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Louise Perry

Louise Perry is a British journalist, author, and podcast host based in London, specializing in critiques of contemporary sexual norms and their societal impacts.^[1] Her 2022 book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century, argues that the post-1960s liberalization of sexual attitudes has failed to deliver promised benefits, particularly for women, by promoting casual encounters that exploit innate sex differences in mating strategies and risk aversion.^[2]^[3] Drawing from her prior experience working in a rape crisis center, Perry advocates for protective measures such as discouraging promiscuity, prioritizing monogamous marriage for child-rearing, and recognizing evolutionary realities in human behavior over ideological abstractions of gender equivalence.^[4]^[5] Perry hosts the Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast, which explores topics in sexual politics, family structures, and feminism from a perspective emphasizing biological and empirical realities over progressive orthodoxy.^[1]^[6] As a columnist for outlets including UnHerd, The Spectator, and the New Statesman, she has addressed issues such as declining birth rates, the harms of pornography and sex work, and the need for renewed social conservatism in response to data showing correlations between premarital sexual partners and relationship instability.^[7]^[6]^[8] In 2025, she co-founded the non-partisan feminist think tank The Other Half, aimed at advancing policies grounded in evidence of sex-differentiated outcomes rather than egalitarian assumptions.^[9] Her positions, which challenge the mainstream feminist endorsement of unrestricted sexual autonomy, have sparked debate, with supporters praising her reliance on victim testimonies, psychological studies, and demographic trends to highlight causal links between cultural shifts and female dissatisfaction, while critics often dismiss them as regressive without engaging the underlying data.^[3]^[10]

Early Life and Education

Upbringing and Influences

Louise Perry was born in the United Kingdom to parents who had immigrated from Australia, granting her Australian citizenship by descent. She grew up in London during the 1990s and 2000s, a period marked by the entrenched cultural legacies of the 1960s sexual revolution, including widespread shifts toward liberalized attitudes on sexuality, gender roles, and family structures in British society.^[11]^[12] In her youth, Perry encountered these transformations through everyday observations of community and media portrayals of casual sexual relationships, hookup culture, and evolving expectations for women, which often prioritized autonomy and non-traditional paths over monogamy or early motherhood. Her family's immigrant background from a more traditional Australian context may have provided contrasting perspectives on cultural norms, though she has described immersing in the ambient progressivism of urban Britain.^[11] Initially, Perry embraced progressive ideals, including feminist advocacy for sexual liberation as empowering for women, shaped by mainstream educational and media influences that framed the sexual revolution as an unqualified advance in gender equality. This early alignment reflected the dominant liberal feminist priors prevalent in her environment, emphasizing consent, choice, and rejection of patriarchal constraints, before subsequent reflections prompted reevaluation.^[13]

Academic Background

Perry obtained a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), a constituent college of the University of London.^[11] Her undergraduate studies, which incorporated elements of women's studies, immersed her in feminist theory and anthropological examinations of human social structures, including kinship, mating practices, and cultural norms around sexuality.^[14] This curriculum, delivered within an institution noted for its progressive academic environment, provided Perry with a foundation in empirical cross-cultural analysis that she later applied to critique ideological assumptions in contemporary sexual ethics.^[11] The anthropological focus on observable human behaviors and evolutionary influences during her time at SOAS equipped her with tools for data-driven reasoning, contrasting with more prescriptive ideological frameworks prevalent in gender studies.^[14] Perry has reflected that these three years of study exposed her to theoretical models of sexuality that prioritized individual autonomy over biological and social realities, experiences which informed her subsequent disillusionment with unchecked applications of such ideas in policy and culture.^[14] No specific undergraduate thesis or early academic publications from this period have been publicly detailed, though her training prefigured her emphasis on evidence from anthropology in rejecting hookup culture's disconnect from innate sex differences and relational costs.^[11]

Professional Career

Journalism Roles

Perry began her journalism career contributing articles to the New Statesman, a left-of-center British magazine, where her early pieces addressed topics such as environmental activism and childcare policy, reflecting initial engagements with progressive concerns.^[15]^[16] By 2022, her contributions to the same outlet shifted toward critiques of sexual liberation, including an article arguing that feminists should reject illusions of limitless sexual liberty, as such norms disproportionately harm women due to innate sex differences in sexual psychology and risk aversion.^[17] She expanded her platform as a features writer for the Daily Mail, a right-leaning tabloid, publishing opinion pieces that challenged hookup culture's premises and advocated for marriage as a protective institution for women and children.^[18]^[19] In May 2022, for instance, she contended that the sexual revolution's legacy of casual sex benefits men while leaving women emotionally and physically vulnerable, urging young women to prioritize committed relationships over transient encounters.^[20] Perry also became a columnist for UnHerd, a heterodox online magazine, where her work amplified arguments against prostitution framed as empowerment and pornography's role in desensitizing users to women's objectification.^[7] These pieces, appearing from around 2020 onward, drew on empirical patterns of male sexual aggression and female regret in casual encounters to question libertarian sexual ethics, marking her progression toward outlets receptive to evidence-based dissent from mainstream progressive norms on intimacy.^[14]

