Chinese translation by Sonia Liang
Chinese
書評 路易絲·佩里 (Louise Perry) ，反對性革命的案例，劍橋：政治出版社，2022 年。
現實可能會通過漸進的步驟來實現，路易絲·佩里對我們這個時代性革命的批判即可以 歸入「半回歸理智」的範疇。這並非出於基督教視角的批評最終可能收效甚微，但佩 里夫人在生產孩子期間創作的這本書，向我們這個時代提出了一些令人信服的觀點。
佩里用八個清晰的章節中闡述了她的案例：
- 認真對待性；
- 男人和女人不同；
- 有些慾望是敗壞的；
- 無愛的性是乏力的；
- 性同意還不夠；
- 暴力不是愛；
- 人不是產品；
- 婚姻是好的。
早期女權主義者瑪麗·沃斯通克拉夫特 (Mary Wollstonecraft) 在 1792 年寫道：「我 相 信，許多折磨人類身體和道德的罪惡以及侮辱和摧毀女性的惡習和蠢事，歸根結底是男性世界中對貞操不尊重造成的。」她說的比她做的明智，因為她的女兒毫無意外地嫁給了戀愛放縱政治激進的詩人珀西·雪萊 (Percy Shelley)，並寫出了小說《科學怪人》。現實在隱沒之後總有辦法重新浮現。
這篇書評篇幅較長，因為我採用書中的引言和總結以期對眾多讀者有所裨益。
認真對待性
佩里以高度象徵性的方式開始提及休·海夫納（Hugh Hefner）與瑪麗蓮·夢露（Marilyn Monroe）比鄰而葬。海夫納是秉持無承諾性關係觀念男士的縮影，這導致了他自己可卑可憐的生活方式。夢露則是一個置自己幸福於不顧的淫亂女，其人生充斥著墮胎和 自殺企圖。然而，在媒體眼中兩人都是社會名流。與現實極不相符的是，海夫納竟在 2017 年去世後被稱讚為某種女權主義者。 海夫納和夢露都以新興的墮胎藥爲輔助， 並佯裝一切皆為解放。
歷史上曾多次出現性革命：羅馬帝國晚期、英格蘭喬治亞時代和美國的咆哮二十 年 代。 「住在正方形、愛在三角形」 的布魯姆斯伯里文化圈（the Bloomsbury set）並未完全承襲這種文化。 而20 世紀 60 年代的避孕措施卻改變了這一局面。佩里曾經相信 自由主義的敘事，但逐漸意識到性革命的成本不成比例地落在了女性身上。性革命的策略是突出過去的罪惡，以分散人們對當下罪惡的注意力。然後我們都成為江湖騙子的犧牲品。
男人和女人不同
蘇珊·布朗米勒 (Susan Brownmiller) 1975年在《違背我們的意願》一書中將強姦定義 為「無非是一種所有男人讓所有女人處於恐懼狀態的有意識的恐嚇過程」。 要結束 強姦就必須結束父權制。難怪女權主義的對策會如此好鬥並遠離現實。
第二波女權主義認為性別之間的差異很大程度上是由於社會化造成的， 但是佩里 （非 常勇敢地）說，性別刻板印象其實反映了深刻的現實。成年女性上半身力量 大約是成 年男性的一半，其下半身力量大約是成年男性的三分之二。 男人可以跑贏女人， 也可 以打敗女人。伊萊恩·湯普森（Elaine Thompson牙買加女短跑選手）無法與尤塞恩· 博 爾特（Usain Bolt牙買加男短跑選手）競爭。
2016 年，英國女權主義者勞裡·彭尼 (Laurie Penny) 斷言，「按性別劃分體育運動並非自然或不可避免」。她聲稱這是因為男人害怕被女人打敗——這種說法忽略 了男性和 女性之間真正的差異。
強暴與其說是出於權力，不如歸咎於侵略性的性慾。對女性來說，鼓勵男性做出承諾 比相信假裝濫交可以解決問題更加有效。 2015年，蘇塞克斯警方建議女性夜晚外出 時要團結起來，此舉遭到了女權主義者強烈反對。有兩種方法可以減少強姦：限制潛在的強姦犯，和限制他們按照自己的慾望行事的機會。
有些慾望是敗壞的
約翰·斯圖爾特·密爾 (John Stuart Mill) 曾說過一句著名的話：「在違背其意願的前提下，對任何文明社會成員合法行使權力的唯一目的是防止傷害他人。」這句聽起來 熱愛自由的宣言，其實經不起推敲。人可以與死雞發生性關係嗎？蓋爾·魯賓（Gayle Rubin）說進行變態性交好像吃辛辣的菜餚。真的嗎？密爾的論斷不適當且極不適當。
