Listen to your mother

Suppose, while browsing shelves at the local Barnes & Noble, you picked up a book titled A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century. Can anything be new about sex? you wonder. Suppose you flip to the table of contents and read chapter titles such as “Sex Must Be Taken Seriously.” “Men and Women Are Different.” “Not All Desires Are Good.” “Loveless Sex Is Not Empowering.” And finally, “Marriage Is Good,” followed by “Conclusion: Listen to Your Mother.”

A new guide? Sounds like old-fashioned advice from a Christian publisher. But no: You don’t recognize the publisher, and the author identifies as a secular feminist. This new book is actually a young adult edition of an earlier work titled The Case Against the Sexual Revolution by Louise Perry, a British journalist, author, and podcast host.

In A New Guide, Perry writes about this thing called the Sexual Revolution as though her young readers have never heard of it—which, indeed, they probably haven’t. Like a fish who never thinks about water, today’s teens swim in the assumptions of accessible porn and recreational sex. Perry writes: “The most popular story told about this revolution—the one told by liberals and progressives—does not recognize its complexity. It sees the sexual revolution as a story only of progress. I know this because I used to believe it.”

Life experience changed her mind, particularly after working at a rape crisis center. Now 33, she’s following a traditional path of marriage and motherhood. In a podcast interview with Bari Weiss, Perry confesses to having lucked into marriage with a suitable mate, but for most of her contemporaries, finding happiness through healthy relationships has become much harder. She’s even come to recognize that Christianity, when it broke upon a ruthless, exploitative pagan world 2,000 years ago, offered a radical reinterpretation of sex that proved beneficial for both men and women. Especially women. In fact, Christianity proved so beneficial she would like to believe it. She calls herself a Christian agnostic who attends church hoping it will take.

Few feminists have gone so far as to acknowledge the value of traditional Christian standards, but more of them are noticing a social experiment gone awry. They are slowly realizing that a curious thing happened on the way to sexual liberation: The people supposedly freed from oppressive sexual boundaries are now disillusioned with sex. After decades of celebrating casual coupling as something the kids just do, it seems kids are doing it less and less. Fewer than 50% of high school students have ever been on a date, and the term aroace-spec has entered the lexicon as an “identity” for those who experience little or no romantic attraction.

It’s a phenomenon with many causes, much of it having to do with teens moving their social lives online rather than in person. But the enervating effects of online porn on young men and the relationship disappointment of young women follow them into maturity. Where in previous generations young people would be settling into marriage by age 25, the median age now is 32—if they marry at all. In The Atlantic’s Work in Progress newsletter, Derek Thompson writes about “America’s ‘Marriage Material’ Shortage.”

Two big takeaways: For one, the most reliable indicator of marriage prospects is the man’s income. As family researcher Lyman Stone bluntly puts it, “Women do not typically invest in long-term relationships with men who have nothing to contribute economically.” That may be smart, but it shrinks the suitable-husband pool, and that widens the happiness gap. That leads to the second takeaway: In a 2023 analysis of General Social Survey data, one economist concluded that marriage is strongly correlated with happiness. That is, how happy you say you are has more to do with whether you’re married than any other factor, including income.

Marriage rates are falling everywhere, not just in America. To a pessimist, it may look like the death of love itself. Yet in the Bari Weiss interview, Louise Perry suggested that what can’t continue, won’t. The love-and-marriage instinct is so deeply embedded in human nature that nature will, in time, assert itself. But there’s more than nature at work, namely the steadfast love and faithfulness that created the universe and forever sustains it. This kind of love does not fail, Paul wrote (1 Corinthians 13:8). It revolutionized the world once and is fully capable of repairing the ruins, if we pick up our tools and don’t lose heart.