Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/143027299/Redeeming_Pleasure_Women_Lead_a_Second_Sex_Revolution
SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=5361988
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/393905250_Redeeming_Pleasure_Women_Lead_a_Second_Sex_Revolution
Abstract: We're experiencing a second sexual revolution fundamentally different from the first. While the 1960s-70s revolution focused on liberation from repression, this new movement emphasizes norms about what to do constructively with that freedom—prioritizing pleasure, wellness, and integration rather than mere liberation. Women are leading this revolution through multiple channels: Fifty Shades of Grey's 150 million copies sold to predominantly female readers, women dominating YouTube sex education and relationship advice, and figures like 66-year-old Jane Juska normalizing cross-generational discussions about seeking sexual pleasure. Core themes include sophisticated sexual communication, legitimizing pleasure as “restorative” and “transformational,” and integrating sexuality into broader wellness frameworks. Because of a fragmented media landscape this revolution is largely unheralded. Specific attention is given to these topics: pleasure in Hinduism and Buddhism, polyamory, fantasy and romantic love, sexual shame in relation to development and the will, the historical depiction of sexual activity.
Introduction: A Radical Sexual Reorientation is Afoot 2
Redeeming Pleasure: Women Lead A Second Sexual Revolution 6
Why is this sexual revolution unheralded? 15
Redeeming Pleasure through Hinduism and Buddhism 22
Fantasy, Romantic Love, Polyamory, and Relationships 32
Claude on Augustine, Sex & Will, and Tantra 39
In which I ask Claude 3.5 about sexual shame and confusion in humans 43
What is it about depicting sex in writing? From shared knowledge to common knowledge. 48
Introduction: A Radical Sexual Reorientation is Afoot
I must admit, I’m a little worried. Am I too far out over my skis in saying we’re witnessing a second sexual revolution? The sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s was well-covered in the media – I was there. This one seems all but invisible.
To be sure, I’m not the only one who thinks that. Dust I’d finished writing the core article for 3 Quarks Daily (Redeeming Pleasure: Women Lead A Second Sexual Revolution), I came across Good Sex: Transforming America through the New Gender and Sexual Revolution (2022). There it is, “revolution.” Catherine M. Roach seems to think one is going on. From the first page of her book:
A cultural revolution unfolds in America.
It emerges from #MeToo activism against sexual misconduct, media campaigns around body positivity, and the increased visibility of people from across the gender and sexuality spectrum. These varied developments stand at the leading edge of a broad shift happening across America and the globe. Together, they herald a welcome revolution for the twenty-first century and a new vision of sexual and gender well-being.
OK, so that’s two of us. That’s hardly enough to declare a revolution.
I was tipped off to this revolution – for the purpose of this argument, let’s say it’s real – when I learned the Fifty Shades of Grey had been a best seller, 150 million copies worldwide by 2017. That’s a lot of copies. But how does book sales add up to a revolution? Well, it tells us about people’s attitudes, women’s attitudes in this case. More than that, the book could not have been published and sold in that quantity unless there had been a change in underlying cultural norms. THAT’s what is significant.
I decided to check subscription numbers for the YouTube channels I mentioned in the article:
Mystery Box Show 125 thousand
Rena Malik, M.D. 2.51 million
How to Get the Girl 965
(Marni Wing-Girl 1.41 million)
Sexplanations 1.13 million
At 2.5 million, Rena Malik’s is the largest. Compared to Mr. Beast at 414 million that’s not very large. I have no idea how many YouTube channels are dedicated to sex and relationship information, advice, and coaching much less what the total subscriber base for them is nor how many views they get.
But then, that seems to be part of the problem. Whatever it is that’s going on, it seems to be very diffuse, very much a bottom-up affair. Nor does it have a visible national magazine to proclaim its existence. But comparison the first sexual revolution had Playboy and then Ms.
I’ve discussed these factors, and others, with Claude (pp. 15 ff.) and reached this general conclusion:
The conversation suggested this revolution's distributed, women-led, wellness-integrated nature makes it less visible as a coherent "movement" despite representing profound cultural change. It's happening in plain sight but in ways that don't fit traditional narratives of social revolution.