1968 年 5 月，巴黎學生抗議者喊出了口號「Il est interdit d’interdire!」！ （「禁止禁慾」）。道德活動家瑪麗·懷特豪斯 (Mary Whitehouse) 備受鄙視，以至於一位色情明 星單方面正式將自己的名字改為「瑪麗·懷特豪斯」，後來這位明星自殺身亡。 1960 年至 1969 年間擔任 BBC 總幹事的休·格林爵士（Sir Hugh Greene）因鄙視她，在自己的辦公室掛了一幅她的怪誕裸體肖像。然而 40 年來，BBC 一直保護曾性侵 1000 多名男孩和女孩的吉米·薩維爾（Jimmy Savile）。 1977年，一份向法國議會提交的請願書呼籲非刑罪化成人和兒童之間的性行為。讓·保羅·薩特（Jean-Paul Sartre）、 雅克·德 里達（Jacques Derrida）、羅蘭·巴特（Roland Barthes）、西蒙娜·德·波伏瓦（Simone de Beauvoir）和米歇爾·福柯（Michel Foucault）都在請願書上簽了名。
當今大多數女權主義者都鄙視騎士精神下的社會規範，因為這些準則暗示著平等主義存在問題。
無愛的性是乏力的
勾搭文化要求大多數女性壓抑自己的自然本能，讓女人沈迷和苦惱。性生活活躍的女 性不受尊重，但性活躍的男性卻常被視為得勝者。佩里因此警告說：「男人想要與女 人發生性關係的事實並不表明他想與她建立關係。」我們把年輕女性當作炮灰，派遣她們去參加反對性別歧視雙重標準的戰鬥，然後在她們受傷歸來時， 我們更加理直氣壯地譴責性別歧視。
性同意還不夠
琳達·洛夫萊斯（Linda Lovelace）在 1972 年演繹了一個關於色情電影《深喉》的故 事，但她在1980 年改變了態度：「我違背自己的意願在色情電影中進行性交易是為了避免被謀殺。」Pornhub 是網路上訪問量排名第十的網站。2020 年，尼古拉斯· 克里 斯托夫 (Nicholas Kristof) 在極力宣揚自由主義的《紐約時報》上撰文報導了與該網站 相關的道德敗壞。
一切導致色情世代的性生活越來越少，質量也越來越差。這讓佩里想起了澳洲的雄性 寶石甲蟲，它們顯然寧願選擇與廢棄的小啤酒瓶而不是雌性寶石甲蟲交配。
暴力不是愛
《五十度灰》的男主人公克里斯蒂安·格雷 (Christian Grey) 深受許多婦女青睞。 薩德 侯爵 (Marquis de Sade 1740-1814) 也重獲大眾關注，2015 年巴黎幾個 博物館開始紀 念他。
人不是產品
在印度殖民地，十九世紀八十年代英國官員為士兵提供印度妓女。 基督徒約瑟 芬· 巴特勒（Josephine Butler）為結束這種做法而奮鬥，卻不受現代女權主義者的歡迎。 成立於舊金山的COYOTE（Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics）旨在美化性工作者，它取悅了一些說唱歌手，但貶低了更多女性。
婚姻是好的
英國近一半的離婚者對離婚感到後悔。家庭暴力在婚姻之外更加常見。如果女人的論斷是「我的身體，我的選擇」，那麼男人的推論必然就是「我的錢，我的選擇」。 拉拉·巴茲隆 (Lara Bazelon) 2021 年在《紐約時報》上寫道：「我與丈夫離婚並不是 因為我不愛他。我和他離婚是因為我更愛自己。」 一名拋棄伴侶和幼兒的男子為自己 的行為辯護：「有時你必須優先考慮你自己的生活方式。」 他的作為是私心和罪惡的奴役，而不是解放。
國家已經成為婦女們的某種後備丈夫。 「讓女性投票，讓男性保守貞潔」曾經是 婦女參政論者的口號。用佩里的話來說，男性性行為有 「流氓」和 「爸爸」兩種模式。 「雖然一夫一妻制的婚姻模式可能相對不同尋常，但它非常成功。」
類似的事情還有很多。佩里的語言有時過於粗俗，她的建議既缺乏啟發性也並非最終有效。她承認：「我寫這本書非常小心翼翼。」事實上她更多時候模稜兩可。她嘲笑性同意學習班「幾乎毫無用處」而讚揚騎士精神。為避免做出評判，她建議女性只與 其他女性一起酗酒或吸毒，並推遲幾個月與男友發生性關係。在諸如同性戀和墮胎等 明確的道德議題上，她常常抓不到重點。
儘管如此，一線光明總好過完全的黑暗。基督徒有更好的書籍可閱讀，但這本書表明 目前西方文化中一些猖獗的勢頭可能發生逆轉。 「半回歸理智」有它的目的——在上帝的旨意下，它可能成為 「完全回歸理智」的鋪路石。
——彼得‧巴恩斯
English
Review of Louise Perry, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2022.
