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Louise Perry on The Case Against the Sexual Revolution - Interview with Glen Scrivener — Transcript

by Glen Scrivener (Speak Life) · 8,378 words · 1,473 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00today on speak life we are joined by
0:01louise perry who is a columnist with the
0:04new statesman and the author of the new
0:05book the case against the sexual
0:07revolution luis thanks for joining us
0:09thank you so much hello
0:10hello um you have written a book that
0:13makes me so curious um and the first
0:16time that i was curious was on twitter
0:19where your publisher just released the
0:21uh the chapter headings
0:23for the book
0:24and i wondered is louise just uh ishia
0:28christian in disguise has she been a
0:30sleeper cell working for the new
0:32statesman and now she is uh outing
0:34herself
0:35because your chapter headings are sex
0:37must be taken seriously
0:39men and women are different some desires
0:41are bad loveless sex is not empowering
0:44consent is not enough violence is not
0:46love people are not products marriage is
0:49good and then the conclusion is listen
0:51to your mother and obviously you mean
0:53mother church at that stage
0:55[Laughter]
1:00are you noticing some synergy between
1:02what you're saying and what sort of
1:03christians have traditionally said
1:05yeah okay so that
1:07so
1:08on some points yeah at some points yeah
1:11i mean that the thing is with this book
1:12is that because i i guess because i'm
1:14coming out the topic from a slightly
1:16unusual perspective
1:18in that um
1:20i
1:21come originally from the left
1:23and i work for the new statesman which
1:25is a left-wing magazine
1:26and i went to super left-wing university
1:30and you know that's kind of my
1:31intellectual foundation
1:35but also
1:36in some ways i'm in agreement with
1:38social conservatives on some
1:41issues but the the
1:43the way that i've kind of got there is
1:44via different priors if that makes sense
1:47i've started with some fundamental
1:49feminist ideas about i mean i'm defining
1:51feminism extremely broad way just to
1:53mean
1:54protecting the interests of
1:56women
1:57however how like wherever that leads and
1:59i have and and i've i've kind of
2:01followed my i followed my intuition and
2:03followed the research on that front and
2:04i've ended up
2:06possibly coincidentally possibly not
2:08reaching reaching some
2:10conclusions which many people perceive
2:12to be conservative although you know
2:15it's a bit patchy and i say sometimes
2:17and i'm joking but i'm also not really
2:18joking that there's something something
2:20in the book for everyone to hate
2:23and i have been criticized for every
2:24angle you could possibly imagine but
2:26also praised you know i think that
2:28there's there's a lot of different stuff
2:30in there in it and i think regardless of
2:32your own perspective it does tend to
2:35provoke
2:37thought profit challenge yes do you
2:39still identify as a feminist i know in
2:42britain um like a vanishingly small
2:44proportion of people actually like i
2:45identify like like 10 15 or something
2:48identify as as feminist over here
2:51um is that is that a label that you wear
2:54and if so do you add add other
2:55adjectives to it
2:58yeah interesting question so yeah i do
2:59comment on feminist i think that
3:02uh the the sub category of feminism is
3:04contested
3:06so i
3:07um would sometimes call myself
3:09post-liberal feminist because i'm kind
3:11of
3:12coming out of um the post-liberal
3:16political movement within within britain
3:18which is its own very you know specific
3:20thing
3:21um which tends to combine a combination
3:23of cultural conservatism and also um
3:26being left on economic issues
3:29um
3:30which is one of those in britain i
3:31believe in in many other parts of the
3:33west as well is an area where a lot of
3:35voters are to be found
3:37but not very many people in positions of
3:40power
3:41um so that's a you know that's a kind of
3:44um intellectual scene which i'm swimming
3:46in
3:47locally um
3:48i mean the thing is with feminism in
3:50britain is it is it's it's a little bit
3:52of a broader church than in other parts
3:55of the world it is true that um only a
3:57minority of women actually call
3:59themselves feminists so i think that's
4:00always been true
4:02um feminism has always been a bit of a
4:05perceived to be a bit of an elite
4:07concern even if it sometimes has
4:10kind of
4:12delved into the grassroots as well
4:15but uh
4:17there is there is kind of more room for
4:19maneuver in britain on the whole there's
4:21there's there's
4:22um more space for instance for gender
4:24critical views than in
4:26america for instance
4:28and there's more
4:30um
4:33i think what's happening to feminism at
4:34the moment in britain and possibly
4:36elsewhere is it's detaching a bit from
4:38the left
4:40because historically of course feminism
4:41is almost synonymous with the left and
4:43and it does come out of certain
4:45left-wing movements of the 1960s and
4:47stuff but it's always had a very vexed
4:48relationship actually with the left and
4:50a lot of conflict with
4:52with men on the left
4:54and
4:55you know radical feminists and christian
4:58conservatives for instance
4:59have have been in agreement on many
5:01issues down the ages you know whether it
5:03be prostitution pornography whatever
5:06um often sometimes to the chagrin of
5:08radical feminists um but there has
5:11always been that kind of interesting
5:13way in which feminism is quite hard to
5:15categorize in political terms and i
5:17think that actually
5:19that's
5:20that's something that we should pursue
5:22more i think that actually trying to
5:24disentangle ourselves from that kind of
5:26left-right binary
5:28is
5:29a good thing and something that we
5:30should be doing very deliberately
5:31because i think actually that
5:33um
5:35what is good for women and children of
5:37families and you know because like we
5:38can't just think about women on their
5:39own right women are women women are
5:41entangled with other with other people
5:43in all sorts of ways and doesn't
5:45necessarily have that much to do with
5:46what we might consider to be left and
5:48right in a strict sense right right and
5:51that's where the post-liberal stuff
5:52comes in doesn't it that you've got this
5:54sense you know john rules thought about
5:56this atomized individual behind the
5:59behind the veil of ignorance and let's