Work in Rape Crisis Support

Perry began her professional involvement in sexual violence support immediately after graduating from university in the mid-2010s, taking up a position as a support worker at a rape crisis centre in the United Kingdom.^[10] ^[12] In this capacity, she offered direct assistance to victims, with a particular focus on teenage girls who had experienced sexual assault, helping them navigate the aftermath through counseling and advocacy.^[21] ^[22] Her role exposed her to hundreds of cases, revealing recurring patterns in how assaults occurred, often in social settings involving casual acquaintances rather than strangers.^[13] A prominent observation from her frontline work was the frequent involvement of alcohol and impaired judgment, where victims—predominantly young women—met perpetrators through hookup culture or nightlife environments, leading to non-consensual acts amid intoxication.^[10] Perry noted that physical vulnerabilities, such as women wearing high heels that hindered escape, combined with disinhibiting substances, amplified risks in these permissive contexts, challenging isolated models of "enthusiastic consent" that ignore situational predation.^[10] She documented that 98-99% of convicted sexual offenders were male, underscoring patterns of male-initiated aggression rather than equitable dynamics, which contradicted narratives minimizing biological sex differences in favor of purely societal structures.^[10] This hands-on exposure highlighted the limitations of emphasizing systemic factors over immediate causal elements like individual male opportunism in alcohol-fueled encounters, as Perry witnessed victims' regrets tied to prior casual sexual norms that normalized boundary-testing behaviors.^[5] ^[13] Her accounts emphasize how such patterns provided empirical grounds for critiquing permissive ethics, as victims often entered risky scenarios under the assumption of mutual agency, only to face exploitation.^[21]

Major Works and Writings

The Case Against the Sexual Revolution

The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, published by Polity in May 2022, constitutes Louise Perry's central critique of post-1960s sexual norms, positing that the revolution's emphasis on unrestricted access to casual sex has inflicted asymmetric harm on women by severing intercourse from relational commitment and ethical boundaries. Perry contends that this shift, while ostensibly liberating, exploits innate sex differences in mating strategies, leaving women more vulnerable to emotional distress, physical risks, and societal commodification of intimacy. Drawing from her prior experience in rape crisis support, she advocates reinstating traditional restraints—such as monogamous pair-bonding and male sexual continence—as pragmatic protections grounded in observed human behavior rather than ideological fiat.^[23]^[24] In examining hookup culture, Perry details its psychological burdens, particularly for women, who experience disproportionate regret after uncommitted encounters; studies she references indicate women are far more likely than men to report emotional fallout from such liaisons, with rates of post-coital remorse exceeding 70% among females in some surveys versus under 25% for males. This disparity, Perry argues, stems not from socialization alone but from evolved preferences where women prioritize partner investment for offspring viability, rendering casual sex a net loss in well-being and self-esteem. She challenges the egalitarian premise that women can emulate male promiscuity without cost, citing longitudinal data linking frequent hookups to heightened depression and anxiety in young women.^[25]^[26] Perry extends her analysis to pornography's corrosive influence, portraying it as a dehumanizing force that normalizes detachment and aggression in male sexuality; compulsive consumption, she notes, correlates with erectile dysfunction and distorted expectations, while violent content may reinforce predatory impulses in predisposed viewers by habituating arousal to dominance over mutuality. Rather than harmless recreation, porn erodes empathy, treating participants as interchangeable orifices and conditioning users—predominantly men—to undervalue consent's nuances in real interactions. Perry urges abstinence from such media as essential for fostering chivalric restraint and genuine relational equity.^[27]^[28] On prostitution, Perry dismantles the slogan "sex work is work," asserting it masks exploitation by conflating voluntary transaction with inherent dignity; most participants, she observes, enter amid desperation—poverty, addiction, or trauma—enduring routine violation akin to paid rape, where feigned enthusiasm supplants authentic desire. Empirical accounts from sex workers reveal high PTSD rates comparable to combat veterans, undermining claims of empowerment; Perry insists commodifying bodies reinforces male entitlement and female objectification, advocating abolitionist policies over decriminalization to curb demand and affirm human non-fungibility.^[29]^[27] Underpinning these critiques, Perry invokes evolutionary psychology to substantiate sex differences: men exhibit stronger drives for sexual novelty and quantity, enabling exploitation in permissive environments, while women's selectivity favors quality and security, clashing with revolution-fueled parity illusions. She references cross-cultural data showing near-universal male overrepresentation in sexual offenses—over 90% of convicted rapists are male—attributing this not to patriarchy but to testosterone-fueled impulsivity and physical disparities in strength, which heighten women's jeopardy absent cultural brakes like shame or monogamy norms. This framework, Perry maintains, demands realism over optimism, prioritizing causal mechanisms over aspirational equity.^[30]^[31]

Other Publications and Columns

Perry has contributed regular columns to the New Statesman, where she critiques aspects of contemporary feminism and sexual ethics, such as in a May 2022 article arguing that the sexual revolution's promise of limitless liberty has disproportionately harmed women by ignoring sex differences in sexual behavior and vulnerability.^[17] In another New Statesman piece from May 2022, she contended that euphemistic language in reporting on rape and abuse—such as avoiding terms like "paedo" or "monster"—obscures the realities of male predation and undermines public understanding of consent's limits.^[32] In the Daily Mail, Perry's post-2022 writings emphasize marriage's protective role for mothers and children, as in a May 2022 column urging young women to marry and prioritize marital stability, citing data on cohabiting couples' higher dissolution rates and worse child outcomes compared to married families.^[19] She has extended this to debunk claims favoring no-fault divorce's universality, arguing in a 2022 piece that it erodes incentives for commitment, leading to elevated poverty risks for divorced mothers and unstable environments for children, supported by longitudinal studies showing married two-parent households correlate with better educational and emotional metrics for offspring.^[18] A June 2024 Daily Mail article further critiques casual sex's purported benefits, advising women to delay intercourse until engagement to mitigate emotional and relational costs, drawing on psychological evidence of attachment disparities between sexes.^[33] Perry's contributions to UnHerd, where she serves as a columnist, address evolving demographic and ideological trends, including a piece warning feminists of fertility decline's risks, linking low birth rates to delayed motherhood and hookup culture's normalization, which empirical fertility data from sources like the UK's Office for National Statistics show exacerbates aging populations and strains welfare systems.^[7] She has also critiqued polyamory's claims to equality, noting in writings that non-monogamous arrangements rarely yield stable child-rearing outcomes, with studies indicating higher instability and jealousy compared to monogamous marriages, thus challenging progressive assertions of its viability for family policy.^[34] Through her Substack newsletter Maiden Mother Matriarch, launched post-book, Perry has tracked shifts in transgender ideology, declaring in November 2024 that the movement's peak has passed due to mounting evidence of harms like youth desistance rates and regret post-transition, aligning with clinical reviews questioning affirmative approaches' long-term efficacy.^[35] In February 2025, she applied family policy scrutiny to influencer culture in a Daily Mail column, calling for social services intervention in cases of high-risk pregnancies by figures promoting promiscuity, arguing such examples normalize instability detrimental to child welfare based on attachment theory and outcome data.^[36] These pieces reflect an ongoing emphasis on evidence-based sexual norms prioritizing biological realities and stable unions over ideological individualism.

