Why is the perversion of sex so widely accepted? Why is sexual exploration so often framed as liberation, while modesty is mocked as repression or dismissed as pandering to the male gaze?
And don’t get me wrong, I love a freakum dress just as much as Beyoncé.
But why is the media pushing so hard to make it seem as though anything that even remotely upholds tradition, religion, modesty, or conservatism is somehow backwards? While, sexual liberation is presented as the highest form of freedom?
Because if this newfound freedom is truly freeing, why do we keep revisiting the conversation every few years? Redefining liberation again and again, and still finding ourselves just as empty, just as confused, and just as disconnected. And whether people want to admit it or not, the body often remembers what the mind tries to forget.
The Perversion of Sex: Freedom or Cultural Pressure?
Now, this is not an argument about whether people should or should not have sex. Do as you please. Rather, this is an attempt to offer another perspective on whether sexual liberation is actually liberating in practice. What if we defined liberation not by social trends or cultural pressure, but by what truly leaves us whole? What if freedom is not a one-size-fits-all script handed to us by the media, politics, or modern dating culture? I do not believe in condemnation, so this is not about shaming anyone who feels empowered by their own sexual journey. This is for the person who bought into the version of liberation America keeps marketing so aggressively, only to find themselves feeling anything but free.
Because if sexual liberation is truly as freeing as it is advertised to be, then why do so many people walk away from it feeling emotionally disconnected, confused, or depleted? A longitudinal study published in the Journal of Sex Research followed 483 first-year college women and examined the relationship between hookup behavior and several health outcomes. The researchers found that hookup behavior was positively correlated with depression, sexual victimization, and sexually transmitted infections. While the study did not argue that every casual encounter leads to harm, it challenged the popular assumption that casual sex is emotionally or physically neutral (Fielder et al., 2014). Their conclusion was not that every casual sexual encounter leads to harm, but that hookup culture is not as emotionally or physically neutral as people often pretend it is. In other words, what culture keeps calling casual may not actually be casual in its impact.
Redefining Liberation for Yourself
And I think that is the myth. We have been taught to confuse accessibility with freedom, and detachment with empowerment. But if a version of freedom repeatedly leaves people emptier, more anxious, more used, or more fragmented, then at some point we have to ask whether it was liberation at all, or simply bondage with better branding.
When we actually look at the emotional, relational, and physical outcomes people report, it begins to look far less like liberation and far more like disconnection. None of this means every person who participates in hookup culture is miserable, and it certainly doesn’t mean people should be shamed for the choices they’ve made. Human sexuality is complex, and people navigate it in different ways for different reasons. But pretending that casual intimacy carries no emotional weight does a disservice to people who quietly experience that weight.
What I will say, however, is that sexual liberation has slowly been reduced to a one-dimensional image. In popular culture, liberation increasingly looks like being overly sexual, overly available, and endlessly willing to share intimacy with whoever and however many people you desire. But what if liberation also looked different than that? What if it included modesty, reserving sex for love, commitment, or covenant? What if liberation simply meant having the freedom to define your own boundaries, even if that means changing your mind along the way?
Because true freedom should include the right to rethink, to grow, and to redefine what liberation means for you.
The promise of sexual liberation was freedom. Freedom from shame, freedom from repression, freedom to explore desire without fear. But somewhere along the way, liberation itself became prescriptive. It began telling people not just that they could explore sexually, but that they should. And any deviation from that script; modesty, restraint, commitment, or celibacy was framed as backward or oppressive. But true liberation cannot exist if only one version of freedom is socially acceptable.
Perhaps the real question isn’t whether sexual liberation is right or wrong. Perhaps the real question is whether we have been honest about its outcomes. And if we are brave enough to ask that question honestly, we might begin to rediscover that liberation was never supposed to mean abandoning meaning, it was supposed to mean reclaiming it.
The Perversion of Sex: Part Two
The Myth of Sexual Liberation
Why is the perversion of sex so widely accepted? Why is sexual exploration so often framed as liberation, while modesty is mocked as repression or dismissed as pandering to the male gaze?
