A Tale of Two Books against the Sexual Revolution

Following the Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court last June, many women of fame decried the limits on abortion and went on a sex strike, furiously uttering the slogan, “If our choices are denied, so are yours.” Seeing this, I almost spit my coffee on the computer screen. Many “liberated” women—I was one of them a long time ago—joined the strike, demanding commitment from men. If there ever was an occasion to use the phrase “reinventing the wheel”, going on a sex strike until a commitment is made certainly is one. Yet no one dared to use the “m” word, for marriage has been the target of the women’s liberation movement from the beginning of the sexual revolution.

The impact of that revolution is far-reaching, and the deterioration of marriage as a social institution is one of its most detrimental consequences. We now live in a sex-saturated society in which hook-up culture is the norm on university campuses and staying chaste until marriage is about as common as a unicorn. After sixty years, we are standing where Chesterton’s proverbial fence once stood, staring the chaos unleashed by “free” sex.