The Long Arc of the Moral Universe, Women's Rights

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Feminist progress has not really been driven by feminist campaigning, he says. The fact that it just takes a lot less labor now to run a home than it used to means women can go out and do the sort of paid work they couldn't previously. And we also have high-earning professional jobs that pretty much doesn't matter if you have a male or a female body. They just require a brain and a laptop.

Ditching the stuffy hang-ups and benighted sexual traditionalism of the past is an unambiguously positive thing. The sexual revolution has liberated us to enjoy a heady mixture of erotic freedom and personal autonomy. Right? Wrong, argues Louise Perry in her provocative new book.

Shermer and Perry discuss: What was the sexual revolution? • feminism: first wave, second wave, third wave, and beyond • the evolutionary psychology of sex differences • experiencing self vs. remembered self • individual freedom vs. societal good • monogamy vs. polygamy • marriage vs. domestic partnerships • Why is the government in the marriage business? • BDSM and sexual violence • autogynephilia • trans matters • abortion matters.

Louise Perry is a writer, New Statesman columnist, and campaigner against male sexual violence. Her new book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, has sparked an international conversation about sex in the 21st century.