Core Views and Arguments

Critique of the Sexual Revolution

Perry maintains that the sexual revolution's endorsement of unfettered casual sex overlooked innate biological asymmetries, including women's greater physical vulnerability, higher parental investment through pregnancy and nursing, and evolved selectivity in partner choice, which contrast with men's lower reproductive costs and tendency toward promiscuity. These differences render women more prone to regret, exploitation, and long-term harm in hook-up culture, while men often gain without equivalent accountability.^[24]^[37]^[38] Empirical trends post-1960s underscore these imbalances. Reported gonorrhea rates in the US climbed approximately 15% annually during the decade, with dramatic rises in cases among teenagers from the early 1960s onward, signaling a broader surge in sexually transmitted infections amid relaxed norms.^[39]^[40] The proportion of US children living in single-parent households—predominantly mother-led—tripled from 9% in 1960 to 25% by 2023, correlating with elevated out-of-wedlock births from under 5% to over 40%.^[41] Data from the General Social Survey reveal women's self-reported happiness declining relative to men's since the 1970s, despite gains in autonomy.^[42]^[43] Perry attributes much of the asymmetry's fallout to men's freer access to sex decoupled from commitment, fostering female dissatisfaction and rising mental health issues, including sharper declines in well-being among young women in recent decades.^[21]^[44] Abortion rates further illustrate unintended consequences, with US figures escalating from estimated lows pre-legalization to peaks exceeding 1.5 million annually by the 1980s following liberalization.^[45]^[46] Prior norms, by conditioning sex on marriage and fidelity, shielded women and children through enforced paternal responsibility, yielding empirically superior outcomes in stability, health, and family intactness over the revolution's emphasis on individual liberty.^[47]^[48] This perspective favors causal evidence of harm—such as reduced single parenthood and STD burdens pre-1960s—against ideological priors.^[49]

Positions on Feminism and Gender Norms

Perry defines feminism as inherently protective of women's interests, emphasizing the need to account for biological sex differences that render women more vulnerable to exploitation in liberal sexual paradigms. She rejects variants of feminism that prioritize formal equality over equity, arguing that encouraging women to adopt male-like sexual promiscuity—such as through "hookup equality"—disadvantages them due to women's greater propensity for emotional bonding and post-coital regret, as evidenced by sex differences in psychological responses to casual encounters. This stance aligns with her broader critique of liberal feminism's minimization of innate disparities, which she contends leads to policies and norms that fail to shield women from harm.^[50]^[27] In critiquing sex-positive feminism, Perry contends that its endorsement of pornography and prostitution as empowering professions overlooks the realities of coercion and trauma reported by participants, including those she counseled in rape crisis roles. She draws on accounts from former sex workers and porn performers, such as Linda Boreman (Deep Throat) and Jenna Jameson, who later described their experiences as dehumanizing rather than liberating, often involving violence and addiction exacerbated by industry dynamics. Perry argues this framework pathologizes dissent from victims, insisting instead that such industries perpetuate female objectification under the guise of autonomy, ignoring economic pressures that undermine genuine choice.^[21]^[51]^[5] Perry identifies inconsistencies in #MeToo-era feminism, where the movement's focus on power imbalances and subtle coercion in elite contexts contrasts sharply with sex-positive tolerance for analogous dynamics in commercial sex, treating consent as a panacea despite evident exploitation. She posits that #MeToo implicitly validates the gravity of sexual encounters beyond mere agreement, yet this insight is selectively applied, allowing ideologies to downplay how poverty or dependency vitiates autonomy in prostitution and porn. This selective reasoning, Perry maintains, erodes feminism's protective core by prioritizing ideological consistency over empirical harms to women.^[52]^[53]^[21] To counter these trends, Perry promotes gender norms encouraging women to delay sexual debut until greater maturity and to vet partners rigorously for reliability and non-violence, practices she links to improved relational outcomes based on social science data showing correlations between later first intercourse and reduced regret, higher marital satisfaction, and stronger family units. She frames these as pragmatic safeguards rooted in causal patterns of female vulnerability, urging a return to norms that prioritize long-term pair-bonding over immediate gratification.^[25]^[52]^[54]