6:00build up a society based on that person
6:04that individual and you just think well
6:06that that sounds like a frat boy a 20
6:08year old frat boy
6:09like that that's yeah that's the dream
6:11of very much a male psychology yes to
6:14want to be a little atom by myself or by
6:17himself
6:19not entangled as you say with your
6:21biology not entangled with society not
6:23entangled with
6:24family and reproductive you know systems
6:26and and things like that and so
6:29post-liberal feminism i guess is taking
6:32seriously
6:34nature really and taking taking
6:36seriously biology relationships yeah
6:38relationships yeah absolutely so another
6:40term that um is sometimes used and i
6:43think is catholic kathleen stock great
6:45my forward um the philosopher her
6:47preference i think is for materialist
6:49feminism
6:51which is quite good yes because that
6:53that does that does kind of strike it
6:55what is what it is we're talking about
6:57even if it does sound a bit academic i
6:59think that it's a good descriptor yes
7:01well let's press into that because um
7:03one one of your um
7:05chapter headings is men and women are
7:07different
7:09and i guess like coming from a christian
7:11point of view like first page of the
7:12bible you've got male and female in the
7:14image of god both of them equally having
7:16dominion over the world
7:19and i guess there's that dimension
7:20there's that sort of vertical dimension
7:22of both equally
7:24in the image of god
7:25if you've got a materialist kind of
7:27conception of male and female
7:31i can understand why
7:33sort of a third wave feminism would a
7:35third wave feminist would say ah if you
7:37press in too much to the differences
7:39between men and women you're going to
7:41lose the equality
7:43now i think if you've got a spiritual
7:44dimension there's a little bit of a
7:46backstop there
7:47and that men and women can be equal
7:49before the eyes of god and different in
7:50their sort of material reality but if
7:53you're going to have a materialist
7:54feminism
7:55how do you both uphold the equality of
7:57the sexes and the difference between
7:59them
8:02well i mean i think you can still say i
8:04mean it's all derived from christianity
8:05in the end isn't i mean this is the
8:07thing
8:08with with so much
8:11secular ethics and politics and you know
8:13everything everything in the end comes
8:14and comes back to christianity even if
8:16not explicitly so i think it's quite
8:18possible to say in a secular way that
8:20you can you can affirm the moral
8:23equality of the sexes
8:26and our equal value
8:28as human beings without necessarily
8:30insisting on our sameness
8:32um
8:34the i mean the sameness is also into
8:37in two dimensions that i write about in
8:39the book so the first is that just the
8:40physical differences between sexes which
8:43um you know ought to be obvious
8:45have increasingly become non-non-obvious
8:48right a very strange detail within
8:50feminism although i think in a way
8:52actually that
8:54so so one of the critiques i make of
8:56liberal feminism
8:58is that i think that it has historically
9:02um
9:04started off when being concerned with
9:06with men and women having equal legal
9:08rights
9:09so things like
9:11access to professions and the ability
9:13for women to to borrow money and and do
9:16all this kind of stuff um
9:18and that was a really important battle
9:20of the 1960s and 70s in particular
9:22and then
9:23the place it went from there and i think
9:25that this is the era was to on a social
9:29and cultural level to also aspire for
9:32sameness
9:34which translates very often actually
9:36into just aspiring for women to be more
9:38like men not actually generally wanting
9:40men to behave more like women so for men
9:42to do for more care work or you know
9:44whatever it might be but for women to
9:47to live as men do to to have working
9:51lives exactly like men's to have sexual
9:53eyes very much like men's this is the
9:55argument i'm making in the book that
9:56women should aspire to
9:58have um more carefree sexual lives
10:02where they can you know treat sex much
10:04more like a leisure activity be much
10:06more casual about their sexual lives in
10:07every possible way to have a more sort
10:09of masculine attitude towards lexing
10:12towards working towards family and
10:13whatever and and as you as you say the
10:16the liberal individuals model in which
10:17we're these atomized frat boys
10:20who don't have who don't have
10:21relationships or responsibilities or you
10:23know this is this is i think that the
10:25route that that potentially goes down
10:27where you end up
10:28um
10:30rejecting so much of um
10:33of
10:34of what has traditionally been
10:35[Music]
10:37women's lives with women's work
10:39that you end up actually with trying
10:41just desperately to be like men in every
10:43possible way which i think is an era and
10:45i think you know in has has ended up at
10:47this strange place now with the addition
10:49of
10:50transactivism to the tapestry um
10:53where even the existence of physical
10:55differences between
10:56men and women have become
10:58controversial and we have things like
11:01um the current arguments over sports and
11:04whether or not people could can identify
11:07into different sports categories and so
11:08on um different prisons you know all the
11:11whole the whole question of sexual
11:13dimorphism suddenly on the table
11:15um in a way that is wild and would be
11:17considered completely wild to our
11:19ancestors so so there's that physical
11:20dimension which as i say should be
11:22obvious but isn't necessarily um and
11:25then more controversially there's also
11:27the psychological dimension
11:28the fact that even though there are not
11:31um
11:32absolute psychological differences
11:34between the sexes and you end up with
11:36loads of outliers and and loads of ways
11:39in which we just
11:40um people are not typically
11:43masculine or feminine on a personality
11:45level at all but but
11:46there are some ways in which there are
11:48average
11:49differences which you see at the
11:51population level and the most crucial
11:53one for my purposes in the book is is in
11:55terms of sexuality and the fact that men
11:57are more likely on average
11:59to take a more casual attitude towards
12:02sex and to want to do things like watch
12:04porn buy sex um have hookups that kind
12:07of thing
12:08whereas women are on average less likely
12:10to want those things and if you if if