And don’t get me wrong, I love a freakum dress just as much as Beyoncé.
But why is the media pushing so hard to make it seem as though anything that even remotely upholds tradition, religion, modesty, or conservatism is somehow backwards? While, sexual liberation is presented as the highest form of freedom?
Because if this newfound freedom is truly freeing, why do we keep revisiting the conversation every few years? Redefining liberation again and again, and still finding ourselves just as empty, just as confused, and just as disconnected. And whether people want to admit it or not, the body often remembers what the mind tries to forget.
The Perversion of Sex: Freedom or Cultural Pressure?
Now, this is not an argument about whether people should or should not have sex. Do as you please. Rather, this is an attempt to offer another perspective on whether sexual liberation is actually liberating in practice. What if we defined liberation not by social trends or cultural pressure, but by what truly leaves us whole? What if freedom is not a one-size-fits-all script handed to us by the media, politics, or modern dating culture? I do not believe in condemnation, so this is not about shaming anyone who feels empowered by their own sexual journey. This is for the person who bought into the version of liberation America keeps marketing so aggressively, only to find themselves feeling anything but free.
Because if sexual liberation is truly as freeing as it is advertised to be, then why do so many people walk away from it feeling emotionally disconnected, confused, or depleted? A longitudinal study published in the Journal of Sex Research followed 483 first-year college women and examined the relationship between hookup behavior and several health outcomes. The researchers found that hookup behavior was positively correlated with depression, sexual victimization, and sexually transmitted infections. While the study did not argue that every casual encounter leads to harm, it challenged the popular assumption that casual sex is emotionally or physically neutral (Fielder et al., 2014). Their conclusion was not that every casual sexual encounter leads to harm, but that hookup culture is not as emotionally or physically neutral as people often pretend it is. In other words, what culture keeps calling casual may not actually be casual in its impact.
Redefining Liberation for Yourself
And I think that is the myth. We have been taught to confuse accessibility with freedom, and detachment with empowerment. But if a version of freedom repeatedly leaves people emptier, more anxious, more used, or more fragmented, then at some point we have to ask whether it was liberation at all, or simply bondage with better branding.
When we actually look at the emotional, relational, and physical outcomes people report, it begins to look far less like liberation and far more like disconnection. None of this means every person who participates in hookup culture is miserable, and it certainly doesn’t mean people should be shamed for the choices they’ve made. Human sexuality is complex, and people navigate it in different ways for different reasons. But pretending that casual intimacy carries no emotional weight does a disservice to people who quietly experience that weight.
The Freedom We Were Promised
What I will say, however, is that sexual liberation has slowly been reduced to a one-dimensional image. In popular culture, liberation increasingly looks like being overly sexual, overly available, and endlessly willing to share intimacy with whoever and however many people you desire. But what if liberation also looked different than that? What if it included modesty, reserving sex for love, commitment, or covenant? What if liberation simply meant having the freedom to define your own boundaries, even if that means changing your mind along the way?
Because true freedom should include the right to rethink, to grow, and to redefine what liberation means for you.
The promise of sexual liberation was freedom. Freedom from shame, freedom from repression, freedom to explore desire without fear. But somewhere along the way, liberation itself became prescriptive. It began telling people not just that they could explore sexually, but that they should. And any deviation from that script; modesty, restraint, commitment, or celibacy was framed as backward or oppressive. But true liberation cannot exist if only one version of freedom is socially acceptable.
Perhaps the real question isn’t whether sexual liberation is right or wrong. Perhaps the real question is whether we have been honest about its outcomes. And if we are brave enough to ask that question honestly, we might begin to rediscover that liberation was never supposed to mean abandoning meaning, it was supposed to mean reclaiming it.
The Perversion of Sex: Part One
Look What God Has Done: Part Two
Everything Is Bigger in Texas, Including Her Voice
What do you think?
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