Advocacy for Traditional Sexual Ethics

Perry promotes chastity prior to marriage, serial monogamy thereafter, and the prioritization of childbearing within stable marital unions as practices that empirically safeguard women's interests and societal stability. In her 2022 book The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, she posits these norms as evolutionarily adaptive, noting that enforced monogamy correlates with reduced male intrasexual competition, lower violence rates, and greater economic prosperity across historical societies.^[55]^[56] She references data indicating that individuals with fewer premarital sexual partners—ideally zero or one—exhibit significantly lower divorce risks, with those having nine or more partners facing the highest instability, as evidenced by longitudinal analyses of marital outcomes.^[57] These prescriptions, Perry argues, mitigate the asymmetries in sexual bargaining power between men and women, where women's higher reproductive costs demand selectivity and commitment to avoid exploitation. Central to Perry's framework is the critique of contraception's role in severing sex from its reproductive consequences, which she claims distorts mate selection incentives and erodes mutual investment. By enabling consequence-free encounters, hormonal methods like the pill foster a marketplace favoring male promiscuity, as men face fewer biological penalties for casual sex than women, who bear disproportionate risks of unintended pregnancy and emotional attachment.^[58] Perry counters progressive narratives of "sexual freedom" by emphasizing motherhood's unique, irreplaceable fulfillment for women, rooted in the profound biological and psychological bonds formed during gestation and nursing, which no surrogate or technological substitute can replicate.^[19] She advocates delaying casual partnerships in favor of early marriage to capitalize on fertility windows, arguing this sequencing yields superior outcomes for child welfare and parental satisfaction compared to prolonged singledom or cohabitation. Perry dismisses alternatives like ethical non-monogamy as unviable for most, citing persistent human jealousy rooted in evolutionary pair-bonding mechanisms, which undermine even consensual arrangements through heightened conflict and dissatisfaction. Empirical patterns show non-monogamous relationships elevate sexually transmitted infection transmission risks due to multiple concurrent partners, with attachment theory underscoring how repeated pair-bond disruptions impair long-term relational trust and security—disruptions women experience more acutely given their selective mating psychology.^[56] Instead, she endorses restraint-based models, where sexual exclusivity within marriage channels innate drives toward cooperative outcomes, as substantiated by cross-cultural data linking monogamous norms to decreased domestic violence and improved family cohesion.^[59]^[60]

Media and Public Engagement

Maiden Mother Matriarch Podcast

The Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast, hosted by Louise Perry, debuted in February 2023 following the publication of her book The Case Against the Sexual Revolution.^[4]^[61] It operates primarily through Perry's Substack newsletter, with episodes distributed on platforms including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube, featuring in-depth interviews with guests such as historians, scientists, and cultural commentators.^[62]^[63] The format emphasizes extended conversations on sexual politics, family dynamics, and cultural shifts, typically lasting 40 to 70 minutes per episode.^[64] By October 2025, the podcast had released 197 episodes, maintaining a weekly release schedule since inception.^[65] Recent installments have addressed evolving societal issues, including a May 2025 episode with biologist Alex Mills examining the scientific basis of biological sex (Episode 142).^[66] Another episode from November 2024 featured anthropologist Roanne van Voorst on the implications of sex robots (Episode 112), touching on technological influences on intimate relationships.^[67] The series has cultivated a dedicated audience, with Perry noting an "extraordinary" response in listener numbers shortly after launch.^[4] It holds a 4.6 out of 5 rating on Apple Podcasts based on 267 reviews as of late 2025, and has appeared in the top 100 politics podcasts on UK Apple charts, reflecting its role in amplifying discussions outside mainstream narratives.^[63]^[68] Episodes often include bonus content for Substack subscribers, enhancing engagement on topics like fertility trends and ethical dilemmas in reproduction.^[69]

Public Debates and Appearances

Perry has engaged in several public debates defending her critiques of progressive sexual norms, often citing empirical evidence on sex differences and family outcomes against ideological opponents. In a March 2025 discussion hosted by the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) and Quillette, she argued for acknowledging biological realities over progressive ideals that deny sex differences, emphasizing data on male-female behavioral disparities in mating strategies and risk aversion.^[70] This appearance highlighted her reliance on evolutionary psychology and crime statistics to counter sentimental appeals for gender equivalence in policy.^[70] In June 2025, Perry debated feminist author Deborah Frances-White and psychoanalyst Erica Komisar in "The Feminism Debate: Is Feminism Betraying Women?", contending that casual sex imposes disproportionate psychological and physical costs on women, supported by studies on post-coital regret rates (higher among women at 65% versus 25% for men) and rising STI incidences.^[71] She challenged left-leaning critics' emphasis on autonomy by pointing to longitudinal data linking early sexual debut to mental health declines, prioritizing causal evidence from family stability research over normative claims of liberation.^[71]^[72] Perry confronted porn performer Bonnie Blue in a September 2025 debate on modern sex work, advocating stricter regulation of pornography based on evidence of its links to violence and exploitation, including victim testimonies from the sex industry and correlations with increased male aggression.^[73] She rejected consent-based defenses by highlighting power imbalances and long-term harms documented in survivor accounts, contrasting data-driven arguments with Blue's experiential advocacy.^[73] In policy-oriented discussions, Perry has contributed to discourse on family reforms, supporting evidence-based restrictions like limits on late-term abortions and reevaluation of no-fault divorce laws, drawing on studies showing their associations with child poverty rates (elevated by 20-30% in single-parent households) and intergenerational instability.^[74] These positions, articulated against progressive challengers, underscore her focus on aggregate outcomes from demographic data rather than individual choice narratives.^[74]

Personal Life

Family and Motherhood

Louise Perry is married and has two young children, having chosen to wed her long-term partner shortly before starting a family to facilitate legal and practical protections for child-rearing.^[18]^[75] Her marriage occurred at an age considered average in the 1980s but relatively young by contemporary standards, reflecting her advocacy for early commitment to stable partnerships prior to parenthood.^[18] Perry has credited the experience of childbirth and early motherhood with transforming her outlook, compelling her to confront the unyielding biological imperatives of maternal attachment and the physical demands of infant care, which she contrasts with prior abstract commitments to feminism.^[12] This shift underscored for her the instinctive prioritization of offspring welfare over individual autonomy, leading her to emphasize in her writings the evolutionary roots of parental sacrifice, particularly for mothers whose bodies are biologically attuned to bonding through gestation and nursing. In practice, Perry's family life embodies her critique of modern dual-income pressures, as she navigates work as a journalist and podcaster alongside parenting, while arguing for cultural and policy shifts—such as extended paternal leave and reduced workplace expectations—to mitigate the inherent trade-offs women face in balancing careers with child-rearing.^[76]^[77] She maintains that societal structures should bolster traditional roles by incentivizing male provision and female specialization in homemaking where feasible, drawing from her own circumstances to illustrate how such supports enable women to avoid the exhaustion of simultaneous full-time employment and intensive mothering.^[78]