12:12you're looking at this from a sort of
12:15a cultural perspective and thinking what
12:17is what is the sexual culture which best
12:18serves the interests of women
12:21on maths i don't think it's our current
12:23culture right
12:25because it is based around the needs of
12:27the atomized individual which far more
12:30readily maps onto male desires um and a
12:33masculine view of the world than a
12:35feminine one why do you think
12:38that
12:40we are unable to name the differences
12:42between men and women anymore i mean
12:45they're pretty obvious um you know
12:48you've got young children i've got young
12:49children you know it's one of the first
12:51things they notice it's it's
12:53it seems to be woven into our our
12:55humanity this this sexual dimorphism
12:58um
12:59to me it it feels like um we have said
13:03that the word equality is equivalent to
13:05the word interchangeability
13:08so that in order to be equal we must be
13:10interchangeable
13:12but again as a parent i don't say to my
13:14children i love you all interchangeably
13:16i say i love you all equally
13:19but you're different to you and and
13:22again i wonder if we don't have a rich
13:25vision for the way in which male and
13:27female are equal
13:29we'll just be so nervous about noticing
13:31differences because we'll we'll think
13:33that that will violate our highest ideal
13:35which is equality
13:37but instead of a a rich vision of
13:39equality where we're all equally welcome
13:41around the same table we have to be all
13:43equally far up the same individual
13:45ladders
13:46um which again is is my that so that's
13:49my that's my pushback about materialism
13:52are there
13:53resources within materialism
13:55to actually affirm the equality because
13:57i wonder whether our desire to hold on
13:59to equality is preventing us from
14:02noticing the differences
14:03yeah
14:04i think the part of the reason why we
14:06have um
14:09why it has become easier and more common
14:12to deny the differences is partly an
14:15ideological thing it's coming out of
14:17it's coming out of liberalism it's a
14:18sort of logical endpoint actually of so
14:20much liberal thinking for so many
14:21centuries but i think that there is also
14:24a material reason which is another
14:25reason why materialist feminism works
14:27quite well as a term
14:29in that our society has changed
14:32so profoundly on a material level
14:35um
14:36so things like the pill
14:38which is kind of the starting point of
14:39my whole
14:40book that we suddenly have this
14:42technology shock which enables women to
14:44suspend their fertility in a way they've
14:46never historically been able to do at
14:48least not not reliably and not within
14:50their own control because most
14:52older forms of contraception are both
14:54unreliable and also
14:56it
14:57men are in charge of them
14:59um
15:00and then that's combined with things
15:02like the move away from
15:05an industrial economy towards knowledge
15:06and service economy
15:08which means also having much less the
15:11male physical strength becomes much less
15:13important than it used to be on an
15:15economic level um which results
15:17therefore in much more gender neutrality
15:20in all parts of life and particularly
15:21working life um western society used to
15:24be really segregated in a way that
15:26people tend to forget and men and women
15:29used to do quite different work and to
15:31quite rarely socialize with members of
15:33the opposite sex who weren't who weren't
15:35kin
15:36um whereas now that's not the life we
15:38exist in at all so all of these material
15:40changes which are coming from
15:42technology ultimately and other you know
15:45sort of um
15:47changes beyond the social
15:49translate into these vast
15:51social changes which mean which give us
15:54the impression i think the false
15:55impression
15:56that we are
15:58that we are interchangeable that there
16:00aren't any meaningful differences
16:01between men and women because you if you
16:02say
16:03um are able to suspend your fertility
16:06by taking the pill and you do the sort
16:07of job which doesn't require physical
16:10strength at all
16:11um and you exist in a very kind of
16:14gender-neutral social space you might
16:16think that actually the differences
16:17between us are trivial and easily
16:19surmountable
16:21but actually that's a false impression
16:23and it's also an impression that depends
16:24on
16:25technology um
16:27which is quite fragile
16:29um
16:30so
16:31yes i think so part of what the material
16:33feminist descriptor is is describing is
16:35that is that fundamental insight that
16:37the thing that's driving
16:39what looks
16:41from from one perspective like feminist
16:44progress and what's generally
16:46um attributed
16:48to the work of feminist campaigners and
16:50obviously feminist campaigners have had
16:54influence and they've been lots of very
16:55admirable campaigners down the years but
16:57i think the thing that's driving this
16:59has a lot more to do with
17:02economic change than it does with
17:04anything done on the ideological level
17:07you know things like votes for women i
17:08think are much more likely to be the
17:10result of the internal combustion engine
17:13and the fact that you suddenly have this
17:14radical change in
17:16the the economic importance of male
17:18physical strength
17:19um at the end of 19th century into the
17:2120th century like that's so much to me
17:24more just to the story
17:26yeah um than anything to do with
17:27suffrage yes yeah so the pill absolutely
17:31massively important in breaking the
17:32connection between sex and babies
17:35um or this between sex and pregnancy and
17:37then another technology i guess is
17:39abortion that breaks the the link
17:41between conception and the a child that
17:44is born um you sort of i mean obviously
17:47they've always been
17:49um
17:51abortion efforts um in every area but
17:53yeah you're right that that safe
17:55abortion is important
17:56yeah right right right um we've just
17:59recently had uh roe versus wade in the
18:02united states overturned obviously the
18:04u.s is a very different
18:06ecosystem to
18:09the uk or australia where i'm from but
18:11um
18:13what what kind of reflections do you
18:15have um because if you've you've made a
18:17case against the sexual revolution
18:20and and part of what made the sexual
18:22revolution possible was contraception
18:25and more widespread access to abortion
