"Casual Sex Is Almost Always Dangerous For Women!" This Is What Casual Sex Is Really Doing To Women - Louise Perry

Louise Perry (0:00)

I think casual sex is almost always more risky for women than it's worth it.

Steven Bartlett (0:04)

Why?

Louise Perry (0:05)

Because one.

Steven Bartlett (0:07)

The things you're saying, you know that they're unpopular. You're saying them anyway.

Louise Perry (0:10)

Yeah.

Steven Bartlett (0:10)

Why?

Louise Perry (0:11)

Parents are really worried about their daughters and also their sons and really, really want them to know this stuff.

SPEAKER_3 (0:16)

Louise Perry, journalist, author and podcast host. She is renowned for her views on topics such as sexual politics and the impact of modern feminist movements.

Louise Perry (0:25)

We have a culture that prioritizes male preferences for casual sex.

Steven Bartlett (0:29)

And you're saying it harms both men and women?

Louise Perry (0:31)

I think in different ways. So, for example, a lot of young women kind of go along with it. Even if they don't want that, that causes a lot of misery because women in particular tend to get emotionally bonded from sex more than men do.

Steven Bartlett (0:43)

Do we know that?

Louise Perry (0:44)

Yeah. But there are also other problems that we should talk about.

Steven Bartlett (0:48)

So, would it be better for men if we waited longer before we had sex?

Louise Perry (0:53)

waiting until engagement is a better call. The problem is when you don't have the expectation that people wait, there's really nothing stopping those very attractive, high status men from playing the field and not being forced to commit, and then low status men just have none. When people are left to their own devices on dating apps and you monitor it carefully, this is basically what you see. But in a monogamous system, you have to commit to a woman and remove yourself from the dating pool.

Steven Bartlett (1:14)

So, what is the uncomfortable advice that both men and women need to hear on this subject for their best interests?

Louise Perry (1:19)

This is a profound problem and it's partly because I think we don't tell the truth about it, which is and governments know this, which is why they're starting to freak out.

Steven Bartlett (1:38)

Louise, in this season of your life, what is your objective and why is that your objective?

Louise Perry (1:49)

Well, as is kind of obvious, I mean, having baby season of my life, it's a really interesting experience living with the exact social phenomena that I so often write and talk about, which is basically the role of women in participating in public life, and the inherent ways in which the fact that women bear children comes into conflict with that, which is very much the subject of my first book, this question of like, if you can artificially suspend that, if you can, if the pill arrives in the 1960s, and suddenly women can go from being constantly, I don't want to say at risk of pregnancy, because that's not the right word, like pregnancy is a good thing, but constantly having to negotiate the possibility of pregnancy, and then suddenly a new technology comes along, first time in the history of the world, which pretty much cuts that out.

What does that do to women's public role, the social experience of being a woman? And my argument is it's had so much more of a profound effect than we tend to acknowledge. Because the fact that it's women who bear children is so, so, so socially important in terms of our ability to work, our economic vulnerabilities, our ability to participate in politics, all of this. And the pill is just this like enormous game changer where suddenly it's a choice. And I'm in the season of my life where I've chosen it.

Steven Bartlett (3:34)

For anybody that is not watching my video, Louise is six months pregnant, so that's the reference.

Louise Perry (3:39)

With my second baby.

Steven Bartlett (3:40)

What is it that you think society at large disagrees with you on as it relates to these issues?

Louise Perry (3:48)

And I think that most people, well, most people, I think that the kind of dominant narrative is that this has been an unambiguously good thing and there's been no trade-offs. And I think there is ambiguity and that there have been trade-offs. That's basically the disagreement. And I think they're pretty much, I think there are pretty much trade-offs with everything. Not least a massively, massively consequential new technology like the pill.

Steven Bartlett (4:16)

Do you think the net impact of the pill is positive or negative?

Louise Perry (4:20)

I suppose it depends on which area of your life you're talking about. So I think that one of the things at the pill, another reliable contraception, one of the ways in which it's magical and really good is that it allows people to be, it allows people to plan their families. It allows women to have spaces between births, which are healthy, it's really like in a lot of cases, it's really bad for you to be constantly pregnant, right? It has a really, really deleterious effect on the body. So on that front, fantastic. And on a personal level, fantastic. The trade-offs are normally in other areas of life, like, well, like we have massively falling birth rates, and there are political and economic problems arising from that. That's not just downstream with a pill, but the pill is a really big part of that story. Sexual culture has changed so much. And I think that causes a lot of misery, particularly for younger women, women who are younger than me.