Personal Experiences Shaping Views

Perry's intellectual development began with progressive convictions formed during her studies in anthropology and women's studies at Oxford University, where she embraced liberal feminist perspectives endorsing pornography, BDSM, hookup culture, and the sex trade as empowering.^[10] These views aligned with those prevalent among millennial urban graduates, yet she later described conforming to them as a product of class expectations rather than empirical scrutiny.^[10] A pivotal shift occurred shortly after graduation when Perry worked as a support worker at a rape crisis center, assisting teenage girls and encountering women in prostitution who endured profound trauma from sexual violence and exploitation.^[21] ^[13] This exposure to the unvarnished realities of male aggression and the sex industry's hardships contradicted the sanitized academic portrayals she had accepted, marking what she termed "the death knell" for her prior beliefs and prompting her to reject liberal feminism's minimization of biological sex differences and the inherent risks of casual encounters.^[13] ^[10] She has stated that these experiences directly caused her to abandon assumptions about the sexual revolution's unalloyed benefits, emphasizing instead the disproportionate harms to women from unwanted or regretted sex.^[10] ^[79] Perry has also reflected on her own youthful immersion in hookup culture, observing its disenchanting effects and the mismatch between encouraged female imitation of male sexual patterns and innate female preferences for selectivity and commitment.^[79] ^[21] This led her to argue from feminist premises that unwanted sex inflicts greater damage than sexual restraint, underscoring a realism derived from personal and observed regrets over transient encounters that eroded emotional fulfillment.^[21] ^[79] Motherhood reinforced Perry's pivot toward advocating traditional sexual ethics, highlighting the unique burdens borne by women in reproduction and child-rearing, which she views as undervalued in post-revolutionary norms that prioritize autonomy over stability.^[79] These lived realities—culminating in her current role as a London-based journalist and mother—have informed her emphasis on protective norms like monogamy and chastity until marriage as pragmatic safeguards against the revolution's fallout, rather than ideological relics.^[79] ^[1]

Reception and Impact

Positive Assessments and Achievements

Louise Perry's book The Case Against the Sexual Revolution (2022) has earned acclaim for its data-driven critique of modern sexual norms, with reviewer Andrew Wilson in The Gospel Coalition praising its demonstration that sexual liberation has failed women by ignoring empirical evidence of sex-based harms.^[27] The work's emphasis on biological differences and causal outcomes of hookup culture resonated with conservative and dissident feminist audiences, achieving a 4.28 average rating from over 3,700 Goodreads users who highlighted its practical advice for young women on prioritizing monogamy and restraint.^[80] The Guardian described it as potentially "one of the most important feminist books of its time," crediting Perry's frontline experience at a rape crisis center for grounding arguments in observable realities rather than ideological assumptions.^[5] Perry's advocacy for the Nordic model of prostitution decriminalization—focusing penalties on buyers while supporting sellers—has bolstered evidence-based policy discussions, as evidenced by her contributions to outlets like UnHerd emphasizing reduced exploitation over full legalization.^[81] Her insistence on recognizing innate sex differences has influenced broader discourse, inspiring analyses that favor data on male-female behavioral disparities over egalitarian myths, as seen in endorsements from figures like Mary Harrington aligning with Perry's rejection of progressivist gender norms.^[82] The Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast, launched in 2023, has succeeded in amplifying these themes, securing a 4.6 rating on Apple Podcasts from hundreds of reviews commending its rigorous exploration of sexual politics and motherhood without deference to mainstream feminist orthodoxy.^[63] Perry's forthcoming young adult adaptation of her book, slated for 2025, underscores its sustained relevance in guiding younger demographics toward empirically supported ethical frameworks.^[83]

Criticisms and Controversies

Perry's advocacy for restricting casual sex and embracing monogamous norms has drawn accusations of slut-shaming from progressive feminists, who contend that such positions reinforce patriarchal control and erode women's hard-won sexual autonomy achieved through the sexual revolution. For example, critics argue that her emphasis on the risks of promiscuity for women dismisses individual agency and equates liberation with restraint, aligning her views more with traditional conservatism than modern feminism.^[84]^[28] Some reviewers and commentators have challenged Perry's empirical foundations, asserting that she overgeneralizes from anecdotal experiences in rape crisis work and overlooks data indicating a decline in casual sex among younger generations since the 2010s, which undermines her portrayal of an unchecked hookup culture. They further debate that advances in consent culture, such as those popularized post-#MeToo, address many harms she attributes to sexual liberalism without necessitating a return to traditionalism, which they deem impractical in diverse, secular societies.^[85]^[50] Perry's gender-critical stances, which prioritize biological sex differences in discussions of women's vulnerabilities and spaces, have provoked controversies with transgender activists, who accuse her of transphobia and exclusionary essentialism for rejecting self-identified gender over immutable biology. These tensions escalated amid broader debates, yet her positions found legal corroboration in the UK Supreme Court's April 16, 2025, ruling that "sex" in the Equality Act 2010 refers exclusively to biological sex, not gender recognition certificates, highlighting empirical disputes over sex-based protections versus identity-based inclusions.^[86]^[87]^[88]