18:27um
18:29the the supreme court sort of ruling
18:30that that was not a constitutional right
18:33um and now it goes back to the states so
18:35it doesn't you know it it's not that the
18:38supreme court uh has the final say now
18:39it's back to this back to the states to
18:41figure out what what they want to do
18:42with it but how do you react
18:45to that
18:46um when you've made such a case you know
18:48against the sexual revolution and and
18:51abortion has played such a part in it
18:53yeah and we recorded for listeners we're
18:55recording this like a few days after the
18:58announcement so yeah this is this is
19:01this is a question that everyone is
19:02going to be asking me because it is
19:03super super relevant to
19:05to my thesis
19:06um
19:08so i think what happened historically um
19:11with decriminalization of abortion is
19:13that you had
19:14um
19:15which happens across the western world
19:17at much the same time
19:19is you have abortion
19:21sorry the pill becomes available in the
19:24early 60s initially it's available just
19:26to married women
19:28and then some years later it becomes
19:30available to unmarried women
19:33and then a similar period of time after
19:35that you have the decriminalization of
19:37abortion and i think the reason that
19:38there's that sequence
19:40is because the pill um particularly in
19:42its earliest forms
19:44was a was a reliable
19:46was a was an unprecedentedly reliable
19:48form of contraception
19:50but it wasn't actually that good it's
19:52never really been 100 effective i mean
19:54very few that i mean some modern forms
19:57of contraception like the
19:58um
19:59interuterine device
20:01are close to 100
20:03um but nothing is 100 so it was just
20:06effective enough
20:08to
20:09produce really radical social change in
20:10the sense that
20:12the um social norms that had existed
20:15through all of human history really to
20:17try and control young people's sexuality
20:20the the the element of it that feminists
20:22focus on is the control of female
20:24sexuality and of course of course that
20:26exists that was a very very strong
20:28theme through all of this you know
20:30invariably
20:31um
20:32male kin
20:33and other and female kin tuba melkin in
20:35particular
20:36taking great pains to control the sexual
20:38behavior of
20:40their daughters um but it also control
20:43male sexuality like the there are all
20:45sorts of ways in which
20:47young men in particular were controlled
20:51and the reason for that was because it
20:53was the community that the community
20:54cared about about childbearing
20:57it wasn't just a matter of individuals
20:59it was a matter like it mattered to
21:01families and massive communities if
21:02young people were
21:04having sexual relationships that were
21:06producing illegitimate children so of
21:07course this is why you have this
21:08elaborate set of social norms which
21:09basically exists to keep
21:11um the horny young people apart
21:14but then the pill comes along and
21:15suddenly that's kind of goes out the
21:16window because
21:18sex is no longer necessarily going to
21:19lead to reproduction
21:21and so for instance a shotgun marriage
21:24is gone yeah but into the 70s it just
21:27doesn't seem to provide any kind of
21:29obvious purpose but then what happens
21:31perversely is that because it's not 100
21:33effective
21:34you have a lot more
21:36extramarital sex happening
21:39but that means that actually the
21:40absolute number of unwanted pregnancies
21:42also goes up because you've got whatever
21:44a 10 failure rate it's surprisingly high
21:46failure rate and that's when of course
21:48you need
21:49abortion as the backup and i think the
21:51reason that there's an incentive among
21:53law makers
21:55in the late 60s 70s to support
21:58decriminalization of abortion is because
21:59it's their you know it's their daughters
22:01who are having these relationships who
22:02are having unplanned pregnancies and it
22:03suddenly becomes um much more urgent
22:06than it has been historically
22:08um
22:10and yeah i mean my
22:12i have a complex view on abortion and
22:13this is i think a point where i diverge
22:15from many of my christian readers who'll
22:18agree with me on lots of other things
22:20i don't think that abortion is
22:23um a good thing for a woman to go
22:24through
22:26i think that efforts to try and
22:28represent it by a small a small
22:30proportion of feminists but a vocal one
22:32to try and represent abortion is
22:33meaningless like having a wisdom tooth
22:35pulls you know just a minor kind of
22:37medical procedure i think that that's i
22:40don't think that describes reality even
22:42if that's true maybe for some portion of
22:43women i mean the vast majority of women
22:45who've had abortions which obviously a
22:46lot of women
22:47will
22:49describe it as
22:51you
22:52know with some degree of of of trauma
22:56and sadness because
22:58it is a difficult thing to go through
23:00and it's not something that you would
23:01wish on your worst enemy to be honest
23:03um
23:04having said that
23:06i think that it is
23:08an error to
23:10criminalize it
23:11and i think that the reason for that is
23:13that
23:16it's very unlikely you can't resurrect
23:18those social norms overnight
23:21there's a roger scrutin quote i can't
23:22remember exactly what it is but it's
23:24something like
23:25it's very easy to to break things and
23:27very difficult to make things you know
23:29we had a very imperfect but
23:33durable
23:34system of social norms and also you know
23:36legal institutions like marriage and so
23:38on
23:38that
23:39um
23:41dealt with the problem of the fact that
23:44um young women can easily become
23:46pregnant and
23:48you know we need a way of looking after
23:50them and looking after their children
23:51and so on and the the kind of slightly
23:54hodgepodge method that we've come up
23:55with
23:56um is gone you know like you now have
23:59something like half of children in the
24:01uk
24:02um reaching age 15 without their
24:04biological father at home
24:06um
24:07i think also about half not born in
24:09wedlock so
24:11that
24:11the
24:12the old system is gone and i think that
24:15it's just not possible to resurrect it
24:19and i think sometimes that the um
24:22this will sound like a strange
24:23comparison but i think sometimes that
24:25the um
24:26the move to criminalize abortion reminds
24:28me a bit of the move to abolish prisons
24:31which is obviously coming from a
