Men are the losers of the sexual revolution

Columnist Jeffrey Hart recently argued that women were the losers of the sexual revolution. He has a point. By making themselves available outside of marriage, women have undermined the institution of marriage. The problem with Hart’s analysis is that he assumes that men want sex and women want marriage. But what if men want marriage, too? Aren’t they also losers of the sexual revolution?

Men do want marriage. There is no comfort in a different woman every night. Moreover, that approach to sex might produce offspring, but not a lifetime relationship with sons, daughters and grandchildren.

Because of the emphasis on the sexual benefits to men of the sexual revolution, many people blame men for the revolution. But, of course, it wasn’t men who created the sexual revolution. The sexual revolution was a happening. Many men were surprised at the sudden availability of young women. I was a university professor during the 1960s. I remember the complaints of male students that “nice girls are ruining themselves.” Sex became casual. It no longer was proceeded by a long period of dating, going steady or being “pinned.” Sex became a date activity like going to a movie. Eventually with the present-day “hook-up,” sex was divorced from dating altogether.

People who study the sexual revolution blame it on feminists. No doubt feminist intellectual arguments in favor of female promiscuity played a role, but I doubt a significant percentage of the suddenly available young women were being guided by the intellectual musings of feminists. I don’t know why the sexual revolution occurred. But I do know that many young men were of two minds about it. It was a helpful development for raging harmones, but it made it difficult for a guy to get a girl of his own, someone special to him.

Eventually, guys may get over their reluctance to enter into long-term relationships with women who have been in bed with their friends or friends of their friends. When I ask men I know who are in their 30s and 40s why they have not married, they do not answer that female promiscuity makes it unnecessary. They say that they are reluctant to propose to easy women. One man put it this way: “I would be uncomfortable in social gatherings where 15 percent of the people had been in bed with my wife.”

The sexual revolution has provided men with easy sex, but not with families and wives who don’t walk out on them. Feminists may have destroyed the chastity of women, but they certainly destroyed the security of marriage. Today it makes no sense for a man to marry even if sex were unavailable from “hook-ups.” The reason is the extreme risk that marriage today imposes on husbands. A wife can throw her husband out of his house, take his children and half or more of his income without having to have a real reason for the financial and emotional ruin she brings to her husband. We hear a lot about successful middle-aged men who leave their wives for younger “trophy” wives. But most divorces are initiated by women and are involuntary divorces from the husbands’ standpoints.

Back when marriages were real, solid grounds were required for divorce. Moreover, divorce was not designed to financially ruin men. Today divorce proceedings treat husbands and fathers as criminals in the dock. If a husband fights over custody of children or visitation rights, the wife simply tells the police that he has threatened her and gets a restraining order, or she reports him to Child Protective Services as a child abuser. A man who marries today is either ignorant of the risks, has great confidence in his choice of mate or is a fool.”

(Excerpt. More here)

Posted by jonjayray on Monday, February 21, 2005 at 06:43 PM in Social Conservatism
Comments (9) | Tell a friend

Comments:

Posted by Heh on December 10, 2007, 12:52 AM | #

I’m 35 and I love varieties of women and the thought of marriage makes me uncomfortable. I’d love a different woman every night. That’s my greatest wish! I know there are some men out there looking to have a wife, but these days they are few and far between. I’m grateful every day for the sexual revolution—it has made my dreams come true.

Posted by steve Taylor on March 16, 2008, 10:52 PM | #

getting married was perhaps one of the best things i ever did. Stable family life with my wife and children is awesome.

Posted by Sarah Tubbs on May 15, 2008, 06:03 PM | #

I am a 27 year old wife (of 5 years) and mother of one. I was liberal when I was younger, I guess because I was too weak minded to fight off the liberal indoctrination that you drown in as a teen and young adult in this society. Thank God I was able to get my head screwed on straight. I think that the sexual revolution was absolutely the beginning of the end for American society, however it got started. So much has been lost, I can’t even express it. It horrifies me that my husband and I are raising children in this society. I love America, but I hate what liberals and the sexual revolution has done to it. Think about the pros and cons of it! Give me a break!

Pros-

Umm, easy sex (you’ve got a hand, use it, and get over yourself!)...women’s rights ( okay, yes women are equal human beings, but why do we feel the need to prove that we can be EVERYTHING that a man can be? why can’t we just be happy being the best WOMAN that we can be??)

Cons -
The thought of being a “stay at home mom” and “housewife” terrifies women now, even those that want husbands and children, don’t want to actually RAISE their own children or be a “helpmate” to their husband. Most of them only want to try to be as good of a person (Man) as their husband, work outside the home, and see their children 3-4 hours a day if that. These women actually feel no point in their lives unless they “work outside the home.”

