25.500 You should be spending your twenties, having as many like different sexual romantic experiences as

00:15:30.780 possible and experimenting and finding out who you are. And then you can settle down in 10 years or

00:15:37.020 something. Um, and luckily I didn't follow her advice. Terrible advice. What terrible advice?

00:15:45.020 But so, um, but it's such a common idea that, that, um, that sex is like a skill set that has

00:15:51.580 to be refined with as many partners as possible. That's kind of the idea. Um, which is of course,

00:15:58.060 why you get in, in, in women's mags, you'll get things like, uh, guide to having sex from sex workers 1.00

00:16:04.380 or cause the idea is that it, that it is just this kind of, um, alienated skill set, which can be

00:16:12.380 commodified, which doesn't have any intrinsic specialness and which isn't sort of attached to

00:16:18.540 the people. It's like something you do to someone, not something that you do with someone.

00:16:23.420 Thank you so much for watching this preview of my podcast, Classically Ever After. Make sure to go

00:16:29.740 and listen to the entire episode and subscribe. And if you aren't already subscribed to my

00:16:34.300 Substack newsletter, head over to classicallyabby.substack.com. If you're not following me on social

00:16:39.100 media, it's classicallyabby absolutely everywhere. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you guys

00:16:43.580 in my next video. Bye!

Classically Abby - October 27, 2022

Sexual ＂Liberation＂ Is NOT Empowering Or Fulfilling - My Interview With Louise Perry

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