24:32completely different political space
24:34generally but
24:36you know the prison abolitionists are
24:37right
24:38that
24:39prison
24:40is miserable
24:42and brutal and you wouldn't want to live
24:44in a perfect society would not have
24:46prisons would have no need for prisons
24:48you would just um
24:51either intervene earlier to prevent
24:52crime ever happening or you would have
24:54some sort of excellent rehabilitation
24:56services which meant that people
24:58um would do far better in those and they
25:01would in prison you know all of that is
25:02completely true
25:04but also if we if we abolish prisons
25:07tomorrow that is not going to be the
25:09outcome
25:10the outcome is going to be pandemonium
25:12and that's the thing that worries me
25:13with abortion as well you know i would
25:14think it would be better if we lived in
25:15a world where no one ever had to have an
25:17abortion ever again
25:18and the way of getting there
25:21might include you know greater support
25:23for young families
25:25um
25:26uh women being able to rely on men more
25:29to stay with them and to support them
25:30through pregnancy and and
25:32that you know to to raise families
25:34together you know all of that stuff is
25:36good
25:37and many christians would agree with me
25:38on it for even if we're not for quite
25:41the same reasons
25:42but i don't think that banning abortion
25:44is going to get us there and i think
25:45it's much more likely actually to result
25:48in
25:49um
25:50the tragic deaths of women and miserable
25:52lives for unwanted children and i look
25:54at for instance what happened in romania
25:57when abortion was criminalized under
25:59trajectory
26:01and i think
26:02that doesn't look like it doesn't look
26:04like a good outcome
26:05to me so that's my very long way of
26:07saying that i have a complicated view
26:11sure well you won't be surprised to
26:13learn i'm i'm pro-life and and yeah i i
26:16look at the
26:17the million babies per week in the world
26:20uh that are killed
26:22um
26:23around the world um via abortion i i do
26:27think it's it's a human rights issue i
26:29think it's the front edge of where human
26:31rights should be applied to the most
26:32marginalized kind of groups in society
26:34today but i can i can agree with you
26:37that
26:38yeah simply that the the change of of
26:41legislation
26:42is nowhere near enough um and funnily
26:45enough i i think something like
26:48um the the precept of your book going
26:50widespread
26:51is is you know exactly what needs to go
26:54hand in hand with okay
26:56if you're going to have
26:57uh if if abortion is not going to be the
27:00backstop
27:02um for contraception then yes sex must
27:04be taken seriously and consent is not
27:07enough and marriage is good and and all
27:09those sorts of things so
27:11um yeah so
27:12that's why i commend your book and and
27:14think it's
27:15it's part of uh a part of an honoring of
27:20the weakest among us and i i do think
27:22the weakest among us are the unborn but
27:24but next in in the queue absolutely uh
27:27women and families and and how we
27:30how we honor that um
27:32any come back on that
27:35i mean there are different way yeah you
27:37can
27:38i think there is a very respectable um
27:40view within the pro-life movement that
27:43sees the way of um
27:46the way of pushing at this coming not
27:49from the legislative angle but coming
27:51from other angles like for instance you
27:53know providing more care for
27:56um for young mothers and you know all
27:58this kind of stuff and and i i get
27:59frustrated with
28:01um
28:02some american pro-lifers in particular
28:04who don't think of those other angles at
28:06which they might be pushing at this
28:07issue who only think of the banning
28:09direction and which obviously doesn't
28:11necessarily represent the whole movement
28:12but but yeah i think i think we're in
28:14agreement on that it's a it's a whole
28:16cloth thing and and you know one thing
28:18that's i've started thinking in the last
28:19week or so is is
28:21if the pill was a kind of a
28:24um a technology that that
28:26ended up outstripping our
28:29you know supposed christian values of
28:32the 1950s etc um is it in any way like
28:36um
28:38there was the technology the
28:39technological advance of the new world
28:41getting discovered
28:43which which led to
28:45the greatest sort of historical evil of
28:47all the transatlantic slave trade in
28:48which you know 12 million africans were
28:51trafficked and
28:52and worked to death um but there was
28:55there was then a movement it came 350
28:58years far too late um but there was a
29:00movement of
29:02both
29:03re-envisaging society
29:05and banning the thing um but you yeah
29:08you absolutely simply cannot cannot ban
29:10the thing if you want uh if you want
29:12society to to progress
29:14um
29:16should we talk a little bit about um
29:18the sexual revolution of the first
29:19century because um when i when i heard
29:22your um
29:23the title of your book
29:25uh the case against the sexual
29:26revolution um the first thing i wanted
29:29to say provocatively was i believe in
29:31the sexual revolution it's just i
29:32believe in the the sexual revolution of
29:34the first century and i'm sort of
29:35picking up that language from kyle
29:36harper a historian who wrote a great
29:38book called from shame to sin
29:41about the sexual revolution of the first
29:43three centuries a.d
29:45and
29:46he drew a really interesting comparison
29:48with the 1960s he says if the 1960s
29:50equalized the sexes by saying women can
29:53now be as promiscuous as men have always
29:55been
29:56basically the sexual revolution of the
29:59the the first century was basically
30:00saying men must be as restricted as
30:03women have always been
30:05and into that culture you know in the
30:07roman world that there are 25 latin
30:09words for prostitute um and there's
30:12literally no way in latin of referring
30:15to an adult male virgin if you talk
30:17about a virgin who's an adult you're
30:19always talking about a woman in latin
30:21and it's just odd to even talk about
30:23male sexuality that is chased and even
30:26the key word modesty about sexual uh
30:29morality was different and
30:31unapologetically different if you're a
30:33woman it meant chastity and
30:35virginity before marriage and then
30:37absolute fidelity within it
30:38for a man modesty simply meant um
30:42not going overboard