Some sort of reality may be attained in incremental steps, and Louise Perry’s critique of the sexual revolution of our times could be placed in a category of ‘A Half-Return to Sanity’. It is not a Christian critique, and ultimately may achieve little, but Mrs Perry, who gave birth while she was writing this book, has made some cogent points in speaking into our times.
In eight clear chapters Perry sets out her case:
- Sex must be taken seriously;
- Men and women are different;
- Some desires are bad;
- Loveless sex is not empowering;
- Consent is not enough;
- Violence is not love;
- People are not products;
- Marriage is good.
The early feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft, wrote in 1792: ‘The little respect paid to chastity in the male world is, I am persuaded, the grand source of many of the physical and moral evils that torment mankind, as well as of the vices and follies that degrade and destroy women.’ She spoke more wisely than she practised, and it is not unfitting that it was her daughter who was to marry the poet of free love and radical politics, Percy Shelley, and to write the novel, Frankenstein. Reality has a way of re-surfacing after being sunk.
This book review is longer than usual on the grounds that some quotations and summaries of each of Perry’s eight points might be helpful to many readers.
Sex must be taken seriously
Perry begins with a highly symbolic note that Hugh Hefner was buried next to Marilyn Monroe. Hefner was the epitome of the commitment-free male view of sexual relations, which led to his own debased and pathetic lifestyle. Monroe – her life riddled with abortions and suicide attempts – was the promiscuous female who worked against her own well-being. Yet, in the eyes of the media, both were celebrities. With scant attention to reality, Hefner was lauded as some kind of feminist after he died in 2017. Both Hefner and Monroe drew on the new technology of the pill with abortion as a back-up, and pretended it all meant liberation.
There have been sexual revolutions in the past: the late Roman Empire, Georgian Britain, and the Roaring Twenties in America. But even the Bloomsbury set who ‘lived in squares and loved in triangles’ did not take over the culture. Contraception in the 1960s changed that. Perry used to believe the liberal narrative, but has come to realise that the cost of the sexual revolution has fallen disproportionately on women. The strategy is to highlight the evils of the past in order to distract from the evils of the present. Then we are preyed upon by charlatans.
Men and women are different
Susan Brownmiller in 1975 in Against Our Will defines rape as ‘nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.’ So to end rape, one must end the patriarchy. No wonder it is so militant, and so distant from the real world.
Second wave feminism believes that the differences between the sexes are largely due to socialisation, but, says Perry (very bravely), gender stereotypes reflect a deep reality. Adult women are approximately half as strong as adult men in the upper body and two-thirds as strong in the lower body. Men can outrun and outpunch women. Elaine Thompson cannot compete with Usain Bolt.
In 2016 the British feminist Laurie Penny asserted that ‘dividing sports by gender isn’t natural or inevitable.’ She claimed that this is because men fear being beaten by a woman – an assertion which ignores the very real differences between males and females.
