I disagree. The modern sexual revolution was only possible due to modern contraception and access to abortion. Did pre-maritial flings happen in the past? Of course. But casual sex was nothing like it is now. It was treated as the rare shameful exception. It was not the norm for people to openly date and publicly announce their sexual relationships for years prior to marriage. (Viewing from a Western perspective of course.)
So if you start taking away abortion and contraception? Why wouldn’t you expect sexual norms to return to their earlier state? Pregnancy is incredibly disruptive, dangerous, and expensive.
In Trump’s America, sex means pregnancy, and pregnancy means childbirth. In Trump’s America, a straight women does not have sex unless she is prepared to be a mother, and her partner is prepared to be a father.
Will flings still happen? Sure. I expect we’ll also see a commiserate rise in shotgun marriages.
I agree that 4B, as an organized movement, likely won’t have much direct impact. But the general attack on contraceptives and reproductive healthcare absolutely will see a rollback of the sexual attitudes that have developed in the post-1960s world. Sex just has a lot more consequences to it now than it used to. We’re going back to a world where you really can’t afford to have sex with someone unless you’re prepared to marry them and raise children together. Casual hookups on Tinder are not a practical thing in Trump’s America.
Sorry guys, you voted for this.
It’s also puts people who don’t want to have kids at all in a tough spot. It makes surgical sterilization effectively mandatory.
After they make it illegal to medically transition genders, guess what medical procedures they’ll prohibit next?
The good news is that since sterilization is a one-time thing, medical tourism (for those with the means) becomes a viable option. I don’t see them banning international travel.
Of course this does increase the barrier and will be out of reach for those who can least afford to have children.
This is exactly correct. Hey guys, while typing all these (dare I call them “hysterical”?) comments freaking out that the number of possible sex partners might be lower than before, could you take a moment to stop and actually consider what WoodScientist is saying?
Getting pregnant and having a baby when you aren’t ready for it completely changes the lives and limits future possibilities for both the father and mother, and much more so for the mother who 99% of the time is the main caregiver. It’s the woman who has the greatest risk by far.
Besides the risk to a woman socially and career-wise if she gets pregnant, it’s dangerous. There’s a chance of dying or permanent health consequences from it, physical and mental. And remember that healthcare will be worse too because they’ll be repealing the ACA and/or removing a lot of the protections the ACA provides, like requiring insurance companies to cover maternity and any complications. Many Clinics that used to be there to provide low-income women with maternal healthcare, abortion services, cancer screenings, birth control, etc. have already been shut down in red states that have banned abortion.
So a lot fewer women will even have health insurance and it won’t cover as much. Plus the odds of getting pregnant will be higher since access to contraception will be more restricted (not covered by insurance and possibly even banned entirely).
So this about more than just your fear of maybe getting less sex. Your biggest possible risk is financial, if you get held responsible for child support. Risks to women are a hell of a lot higher. They gotta do what they gotta do so.
People really don’t understand the history. Social practices evolved over the centuries and were as subject to evolution as anything genetic. Most traditional social practices evolved for a reason. Often practices stick around long after those reasons no longer apply, but they evolved for a very good reasons in the first place.
As you note, pregnancy is inherently dangerous to a woman’s health, permanently alters her body, and has a permanent and profound impact on her life. And this has always been the case.
Think about how promiscuous women have traditionally been treated. Whore. Slut. Harlot. Women were expected to be chaste until marriage. Meanwhile, promiscuity was often accepted or even celebrated for men. The reasons for this disparity are likely multifaceted, but one likely reason is that sex had such a high risk for women and girls. Think of the mother who calls her own daughter a ‘whore’ for the way she dresses. Who does that to their kid? Someone who thinks they’re doing that kid a favor. Traditionally, mothers expected their daughters to be chaste and conservative, and often that was to protect them from the inevitable risks that came with sex. Women have always had far more to risk when it comes to sex than men.
Effective contraception and abortion access changed this. It was only once the very real risks of premarital sex were ameliorated could modern straight casual sex culture emerge. Yes, some flings did happen in 1850, premarital sex did happen. But it was much rarer, and it was mostly among people who were already on the path to marriage anyway. There were not mixed-sex bars in 1850 that you could go and try and find a partner for a casual fling. Men could go hire a prostitute in most towns and cities, but the idea that a respectable woman would meet a man, alone, then go to his house and have premarital sex that night? That’s the kind of thing that could literally end up in the town newspaper the next day.
Contraceptives - the pill, IUDs, condoms, and abortion; these are foundational technologies to modern sexual practices. They are as important as to modern dating culture as the automobile is to a suburban land use culture. When sex means pregnancy, it means you should never have sex with someone unless you are prepared to spend the next 20 years together raising kids. And yes, that means the casual dating scene is going to take a big hit.
When we swap out sex ed for abstinence only we don’t get less sex. We get a surge in teen pregnancies.
Children are different than adults. Adults are perfectly capable of altering their behavior. Do you think it was a coincidence that the sexual revolution just happened to occur immediately after the introduction of effective contraception?