30:44and ironically if you if you gave too
30:47much vent to your sexual lusts the
30:49charge you opened yourself to was
30:50effeminacy
30:52which is ironic because what you wanted
30:54your women to be was you know utterly
30:55chaste
30:56but there was just this brutal kind of
30:59sexual culture in which a trip to the
31:01brothel would cost you the same price as
31:03a as a price of a loaf of bread
31:06um in which
31:08every male had the absolute rights to
31:10everybody within his family including
31:12the slaves and and
31:14um and in which pederasty um you know
31:18known as child love
31:20was celebrated you know by by everybody
31:22um
31:23into that culture christians started
31:25calling pedorasty part of thoros which
31:27which means child destruction and
31:29suddenly christians are saying what what
31:31has been celebrated as love is actually
31:33abuse is actually just
31:35destruction
31:36and
31:37it's that sexual revolution that's kind
31:39of built our modern world have you have
31:41you sort of come across that kind of
31:42argument that what has really
31:45tamed male sexuality and therefore
31:47unleashed our potential has been the
31:49sexual revolution of the first centuries
31:53yeah i mean so i should preface this by
31:54saying i'm no expert on the history of
31:57the first century but i am familiar i'm
31:58absolutely familiar with this argument
32:01um it's a really interesting one i mean
32:02when people refer accuse me sometimes of
32:05being old-fashioned i say excuse me how
32:07old-fashioned do you mean because you
32:09know in antiquity as exactly as you say
32:12there is there is that no one would
32:14question the rights of harvey weinstein
32:16for instance
32:17to have sexual access to his
32:20his employees
32:21and his indeed his slaves in that era um
32:24the fact that we would even consider
32:26that to be
32:27an unacceptable thing for him to do or
32:29to request i mean bearing in mind of
32:31course that
32:32you know
32:33some of what weinstein did
32:35was criminal rape for which he was
32:37convicted but some of what he did was
32:39also
32:40um
32:41about requesting sex
32:43or making you know or putting pressure
32:46or you know adding incentives
32:48for
32:49women and his employment or prospective
32:51employment to do to do sexual things for
32:53him so it was about you know abusing
32:55that position of power to sexual ends
32:59which
33:00yes in many other eras would not be
33:02considered illegitimate in the least
33:05you know we i think it is true that we
33:07consider that even in a post-christian
33:09era we consider that to be
33:12illegitimate because we are coming out
33:14of that long history
33:16of understanding egalitarianism to be
33:18such a fundamental virtue
33:21and
33:23yes it's tom holland's book dominion
33:25that kind of set me thinking about this
33:26because he wrote exactly about this that
33:28actually me too in a sense
33:31is often
33:33um
33:33[Music]
33:35often thought of as being anti-christian
33:38in a sense because particularly in the
33:39american context
33:41this is
33:42feminism is typically seen in opposition
33:45to
33:46evangelicalism in particular
33:48but actually
33:49it at its core has this
33:52very old christian idea
33:55of exactly this
33:57male restraint
33:58and the idea that actually you know
34:00every culture pretty much thinks that
34:02female virginity is every culture except
34:05ours
34:06thinks that female virginity is
34:07something to be
34:09um
34:10to be prized and protected
34:12and um the sexual double standard exists
34:15in just about
34:16every part of the world in every area
34:18that we know of wherever women are judge
34:20much more harshly for promiscuity than
34:22men are
34:23um but what's very very common in many
34:25parts of the world is is for men to
34:27basically have license as long as
34:29they're sufficiently high status um rape
34:32is very often been considered not to be
34:35a crime against a woman herself but to
34:37be a crime committed against her male
34:38kin
34:39um this is this you know this is
34:41absolutely correct observation made by
34:43susan brown miller in her famous second
34:45wave text against our world that rape is
34:48historically a property crime
34:50not a not a crime against a person
34:52really
34:52um and yeah the idea that actually men
34:55should be restraining themselves
34:58and that actually
34:59female practices of chastity are
35:02preferable and actually aspirational um
35:05is
35:05is a very strange idea and it does come
35:07out of yeah as you say the first sexual
35:09revolution the christian sexual
35:11revolution um
35:13which i think yeah kind of messes with
35:14people's brains a bit because
35:16because that's not that's not generally
35:18how how non-feminism is understood but
35:20that's that's its long history though
35:22i think i think it's increasingly kind
35:24of coming to the forefront like joseph
35:26henrik's book the weirdest people in the
35:27world that came out like guess 18 months
35:30ago a big fat book from an evolutionary
35:32biologist sort of saying what what is it
35:34that sets the west apart
35:36and he says well it's christianity and
35:38what in particular about christianity he
35:39calls it the marriage and family program
35:42of of christianity and he said somehow
35:44the church managed to reach down and
35:46grab men by the testicles
35:48um and you know a very romantic phrase
35:50but um that that kind of
35:53idea which which i find extraordinary
35:55when you think about the first three
35:56centuries in which the church had no
35:58cultural heights from which to reach
36:00down
36:02so how how are you know as joseph henrik
36:05points out you know
36:07elite males in all human societies they
36:10take a lot of women a lot of concubines
36:12a lot of wives
36:14leaving
36:15which is terrible for the wives and the
36:18concubines it's terrible for every other
36:20male as well because now they're an
36:22involuntary celibate and in cell
36:25because of that elite male behavior
36:28and yet in all these societies around
36:30the world that's that's exactly what we
36:31find
36:32so i guess the like are you are you
36:36comfortable with me phrasing it like
36:38this that the feminist cause like
36:40depends
36:42um at least as much on men as it does on
36:44women and and depends on men absolutely
36:47getting their act together and and
36:51and
36:52restricting themselves
36:54yeah that's the whole project yeah yeah
36:57the the question is what tools you use