References

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Louise Perry: Journalist and Author
Louise Perry is a journalist and author based in London, UK. Louise hosts Maiden Mother Matriarch, a podcast about sexual politics.
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The Case Against the Sexual Revolution - Amazon.com
30-day returnsThe sexual revolution has liberated us to enjoy a heady mixture of erotic freedom and personal autonomy. Right? Wrong, argues Louise Perry in her provocative ...
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Louise Perry - The Centre for Independent Studies
Mar 28, 2025 · Louise Perry is a British journalist, author, and broadcaster. Her bestselling book, “The Case Against the Sexual Revolution”, was published in 2022 to ...
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About - Maiden Mother Matriarch
I'm Louise Perry, author of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, the book that almost no one wanted to publish, but which has apparently changed an enormous ...
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The Case Against the Sexual Revolution by Louise Perry review
Jun 6, 2022 · This unusually lucid commentary on sex in the 21st-century, informed by the author's work in a rape crisis centre, is daring and important
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Louise Perry, Author at The Spectator
Feminist philosopher, Unherd columnist and author of The Case Against The Sexual Revolution Louise Perry discusses population growth decline, how culture, the ...Missing: biography | Show results with:biography
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Aella, Louise Perry, a writer for UnHerd
Louise Perry is a freelance writer and campaigner against sexual violence. Louise Perry is a freelance writer and campaigner against sexual violence.Missing: biography | Show results with:biography
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Louise Perry - Plough Quarterly
Louise Perry is a writer and campaigner based in London. She is a columnist at the New Statesman and a features writer for the Daily Mail.Missing: biography | Show results with:biography
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Apr 23, 2025 · Guest bio: Louise Perry is a writer and activist based in London. This year, she co-founded a non-partisan feminist think tank called The Other ...<|separator|>
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Review: The Case Against the Sexual Revolution by Louise Perry
Jan 30, 2023 · Louise Perry exposes some very dark aspects of the sexual revolution. It's not titillating in any way, but it certainly describes some nasty things that people ...
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Louise Perry: overcrowded Britain and the ennui of a post-imperial ...
Jul 11, 2024 · Perry herself has Australian citizenship through her parents (who immigrated from Australia to the UK), while her husband has an American mother ...
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Louise Perry on motherhood, consent and the case against the ...
Dec 15, 2021 · In this episode, Louise speaks about motherhood, sex, consent and the outworking of the sexual revolution.
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Jun 16, 2022 · The author argues that women are beginning to appreciate the downsides of the sex positivity movement.
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Louise Perry is a journalist and author based in London, UK. She is a columnist for UnHerd and a features writer for the Daily Mail. Louise hosts Maiden Mother ...
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Iâ?Tm a middle-class millennial and intermittent vegan, yet I find ...
Apr 21, 2021 · Flashy stunts are not the answer to the climate crisis stalemate. By Louise Perry. Extinction Rebellion protesters gather in Parliament Square, ...
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Childcare costs put mothers in a bind, but free daycare may not be ...
Jan 19, 2022 · Getting mothers of preschoolers back to work as soon as possible does not seem to me an unambiguously feminist development. By Louise Perry.
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Feminists must abandon their delusions about the sexual revolution
May 31, 2022 · As my book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, argues, it is usually women who suffer when we pretend men and women are the same.
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LOUISE PERRY: I still believe in marrying before starting a family
and a feminist — I think marriage and civil partnerships serve to better protect both women and children ...
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Feminist Louise Perry sparks fierce debate on the sexual revolution
May 29, 2022 · Feminist author Louise Perry passionately argues how the sexual revolution has impacted men and women in different ways.
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Sep 29, 2022 · Louise Perry is a writer and campaigner against sexual violence. ... So tell me about that experience at the rape crisis center. And tell ...
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The lesson of Sarah Everard's murder is there's no “one weird trick ...
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The Case Against the Sexual Revolution · Hardback$59.95 · 9781509549986 · Paperback$19.95 · 9781509549993 · ebook$16.00 · 9781509550005.Missing: details | Show results with:details
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[26]
Modern Masculinity and the Power of Fatherhood
Jun 11, 2025 · The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, Louise Perry differentiates between ... Women report significantly higher regret than men after casual sex ...
[27]
Review: 'The Case Against the Sexual Revolution' by Louise Perry
Rating 4.0 · Review by Andrew WilsonSep 21, 2022 · Louise Perry has written a feminist critique of the sexual revolution, and it's brave, excoriating, and magnificent.Missing: regret studies
[28]
Against the Case Against the Sexual Revolution - Year Zero
Jul 6, 2022 · ... Perry contends that watching violent porn “can intensify [the] existing arousal pattern” of a would-be rapist. She attacks fetishes as ...
[29]
Prostitution isn't a choice - UnHerd
Dec 17, 2020 · My politics then, formed mostly by reading blogs in the noughties, said that sex-work-is-work, and that critiquing prostitution was a prude's ...
[30]
'The Case Against the Sexual Revolution' Asks: Can Women 'Have ...
Jan 14, 2024 · The Case Against the Sexual Revolution asks: Can Women 'Have Sex Like Men'? 'The Case Against the Sexual Revolution', by Louise Perry, reviewed; Polity, 2022.
