I wholeheartedly support sexual liberation for both women and men. However, the way in which feminists have tried to accomplish this challenging feat has obviously failed everyone. I’d like to highlight five distinct mistakes they have made.
1. Ignoring Biological and Individual Differences
Feminists promoting sexual liberation have failed women by convincing them that they’re the same as men. For some reason, these feminists believe that we must be exactly the same in order to be equal.
The truth is men and women will never be the same. Of course, we must recognise each other as having equal value as human beings. However, we’re going to drive ourselves mad if we try to put an equals sign between men and women when it comes to every single one of our psychological and biological attributes.
2. Tricking Women into Having Sex Like Men
As part of deluding women into believing they can be like men, feminist have encouraged women to have sex like men, in the name of sexual liberation. But male-like sexual behaviour doesn’t set most women free; it just makes them miserable, generally. This is because the majority of women do crave bonding with a romantic partner.
Most men want love, too, but the men whose behaviour feminists seek to imitate are the high-achieving, cold, ruthless, power-obsessed Patrick Bateman types. And even the men who want stable long-term relationships are more likely to enjoy casual sex than women do, because men are generally more likely to enjoy casual sex than women.
There are of course women who genuinely enjoy casual sex, but they are a minority. When dating, most women are mainly motivated by becoming either wives or mothers, or both. Therefore, feminists have failed women not only by ignoring general biological differences between the sexes, but also by failing to recognise the individual differences in personality among women and men. (By the way, placing too much emphasis on the biological differences between the sexes while failing to recognise individual differences is another mistake a lot of people, especially conservatives, make. Conversely, an overly individualistic approach also has its pitfalls by failing to account for significant general trends in male and female behaviour.)
3. Consent: Feminists’ Sole Measure of Sexual Experiences
The feminist sexually liberated woman is supposed to treat sex like any other social interaction and avoid catching feelings. When you disconnect sex from emotions, sources of fulfilment such as deep intimacy, connection, passion, mutual respect and of course love become taboo. When women are left only with the cold and vague idea of consent to measure their sexual encounters by, they will inevitably interpret experiences that leave them feeling empty, unfulfilled and awkward as violations of their consent. This phenomenon appears to be at the root of a lot of #MeToo stories.
A mechanical, dispassionate one-night stand is bound to leave most women feeling frustrated and disappointed in themselves and their partners. This is not surprising, because you’re unlikely to have really good, satisfying sex with someone you hardly know. Indeed, women are twice as likely to reach orgasm with a long-term partner than with a stranger during a hook-up.
The solution would be to reassure women that it’s okay to desire true emotional closeness and connection. And if they want their sexual partners to respect them, they should first respect themselves by being in touch with their desires and learning to communicate them.
Consent is important, of course, but it’s a painfully low bar, which doesn’t account for desire and pleasure – just two things that used to be important in sex. By removing all other language around intimacy, feminists have encouraged women to rate unfulfilling and disappointing sexual encounters as non-consensual and even as assault.
When pretending that men and women are the same, you also have to do away with women’s unique forms of power, one of which is their sexual power as gatekeepers of sex. Instead of acknowledging women’s sexual power, feminists seek to empower women through consent – which means encouraging women to use this vague concept as a weapon against men.
This is a dangerous time for men, because it’s so easy for women to change their minds and reframe experiences they’d agreed to as non-consensual. Thanks to the #BelieveWomen mantra, we’re supposed to accept that women always tell the truth, leaving men unable to defend themselves against false accusations.
(If you disagree with my characterisation of consent as vague, then you probably believe consent should be explicitly asked for before every single move during sex. In that case, I hope you enjoy having machine-like, formulaic, passionless sex.)
4. Exaggerating the Danger Posed by Men
Feminists who deny the existence of significant innate differences between the sexes tend to simultaneously claim that all men are potentially dangerous (due to the vast majority of sex crimes being committed by men). Thereby they blame all men for the crimes of a tiny minority who are prone to violence.
This philosophy of collective male guilt and generalised female victimhood doesn’t serve anyone’s interests – except the feminists’ who are seeking political power by exploiting women’s fear. In everyday life, this fear cultivated by feminist activists creates great tension between the sexes.
5. Emphasising Women’s Powerlessness
The number one tenet of #MeToo ideology is that of female vulnerability and powerlessness in the face of uncontrollable, animalistic male aggression. This caricaturish distortion of male-female dynamics has predictably sown much resentment on both sides.
By focusing obsessively on women’s weakness, feminism has given rise to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Women who believe all men are potentially dangerous are less likely to have the courage to speak up and make it clear when a man is making them feel uncomfortable. Since men are generally unable to read women’s minds, the inevitable result will be much misunderstanding and discomfort, stemming from a lack of clear communication.
What we end up with, then, are lots of #MeToo stories describing situations that were interpreted very differently by the two parties involved. If the woman says or does nothing when she feels that her boundaries are being pushed, the man has no way of knowing she wants him to stop. She will then interpret the incident as non-consensual, while he’ll have no idea he’s done anything wrong.
Conclusion
I firmly believe that we can only repair the damage done by feminism to male-female relationships through some serious education in biology and psychology. When communicated right, facts can overwrite delusional fear. I aim to contribute to this education through my writing, so watch this space!
How Feminists Promoting Sexual Freedom Have Failed Women (and Men)
Thanks for providing the Article about Sexual Liberation very true and a good read !
Thought provoking as always Greta.