36:59to try and achieve that end right
37:01grabbing testicles is frowned on
37:03well i mean it depends on your school um
37:06the the the the method that is more
37:10considered more mainstream
37:12in um
37:14the
37:14saleable feminism radical feminism to
37:16some extent has more to do with
37:19persuading
37:20um men of the virtues of gender
37:22neutrality
37:24of trying to kind of uh eliminate the
37:27differences between the sexes as far as
37:28possible
37:30um in a in a social sense and to some
37:32extent a physical sense as well i mean
37:33that's what the pill does right it
37:35allows women to
37:36to function in the world roughly as men
37:38do
37:39um
37:40the problem i think that we've come up
37:42against is that we've we've
37:44we've had a really good go at this at
37:46trying to eliminate eliminate sexual
37:48difference and we're reaching that point
37:51where we're really coming up against the
37:52buffers of biology
37:54and the extent to which you know it just
37:56isn't moving like something like the
37:57gender pay gap for instance is true that
38:00historically um women used to be quite
38:02explicitly paid less than men for the
38:04same work that's generally isn't what's
38:06happening now in explaining the gender
38:08pay gap it's overwhelmingly actually
38:10just a motherhood pay gap um because
38:12women that's slightly outer men actually
38:14up until they have their first child and
38:16then you see that the earnings fall off
38:17a cliff and it's to do with the fact
38:19that there is just a fundamental
38:20incompatibility between the labour
38:22market and the care of young children
38:24because someone has to do that care
38:26and whether you
38:28um outsource it to to some other paid
38:32woman invariably or if
38:35parents themselves and mothers generally
38:37are the ones who who do it
38:39do it themselves you know this is you
38:40just you just get down to this like
38:44you cannot wish away these differences
38:46it is only women who bear children
38:48there's only women who can breastfeed
38:49children you know mothers have a very
38:51very intense bond with their children
38:53which is very very hard to resist even
38:55if you wanted to why would you want to
38:57um
38:58so i think this is where we we get to
39:00where we've tried
39:02desperately hard and with good reason
39:04to try and eliminate the differences
39:06which have historically made women's
39:08lives very difficult
39:10the problem is that we can't actually
39:11limit those differences and and i guess
39:13where i'm coming from in the book is i'm
39:15saying chapter two men and women are
39:17different like if we accept this as our
39:19right from the get-go
39:21where next you know what do we how do we
39:24manage this how do we try and ameliorate
39:26the downsides of those differences
39:29bearing in mind that absolutely
39:30everything has trade-offs and it isn't
39:32possible to find a perfect solution i
39:34don't believe in utopia
39:37and i think that actually
39:40unexpectedly perhaps there are old there
39:43are old tools which actually work better
39:46than some of the new ones marriage being
39:48an example of that um as you say the
39:51um
39:52anthropologists call it the puzzle of
39:54monogamous marriage why is it that
39:57a system that doesn't suit the interest
39:59of elite men because as you say the
40:01elite men their instinct is to have lots
40:03of wives
40:05and to have sexual access to slaves and
40:07you know to live to live the kind of
40:09ancient fantasy
40:11um
40:12why would a system that doesn't suit the
40:14interests of those men
40:16become as dominant as it has because
40:18monogamous marriage has become the
40:20dominant system
40:21you know through much of the world up
40:22until recently here
40:24and the answer seems to be because
40:26monogamous marriage is a really good
40:27system
40:28not necessarily for the elite men but
40:30it's a really good system for the whole
40:31of society
40:33you end up with lower crime levels for
40:35instance because you don't have this
40:37well of frustrated men who don't have
40:39partners
40:40um
40:42men are
40:43attained by marriage and by children in
40:46the sense that it gives them
40:47incentives to behave pro-socially and
40:49actually tames men even at the
40:51biological level we know that
40:52testosterone levels drop when men are
40:54the testosterone suppression system as
40:56joseph hendrick calls it yeah yeah yeah
40:58when men are involved in care for their
40:59own for their children their
41:00testosterone levels drop um they commit
41:03less crime they they they drink less you
41:05know all sorts of ways in which this is
41:07obviously not to say that that aren't
41:09that aren't counter examples of course
41:10there are but on an average level
41:12you can see their taming effect across
41:14all sorts of dimensions and
41:17it monogamous marriage also makes
41:19productive um
41:20societies more productive on an economic
41:22level because elite men instead of
41:24investing in wives
41:26they invest in
41:28new businesses you know they're like
41:30they're
41:31it turns out that this thousand
41:34two thousand year old
41:36tool
41:38is actually really really effective
41:40actually in in ways that we maybe didn't
41:42expect um and is effective actually it
41:45lowers it it lowers um domestic violence
41:48rates and child and child abuse rates
41:51because
41:52households which have lots of co-wives
41:54and their children and them tend to be
41:56generate a lot of conflict
41:58um
42:00yeah it actually meets all sorts of
42:02feminist purposes that we couldn't
42:03necessarily foresee except that we
42:05experimented with the alternatives and
42:06found them not to be very good
42:09she came across the there was a vice
42:11article maybe a few months ago and it
42:13was uh it was all about this this new
42:15sexuality you can try it's called
42:17radical monogamy
42:18and then you read the article it's just
42:20monogamy people it's like when you've
42:22tried everything else it's like and i
42:24was like yeah no it kind of is radical
42:26though isn't it you know because you
42:28know among primates they that's not how
42:30they do it among other human societies
42:32that's that's not how they do it it
42:34it is kind of radical
42:36and it doesn't necessarily come
42:38naturally
42:39the um
42:40uh alex kashita podcaster i think her
42:42take on the radical monogamy piece was
42:44this is a product of stepping on a
42:46thousand rakes you know