[31]
The science of sexual conflict - New Statesman
Jul 7, 2021 · The science of sexual conflict. How evolutionary theory explains why men and women seduce, deceive, abandon and hurt each other. By Louise Perry.Missing: citations | Show results with:citations
[32]
Playing language games with sex obscures the reality of rape and ...
May 17, 2022 · A new guide urges journalists to avoid words like “paedo” and “monster”, but we shouldn't be afraid to be blunt. By Louise Perry. Photo by ...<|separator|>
[33]
Why women should wait until engagement before sleeping with a man
Jun 25, 2024 · Louise Perry has become known for sharing her candid thoughts about intimacy and why casual sex can have a slew of 'repercussions.' Most ...
[34]
The problem with Adam, Eve and Steve | Louise Perry - The Critic
Polyamorists do not have access to any of the legal privileges that married people enjoy when it comes to matters like child custody and property inheritance.Missing: critique fault
[35]
Transgenderism is over - by Louise Perry - Maiden Mother Matriarch
Nov 15, 2024 · Transgenderism is true or false, harmful or benign, but because it is a political trend that is now reaching the end of its lifecycle.
[36]
Social services MUST intervene - the thought of Bonnie Blue and ...
Feb 20, 2025 · Social services MUST intervene - the thought of Bonnie Blue and Lily Phillips becoming mothers is too upsetting for words: LOUISE PERRY.
[37]
“ The Sexual Revolution Shackled My Generation.” Excerpts From ...
Aug 21, 2022 · Sexual asymmetry is profoundly important: One half of the population is smaller and weaker than the other half, making it much more vulnerable ...
[38]
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution - Subversive Compliance
Jan 31, 2024 · Louise Perry writes as a post-liberal feminist about the sexual revolution and its effects. That is, from the 1960s onward, the impact of ...
[39]
Perspectives in Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Progress ...
During the 1960s, reported gonorrhea rates increased approximately 15% per year. ... Principally through state STD units, CDC actively promotes adoption of STD ...Missing: pre post
[40]
Gonorrhea and Salpingitis among American Teenagers, 1960-1981
Beginning in the early 1960s, the annual number of reported cases of gonorrhea among teenagers increased dramatically, peaking at approximately 276,000 cases in ...Missing: pre post
[41]
America's single-parent households and missing fathers - N-IUSSP
Jan 13, 2025 · The percentage of US children living in single-parent households nearly tripled between 1960 and 2023, increasing from 9% to 25% (US Census ...
[42]
[PDF] The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness* - Yale Law School
We examine men's and women's subjective well‐being in the United States over the last. 35 years using data from the General Social Survey (GSS). This survey is ...
[43]
The paradox of declining female happiness
Jan 14, 2013 · ... General Social Survey. The study's findings included: Women's happiness decreased relative to men's over the period 1972 to 2006: “Women ...
[44]
Victims of the Sexual Revolution, Part 2: The Decline of Happiness ...
Aug 17, 2023 · The phenomenon of worsening mental health especially among young liberal females was also seen in Pew Research's American Trends survey. The ...
[45]
Historical abortion statistics, United States - Johnston's Archive
Mar 15, 2025 · Abortion ratio is abortions per 1000 live births. Abortion % is abortions as percentage of pregnancies (excluding fetal deaths/miscarriages).
[46]
United States abortion rates, 1960-2013
Nov 28, 2014 · United States abortion rates, 1960-2013. compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston last modified 28 November 2014. Note: data is scaled relative to 1980 ...Missing: rise UK
[47]
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution (Louise Perry): A Review
Oct 5, 2024 · Simply put, she concludes that the sexual revolution has been very bad for women and a far better path through life (for women) is to embrace chastity outside ...
[48]
The Case against the Sexual Revolution | Psephizo
Sep 20, 2022 · In her provocative new book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, Louise Perry argues that the picture is far from rosy.<|separator|>
[49]
Sexually transmitted diseases in the USA: temporal trends - PMC
In general, data on reported STDs in the USA showed steady increases during the 1960s, with a levelling off or decline of most of the bacterial STDs but ...Missing: post | Show results with:post
[50]
The Feminists Insisting That Women Are Built Differently - The Atlantic
Jun 18, 2023 · The feminists insisting that women are built differently. An emerging strand of feminism zeroes in on the differences between male and female bodies.
[51]
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution - Wikipedia
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution is a book by British journalist Louise Perry, published by Polity, which comments on sex in the twenty-first century.
[52]
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: Part 14, Of Porn and ...
Jan 13, 2023 · As Perry recounts, the stories of both Boreman and Jameson reveal how the narratives around porn can quickly switch. When working inside the ...
[53]
Marry the Market: Reflections on Perry's *The Case Against the ...
May 22, 2023 · Perry accuses mainstream feminism of promoting extreme female promiscuity, despite evidence that this is psychologically harmful for most women.
[54]
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: Louise Perry (Transcript)
Apr 18, 2023 · Her recent book is The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, published in 2022, so a new book. It notes the emergence of a widespread ...
[55]
The rise of Louise Perry - Marginal REVOLUTION
May 25, 2023 · I read Louise Perry's The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century in a single day.
[56]
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution | Wiley
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution. Louise Perry. ISBN: 978-1-509-55000-5. May 2022. Polity. 200 pages. E-Book. Starting at $16.00. Print. Starting at ...Missing: details | Show results with:details
[57]
Monogamy: How Christian sexual ethics took over the world
Apr 21, 2023 · Louise Perry, author of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, explores the possibilities of polyamory as the next sexual minority rights movement.
[58]
Re-Examining the Link Between Premarital Sex and Divorce - PMC