Rape is not so much about power as aggressive sexual desire. Encouraging male commitment would do more for women than pretending that promiscuity works. In 2015 Sussex police advised women to stick together on nights out, and walked into a feminist backlash. There are two ways to reduce rape: constrain would-be rapists, and limit opportunities for them to act on their desires.
Some desires are bad
Famously, John Stuart Mill declared: ‘The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.’ It sounds freedom-loving, but there are problems with it. What about having sex with a dead chicken? Gayle Rubin says that kinky sex is just like eating spicy cuisine. Is it, really? This approach is inadequate, even woefully inadequate.
The student protesters in Paris in May 1968 proclaimed the slogan ‘Il est interdit d’interdire!’ (‘It is forbidden to forbid’). The morals campaigner, Mary Whitehouse, was so despised that a porn star changed her name by deed poll to ‘Mary Whitehouse’ – but she later committed suicide. Sir Hugh Greene, director general of the BBC from 1960 to 1969, despised her, and had a grotesque naked portrait of her hanging in his office. Yet for 40 years the BBC protected Jimmy Savile who sexually assaulted over 1,000 boys and girls. In 1977 a petition to the French parliament called for the decriminalisation of sex between adults and children, and was signed by Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, Simone de Beauvoir, and Michel Foucault.
Chivalrous social codes are despised by most feminists today because they imply that egalitarianism has something wrong with it.
Loveless sex is not empowering
The hook-up culture demands that most women suppress their natural instincts. It makes women obsessive and distressed. Sexually active women are not respected, but sexually active men are often treated like champions. Perry therefore warns: ‘The fact that a man wants to have sex with a woman is not an indication that he wants a relationship with her.’ We send young women out like cannon fodder in the battle against sexist double standards and then, when they return wounded, decry sexism all the louder.
Consent is not enough
Linda Lovelace (Boreman) told one story about the pornographic movie, Deep Throat, in 1972, but by 1980 she had changed her tune: ‘I engaged in sex acts in pornography against my will to avoid being killed.’ Pornhub is the 10th most visited website on the internet. In 2020 Nicholas Kristof in the ludicrously liberal New York Times wrote of the degradation associated with the website.
The result is that the porn generation is having less sex and worse sex, reminding Perry of Australian male jewel beetles which apparently began to prefer to attempt to mate with discarded beer stubbies rather than female jewel beetles.
Violence is not love
Many women responded favourably to Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey. Even the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) has acquired a new popularity, being commemorated in several Parisian museums in 2015.
People are not products
In colonial India, British officials in the 1880s maintained a supply of Indian prostitutes for the soldiers. Josephine Butler, a Christian, was one who fought to end this practice, but she is unpopular with modern feminists. COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) was founded in San Francisco to glamourise sex workers, which pleased some rappers but debased more women.
Marriage is good
Nearly a half of divorced people in the UK regretted their divorce. Domestic violence is more common outside of marriage. If it is ‘My body, my choice’, the corollary for the man would be ‘My money, my choice’. Lara Bazelon in the New York Times in 2021 wrote: ‘I divorced my husband not because I didn’t love him. I divorced him because I loved myself more.’ One man who had deserted his partner and toddler defended his actions: ‘sometimes you have to prioritise your lifestyle’. This is slavery to selfishness and sin, not liberation.
The state has become a kind of back-up husband. ‘Votes for women, chastity of men’ was once a suffragist slogan. In Perry’s words, there are ‘cad’ and ‘dad’ modes of male sexuality. ‘But while the monogamous marriage model may be relatively unusual, it is also spectacularly successful.’
There is much more of the same. Perry’s language is unnecessarily coarse at times, and her advice is hardly inspiring nor ultimately effective. She confesses: ‘I’m treading a fine line in this book.’ Actually, it is more of a mixed line. She ridicules consent workshops as ‘mostly useless’, and praises chivalry. Not wanting to be judgmental, she advises women only to get drunk or high with other women, and to delay having sex with a boyfriend for a few months. On clear moral issues, like homosexuality and abortion, she misses the point as often as not.
Nevertheless, a glimmer of light is better than complete darkness. There are better books for the Christian to read, but this is useful mainly as an indication of a possible shift in the trends rampant in Western culture at the moment. ‘A Half-Return to Sanity’ has something going for it – in the providence of God it may be a stepping stone to a ‘Full-Return’.
– Peter Barnes
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