The Damage from Sexual Anarchy

After World War II, Western society underwent what is known as the “Sexual Revolution.” With the weakening of biblical values, and the ease in obtaining both contraception and, since the 1970s, abortion, more unmarried people have had sexual relations with more partners than ever before in Western—and perhaps world—history. However, in addition to creating more fatherless children than ever before, this revolution has harmed both sexes, especially women. But men, too, have paid a price in at least two ways.

One is fewer men seek to marry, and men benefit enormously from marriage. In the words of Nobel Prize-winning economist George Akerlof, “Men settle down when they get married; if they fail to get married they fail to settle down.” And in the words of the late University of Virginia sociologist Steven Nock, “Marriage is one of the last ‘rite[s]’ of passage into manhood” remaining in our society.

The other is many men are less motivated to succeed in life. One of the primary reasons men always worked hard was to “earn” the commitment of a woman. But if women are readily available without having to achieve much, fewer men will seek to achieve much.

Women, for their part, were told they could enjoy emotionless and commitment-free sex as much as men could. But a host of academic studies and popular reports of sexually promiscuous women refute this notion. Indeed, among young women, high rates of depression often relate to casual sex.

For example, a major study of American college-aged women, published in The Journal of Sex Research, a publication of the United States National Institutes of Health, concluded “hookup behavior during college was positively correlated with experiencing clinically significant depression symptoms.”

Similarly, regarding teenagers generally, “A recent longitudinal study published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology suggests that teenagers who engage in casual sex are more likely to suffer from depression than their peers who don’t engage in casual sex…. Given that teens who practiced celibacy were rated lowest for clinical depression and depressive symptoms on the charts, promiscuity may be symptomatic of depression.”

One consequence of so many young women believing the message that they can—and should—enjoy sex with as many men as men can with women was summarized in this comment by a young woman cited in the American magazine Vanity Fair: “It’s rare for a woman of our generation to meet a man who treats her like a priority instead of an option.”

Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Exodus: God, Slavery, and Freedom, pg.318-319