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Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

After Dobbs: What Is Feminist Sex?

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

New York Times Opinion

New York Times, Journalism, News, Society & Culture, Ross Douthat

4.07.2K Ratings

🗓️ 28 September 2022

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What is good sex? It’s a complicated question that feminists have wrestled with for decades. From destigmatizing premarital sex to embracing no-strings-attached hookup culture of more recent decades, feminism has often focused winning sexual freedoms for women. But some feminists have been asking if those victories have had unintended consequences, such as the devaluing of emotional intimacy in relationships. So: What kind of sexual liberation actually makes women freer? And how do we need to reset our cultural norms to get there? In the final installment of our three-part feminism series on “The Argument,” Jane Coaston is joined by Nona Willis Aronowitz and Michelle Goldberg. Willis Aronowitz is the sex and love columnist at Teen Vogue, and the author of “Bad Sex: Truth, Pleasure and an Unfinished Revolution.” She’s also the daughter of Ellen Willis, a leader of the pro-sex feminist movement in the late 1960s and after. Goldberg is a Times Opinion columnist who has been writing about feminism for decades. The two discuss what it means to be sexually liberated, the limitations — and the rewards — of monogamy and just how much the individual choices people make in the bedroom shape the broader feminist movement. Mentioned in this episode: “The Case Against the Sexual Revolution,” by Louise Perry “I Still Believe in the Power of Sexual Freedom,” by Nona Willis Aronowitz in The New York Times “When Sexual Liberation Is Oppressive,” by Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times (A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm not obsessed with sex.

0:07.0

It's because of thinking about it.

0:10.0

The performance of it.

0:12.0

I do think that as casual as relationships are becoming,

0:17.0

because you can just tinder someone and say,

0:19.0

I'm down the street, yeah, I'll meet you out.

0:21.0

There is no like gravitas to having and wooing a partner anymore.

0:26.0

A marriage is unpaid labor. It's a pre-household slave for each man.

0:31.0

I'm just talking about two consenting adults having some casual sex.

0:36.0

Intercourse can be wonderful, but it can also cause tremendous pain.

0:43.0

And if you're not careful, sex can destroy lives.

0:50.0

It's the argument, I'm Jane Kostin.

0:53.0

And this is the last episode in our three-part series on where feminism goes next.

0:59.0

Today, we're wrestling with one of feminism's longest standing divides.

1:04.0

What is good sex?

1:07.0

What kind of sex and romance is feminist? And what's not?

1:11.0

Is Tinder or hookup culture a sign that feminism is working?

1:16.0

Or that the patriarchy is still in charge?

1:19.0

And do your choices in the bedroom actually have an impact in the broader feminist movement?

1:24.0

My first guest has tackled all of this in her new book, Bad Sex, Truth, Pleasure, and an Unfinished Revolution.

1:32.0

No no will is a ronowitz, is a sex and love columnist at Teen Vogue.

1:37.0

Her book is Part Memoir, Part History.

...

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