42:48trying trying everything else and you
42:51know oh no right
42:53actually there was something in this all
42:54along and we're like we're trade-offs
42:56obviously you know there are all sorts
42:57of the the response i get sometimes to
42:59the book which i find a bit annoying is
43:02when people say but what about this
43:04exception but what about this exception
43:05but what about this exception i say yes
43:07i agree with you there are obviously
43:08exceptions to absolutely everything but
43:10i also say look around
43:11you know the current system isn't
43:13working that well either
43:15there isn't there isn't a solution that
43:17will absolutely solve every
43:20every every form of human misery
43:22um
43:23[Music]
43:24but there are there are better and worse
43:26ones yeah yeah absolutely what what is
43:29your hope then as
43:31because i mean you're really having to
43:33change minds you're really having to get
43:35people to reimagine
43:38everything actually um because if the
43:41sort of the liberal conceit is that
43:42we're all individuals who are simply
43:44will driven and it's it's purely about
43:46consent it's purely about choice
43:49nature can take a hike
43:51um gendered reality can take a hike
43:53family and marriage can take a hike
43:56um you know i mean there's a meaning
43:58crisis that is sort of orbiting around
44:01that
44:02um but you're you're here coming along
44:05and
44:06i guess how how are you going to preach
44:08to people and i guess i guess i use that
44:10language advisedly because you know
44:13christians come along we kind of say
44:14well look god is love and history is a
44:16love story and heaven and earth are like
44:18masculine and feminine in in you know
44:20the hebrew bible and that's because
44:22they're meant to get together because
44:24history is a love story and man and
44:26woman get to play a part in the cosmic
44:28romance and you know bodies are temples
44:32and you know sex is a proclamation of
44:34the love that preceded and predated the
44:36the the universe and and you can cast a
44:40kind of a cosmic vision if you like
44:43with all the baggage that goes along
44:45with being a traditional christian as i
44:47am but the
44:49i guess christians are used to
44:52speaking out this sort of moral
44:55vision for life
44:56wrapped up in a spiritual
44:59like cosmic vision as well
45:02um
45:03how can you how can you
45:05how can you sell
45:06this vision i want you to sell this
45:08vision
45:09um yeah and and how are you finding it
45:11going as you're sort of casting this
45:13vision for people
45:14yeah how do you how do you make the
45:16secular argument for it
45:18um
45:19well i mean it's going surprisingly well
45:21in the sense that i thought that the
45:23book would i mean i obviously have had
45:25some
45:26i've had negative responses
45:28what tends to happen though is i get a
45:31lot of positive responses like 80
45:33percent i'd say of of feedback i've had
45:35has been really positive and people tend
45:37to say i agree with this i agree with
45:39this and not this um which is fine
45:42they're not this is different completely
45:44different depending on what what
45:46direction they're coming from but um no
45:48they're like the the probably the most
45:50common response i've had is people
45:52saying thank you for saying it you know
45:54i've been thinking this this whole time
45:55and haven't really felt able to
45:58so i think it was sort of in the air
46:00um
46:01i just put it down on paper
46:04yeah i mean i think that it is possible
46:06to um
46:10to make a very rational argument for
46:13some of this like as we were talking
46:14about in relation to
46:16monogamous marriage you can you can
46:19actually
46:20do a fairly empirical
46:22piece of work and say well here are all
46:24the ways in which societies are better
46:26if we decide upon this collective source
46:28of action even if it might not
46:29necessarily be better for some
46:31individuals it's better for everyone on
46:32mass you know
46:33um
46:34i've had i can't remember who said it
46:36but i've heard um
46:38a monogamous system described as sexual
46:40socialism
46:42redistributive yeah yeah yeah
46:44um
46:47what you come down to in the end though
46:49of course when you're talking about when
46:51you're talking about virtue which is
46:53what i'm
46:54talking about in the end and i do i do
46:55use the word virtue is that
46:58you do sort of end up appealing to
47:00christian virtues
47:02without
47:03without god without the theology behind
47:05it
47:06um
47:07[Music]
47:08but you know as tom holland points out
47:11we are we are um we may be a
47:13post-christian culture but only just
47:16and i think that that
47:17is still very much in the waters
47:19um that we do still
47:21we do still prize egalitarianism for
47:23instance
47:25and protective the weak and
47:27charity and modesty and all of these
47:29virtues which actually
47:30um
47:32many people would be surprised to know
47:34come directly from
47:37history christianity in the west
47:39um
47:40so
47:41yeah i suppose i can't help
47:43but kind of
47:44touch those buttons
47:46yeah in talking about these issues even
47:48though but i think it is quite possible
47:50to do so without
47:53without without necessarily having the
47:55theological foundation and without being
47:57a believer and speaking to people who
47:58also aren't believers
48:00um who have been some of my most
48:02positive
48:03readers yeah i'm sure i'm sure they have
48:05me yeah yeah and like i guess like the
48:07whole western experiment is is sort of
48:09based on you know can
48:11can can we preach these virtues without
48:14having to go you know upstairs
48:17and um
48:18and and i guess as tom holland says you
48:20know it remains to be seen whether we
48:22can you know maintain the fruits if we
48:24cut ourselves loose from the roots
48:26yeah yeah yeah that's an ongoing
48:28experiment isn't it yeah yeah and i say
48:32why take the risk louise
48:34come on home nice try again
48:38i gotta try i gotta try it um louise i
48:40wish you all the very best uh with this
48:42book i think it's a phenomenal
48:46project that you're on i think it's a
48:47thread that is so worth uh keeping on
48:49pulling and i really hope people get out
48:52and get the book it's called the case
48:54against the sexual revolution by louise
48:56perry luis thanks so much for joining us
48:58thank you so much
49:08you

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