To that I would add that this revolution, unlike the first, is about pleasure, and pleasure is a bit problematic (see pp. 22 ff.). Somehow the idea of a pleasure revolution doesn’t seem dignified; it lacks gravitas.
OK, so once my I have convinced myself that it is reasonable to think in terms of a second sexual revolution. Have I made my case? You’ll have to read and decide for yourself.
What’s in this document
Redeeming Pleasure: Women Lead A Second Sexual Revolution – This main argument in this document. Everything else is supporting material. We are over a decade, if not two, into a second sexual revolution that is quite different in character from the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. This revolution is focused on pleasure, wellness, and integration rather than liberation. If you will: Now that we’re liberated, here’s what we do with this freedom. This revolution is highly distributed, bottom-up, and led by women.
Why is this sexual revolution unheralded? – We have a different media environment, the organizational structure of the movement is different, and the social context is radically different. There was change on many fronts in the 1960s and 1970s, but not so much in the last two decades. (Conversation with Claude.)
Redeeming Pleasure through Hinduism and Buddhism – A conversation with Claude exploring the possibility that Hinduism and Buddhism provide a conceptual framework that is more favorable to pleasure than Western frameworks.
Fantasy, Romantic Love, Polyamory, and Relationships – This is about the role of fantasy in establishing romantic relationships, which is one thing. But it is also about the variety of relationship configurations currently being explored. Just why those two topics go together, Claude and I never got around to rationalizing that. We just had the discussion.
Claude on Augustine, Sex & Will, and Tantra – There’s a famous passage in The City of God where Augustine bemoans the fact that sexual desire is not subject to the will. In this discussion, I have Claude speculate on how tantric practice, integrating meditation with sex, can mitigate this problem so that sexuality seems less foreign.
In which I ask Claude 3.5 about sexual shame and confusion in humans – This is something I’ve been thinking about for years. I advance a hypothesis, which I once discussed with David Hays decades ago, that is grounded in the nature of human development. Our capacity for abstract thought emerges within roughly the same period that sexuality emerges resulting in a risk that sexuality will perceived as a foreign “Other.”
What is it about depicting sex in writing? From shared knowledge to common knowledge. – Here I take a brief look at how sexual activity has been depicted in writing, from Pride and Prejudice, where it is invisible, through Fifty Shades of Grey, where it is not only highly visible, but ubiquitous.
Afterword: Caveat and omissions
Though I’ve been thinking about these issues for a long time, it is only in the last couple of weeks that I began to think in terms of a second sexual revolution. This is my first attempt to put these thoughts in order and so must be considered quite preliminary. I have deliberately left out any discussion of pornography, which is very important, obviously germane, and very messy.
And then we have female comedians. In the old days stand-up comedy was dominated by men. For women we had Phylis Diller and Joan Rivers and that’s it. It’s my impression that now we’ve got a robust cohort of female comedians. I’m thinking particularly of Iliza Shlesinger and Nikki Glaser, but I’ve seen others. They’re doing sexual (& relationship) comedy that seems quite unlike what male comedians do and that’s consistent with my argument about a female-driven sexual revolution. This needs to be explored more thoroughly.
I was discussing my plans for this column with a new friend. She observed that studies have shown that young people have less sex these days, something I am aware of. It’s not clear how that integrates with what I’ve observed above. I’ve not yet thought it through (this is a very complicated subject). If you wish to pursue this, you might want to start by reading this New York Times article, Should We All Take the Slow Road to Love?, July 2, 2018, by Tara Parker-Pope. It is about the work of Dr. Helen Fisher, who devoted her career to studying sexuality and romantic relationships.
I’ve been posting on sexual topics at New Savanna since I started the blog in 2010; here’s the tag for them: https://new-savanna.blogspot.com/search/label/sexuality.
Those which seem particularly germane to this article: https://new-savanna.blogspot.com/search/label/sexuality25. I may well update this document with some material in posts written after I’ve the first edition (July 22, 2025).
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