STDs - Death!

Sex outside of marriage confuses young people and often times destroys young girls’ self esteem and self worth.

Sanctity of Marriage - Dead!

Abortion - Dead Babies!

Divorce - Destroys Children!

Leads to all forms of Hedonism - Drug abuse, Homosexuality, vulgarity, turning away from GOD.

Children being raised in single parent homes (born out of wedlock, or through divorce) - are more likely to get into trouble, have psychological problem, and are more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs, and have children out of wedlock themselves!

IS THAT ENOUGH FOR YOU?! MY GOD, WHY COULDN’T WE HAVE JUST KEPT IT IN OUR PANTS? WHERE IS YOUR SELF WORTH, WHERE IS MODESTY, WHERE IS YOUR PURITY? A LADY USED TO BE A LADY, AND THEY WERE RESPECTED AND PUT ON A PEDESTAL FOR THEIR VIRTURE. WHAT ARE WE WOMEN NOW? JUST PIECE OF MEAT, TO BE USED AND THROWN AWAY, AND ALL THE WHILE TELLING OURSELVES “THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE WANTED…”

Posted by Divorce lawyer on January 22, 2009, 05:16 PM | #

I don’t think that entire genders are either winners or losers in the sexual revolution. What the sexual revolution did was make life possible for both men and women without the need for marriage. If you want sex, you can get it without getting married. If you want kids, you can have those too. If you want to earn a living, you don’t need anyone to do it for you. So I think the real winners of the sexual revolution are self sufficient people. Now they don’t need to rely on anyone but themselves. The losers are those who needed leverage in the form of marriage to get through life.

Posted by Rusty Mason on January 22, 2009, 05:32 PM | #

Divorce Lawyer,
Yes, you’re quite right, the feelings of the children or other family members are irrelevant, it’s the happiness of the self-sufficient partners that really matters. Besides, children are resilient, they’ll get over it, with no ill effects for themselves or society at all.

Posted by Al Spanker on January 22, 2009, 05:45 PM | #

The Jews destroyed the marriage covenant in America and elsewhere precisely to drag down their enemies, i.e. the White race.

From Betty Friedan to Ayn Rand to Gloria Steinem et al purely KOSHER.

ENJOY!

Posted by Chris G. on February 01, 2009, 05:31 PM | #

The answer is RADICAL, social, political, constitutional, cultural, societal, moral, ethical, ethnic, religious and international change. - I am not convinced that democracy is the right way forward for contemporary and future civilization: Instead I propose a meritocratic system whereby Citizens have to earn votes and other civil rights within an ethnically and culturally homogenous society and where the state has the absolute right and obligation to censor ALL materials produced for public consumption, except that which falls under the definition of ‘Journalism which is Genuinely within the Public Interest’. ALL the values that guarantee a cohesive society, such as the institution of marriage, the nuclear family, parental authority, patriarchy, racial identity, state religion, secular thought, community priority over the individual and unbiased law enforcement would be guaranteed with a permanently fixed and unalterable core constitution, maintained and upheld by both the state and an inner state, like the Church in medieval Europe, the KGB in Russia or the SS in Nazi Germany.

Socialism and Neo-Liberalism are in essence dead as sustainable popular potent forces and are now confined to the institutionally naive ranks of the middle and upper classes and their societal proxies, such as the media and big business. The popular dynamic trends of the next century are already emerging as potent grass roots based revolutionary movements. These are roughly divided into two poles: Islamism and Nationalism.

Posted by Demond Jones on February 19, 2009, 06:33 PM | #

there is an evolutionary advantage to spreading their sperm far and wide and fathering lots of children.

There is only an evolutionary advantage if those children survive to reproduce. Depending upon the environment, it is not necessarily a successful evolutionary strategy.

Posted by Goethe on December 08, 2010, 12:15 AM | #

The sexual revolution is good in that it allows for a more honest appraisal of sexuality, which leads to opportunities to avoid being sexually repressed, but the downside is that marriage (I don’t care about marriage, I care about the stability+children that it produces) is put off for too long, until it’s too late to have very many children, or children that are statistically more likely to be free of defects.

Next entry: Vilification laws to kill freedom of speech

Previous entry: Whole Language comes to Thailand

Existential Issues

White Genocide Project

Of note

General News

Science News

Science Categories

All Categories

The Writers

Each author's name links to a list of all articles posted by the writer; the hashes link to authors' homepages.

Links

Endorsement not implied.

Controlled Opposition

Crime

General

Immigration

Islam

Jews

Nationalist Political Parties

Science

Whites in Africa