When Fundamentalism Comes From Non-Religious Women
It's the horseshoe theory, but for sex.
When I saw this poster come across my feed, I assumed it was fake. It seemed ludicrous.
But it’s real.
All these “leftist” women will be debating the sexual revolution’s merits live on September 13. I do not consider these people leftists, and I strongly doubt even they would identify that way (more as alt-weirdo centrists who want the benefits of intellectual attention without any actual ethics to give a shit about), but to the average conservative, it probably seems that way.
While the urge to endlessly and individually rant about Grimes, Sarah Haider, Anna Khachiyan, Louise Perry, and especially Bari Weiss is exceptionally strong, I’m not really up for that kind of drama or being known as a “callout” writer. So that’s not what I’m here to do. I am here to defend the sexual revolution and decry the anti-sex, anti-feminist attitudes that seem to be popping up in culture these days.
Long story short: obviously, the sexual revolution has not failed. The fact that those women can choose their partners, the number of children they do or don’t want to have, and have thriving, successful careers speaking their minds and doing what they want is proof alone. Beyond the “hot take” machine of the big-city liberals who idolize tradcaths and fundamentalism they don’t even buy into, they’re not the only ones who genuinely feel that way.
People are becoming more anti-sex. More than that, they’re becoming anti-sex from the left. While conservatives whine endlessly about trans people, pronouns, and gender, the TERFs, SWERFs, and anti-feminism are also calling from the left.
Many people believe that sex and nudity no longer belong in art. While sex scenes and nudity sometimes involved coercion in the past, especially for women, I find it absurd that people assume that’s the case for all of it. If you are personally sex-repulsed, I get it, but you don’t have to consume media. There are plenty of things I don’t like — horror, anime, black metal (go ahead, send in your hatemail) — but I understand why other people enjoy them, and I’m not here to demand other people stop consuming the forms of media that they like due to my own opinions and discomforts.
Last year, I read a book called Rethinking Sex: A Provocation by Christine Emba that discussed the ways in which modern dating and expectations of sex have been harmful to women. I wrote about this over at Sojourners. Essentially, she gave the argument that I assume will be discussed at this debate hosted by Weiss: women aren’t enjoying casual sex, the sexual revolution has been worse for women, and maybe women want things to go back to the way they were.
Similar to the so-called “anti-purity culture” writers who still unironically endorse complementarianism and the idea that sex should only happen within the bonds of marriage between a man and a woman, this is all just fundamentalism shined up with a pretty package. Since I’m polyamorous and am even rejected by other progressives and Christians who call themselves affirming, I recognize it immediately. I’m happy with my life, my partners, and the sex I have. I’m in a mentally healthy and emotionally stable situation. I regularly attend church, and my kids are (mostly) normal, with high grades, contented lives, and good ethics. And I haven’t been single since I was 18. So none of these arguments work on me.
I’m an outlier in a lot of ways, obviously, and I -definitely- think people are struggling to date, can’t communicate effectively with their partners, are dealing with severe isolation in an increasingly online world, and don’t know what they want from life or romance. I don’t really do hookup culture either, so I get why people avoid it.
But I know that without the sexual revolution, I’d be in a mental hospital right now. I’m grateful for birth control, autonomy, egalitarian relationships, feminism, and opportunity. And while Emba is a Catholic convert, it’s harder for me to understand when these arguments come from irreligious people.
I think there’s a trend for upper-middle-class secular liberals born in big cities to romanticize the small-town, religious conservative culture of middle America. I’m a communist, so I believe that these people are the working class who deserve revolutionary action and to own their own labor in a truly equitable economic model and a people’s government. I don’t like cancel culture, I love forgiveness, and solidarity and love are the basis of my religion and my politics.
But as someone born and raised in one of the most fundamentalist denominations out there, in the South, with politically active Republican family members… I have to say these fucking people have no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to the so-called failure of the sexual revolution.
They’ve never seen a teen girl have to confess her “sin” of premarital sex at the altar to the entire church or get pregnant after having received exactly zero sex education whatsoever. They’ve never heard horror stories of LGBTQ+ discrimination and sexual assault in Christian institutions and communities. They’ve never seen crippled mamaws cook all the food and clean all the dishes while the men all watch football in the den. Their parents probably never told them they looked like a whore for wearing a skirt. And, here’s the big one: they’ve never lived in poverty, subjected to a life where they have little control over their futures.
I love the South, and I love Christianity. But as these wealthy figures take the stage in Los Angeles (presumably arriving in first class and dressed in luxury clothing) to wax poetic about how women were safer before they were allowed to vote or go to college or live with a man they aren’t married to, know that they aren’t contributing to the safety of women, queer, or poor people when they do so. Most of them (excepting Haider) haven’t lived through purity culture or been saved from it through an honest, open perspective of sexuality.
Viva la (sexual) revolución. And we have even more work to do when it comes to liberation. Don’t stop now.