Compared to people with no premarital partners other than eventual spouses, those with nine or more partners exhibit the highest divorce risk, followed by those ...
[59]
Reviewing Louis Perry's “Case Against the Sexual Revolution”
Jan 8, 2023 · This is the disenchantment that Perry focuses on. She points out that hormonal birth control has shifted cultural attitudes towards sex. It has ...
[60]
Why feminist Louise Perry is arguing for the restoration of traditional ...
May 25, 2023 · Christianity, the Sexual Revolution and the future of the West · Why are we so obsessed with sex? How to talk with young people about love, porn ...
[61]
Louise Perry – On the Consequences of the Sexual Revolution and ...
Oct 5, 2022 · And in its place, what we have is the consent model, which is that basically anything goes as long as everyone is willing and able to consent.
[62]
The launch of the Maiden Mother Matriarch Substack
Mar 19, 2023 · We launched the Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast in February 2023 and the response so far has been extraordinary, both in terms of the numbers ...
[63]
Maiden Mother Matriarch with Louise Perry | Podcast on Spotify
Listen to Maiden Mother Matriarch with Louise Perry on Spotify. A podcast about sexual politics www.louiseperry.co.uk.
[64]
Maiden Mother Matriarch with Louise Perry - Apple Podcasts
Rating 4.6 (267) This is probably my favorite podcast ever. Louise has intelligent insight, questions that people don't usually think of, and she doesn't interrupt.
[65]
Maiden Mother Matriarch with Louise Perry
Maiden Mother Matriarch with Louise Perry ; 1:02:02. BONUS: The Great Feminisation Hypothesis · Oct 24. 34. 18 ; 1:12:32. The Case Against Assisted Suicide - Dan ...Missing: list | Show results with:list
[66]
Maiden Mother Matriarch with Louise Perry (Podcast) - Podchaser
Rating 3.0 (1) Podcast Details. Created by. Louise Perry. Podcast Status. Active. Started. Feb 12th, 2023. Latest Episode. Oct 8th, 2025. Release Period. Weekly. Episodes. 197.<|separator|>
[67]
The Truth About Biological Sex - Alex Mills | Maiden Mother ...
The Truth About Biological Sex - Alex Mills | Maiden Mother Matriarch Episode 142 ... 25 May 2025 at 6:07 pm UTC. Length. 50 min. Rating. Clean.
[68]
The Sexbots are Coming | Maiden Mother Matriarch 112 - YouTube
Nov 6, 2024 · Subscribe to Maiden Mother Matriarch here to listen to full extended episodes: louiseperry.substack.com My guest today is Roanne van Voorst ...
[69]
Apple Podcasts Charts - Politics Podcasts - United Kingdom
... Cox Richardson. Listeners: 47,637. Contact: pod515@abc.com. #82. 54. Maiden Mother Matriarch with Louise PerryLouise Perry. Listeners: 62,105. Contact ...
[70]
Archive - Maiden Mother Matriarch
BONUS: The Great Feminisation Hypothesis · Oct 24. 34 ; The Case Against Assisted Suicide - Dan Hitchens | Maiden Mother Matriarch Episode 168 · Oct 19. 36 ; BONUS: ...<|separator|>
[71]
Louise Perry - Biological reality vs progressive ideals - YouTube
Mar 27, 2025 · ... New Era Of Porn (4/6) | Oxford Union Debate. OxfordUnion•160K views · 1:07:32. Go to channel · The Dark History of Feminism w/ Carrie Gress.Missing: background | Show results with:background<|separator|>
[72]
DEBATE: Feminist Women Vs Non-Feminist Women - YouTube
Jun 19, 2025 · Has modern feminism betrayed the very women it promised to empower? Deborah France-White (Guilty Feminist), Louise Perry, and Erica Komisar ...
[73]
Is Feminism Betraying Women? The Hidden Risk Of Casual Sex!
Jun 18, 2025 · Deborah France-White, Louise Perry, and Erica Komisar go head-to-head on the hidden costs of sexual freedom. Deborah Frances-White is a ...
[74]
997 - Bonnie Blue & Louise Perry - The Modern Sex Work Debate
Sep 21, 2025 · Louise Perry is a writer, Press Officer for the campaign group We Can't Consent To This and an author. Bonnie Blue is a British pornographic ...Missing: public appearances
[75]
Has the Sexual Revolution Failed? A Free Press Debate. - YouTube
Dec 1, 2023 · Anna Khachiyan, Louise Perry, Grimes, and Sarah Haider duke it out over porn, the pill, feminism, liberalism, and liberation.
[76]
Louise Perry on Chris Williamson Show : r/Natalism - Reddit
Mar 6, 2025 · My husband and I were together for many years already, we got married when we felt ready for kids and marriage was the quickest way to deal with ...
[77]
It's Not Normal to Raise Children Like This - The New York Times
Oct 14, 2025 · Louise Perry is a journalist based in Britain. She is the author of “The Case Against the Sexual Revolution” and the host of the podcast “Maiden ...Missing: views | Show results with:views
[78]
Louise Perry: Feminist arguments against marriage are flawed!
Mar 17, 2025 · I tell women don't have children because you're likely to be a married single mother with a manchild. Take the road less traveled and don't ...<|separator|>
[79]
What's Holding Women Back from Starting a Family?
Apr 25, 2025 · Louise Perry agreed that motherhood requires a commitment to delayed gratification and self-sacrifice. That may explain why religious ...
[80]
My conversation with… Louise Perry - Seen & Unseen
May 14, 2023 · Radical feminist. · Where I have tended to focus my feminist efforts on achieving equality among the sexes, Louise is promoting wellbeing.Missing: biography | Show results with:biography
[81]
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the ...
Rating 4.3 (3,735) Apr 1, 2022 · The sexual revolution has liberated us to enjoy a heady mixture of erotic freedom and personal autonomy. Right? Wrong, argues Louise Perry in her provocative ...
[82]
Men do not have the 'right' to sex - UnHerd
Dec 8, 2020 · Louise Perry is a freelance writer and campaigner against sexual violence. ... The Nordic model is the only system that actually protects ...Missing: impact | Show results with:impact
[83]
Love and Liberty: The Original Sexual Revolution
Nov 8, 2023 · And you see people like Louise Perry and Mary Harrington and others, sort of rediscovering that. Yeah,. Andrew Wilson you do. And it'd be ...
[84]
A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century: The Young Adult ... - Wiley
Free delivery 30-day returnsLouise Perry. ISBN: 978-1-509-56282-4. February 2025. Polity. 176 pages. E-Book. Starting at $12.00. Print. Starting at $14.95. E-Book. Available through Wiley ...<|separator|>
[85]
Louis Perry ad sexyal revolution. What do you think about Her and ...
Dec 22, 2023 · She holds some views that are more in line with mainstream feminism (i.e. that it's a good thing women can have an education, career, the vote, ...Missing: equity | Show results with:equity
[86]
Why I think you should be suspicious of Louise Perry - Reddit
Dec 11, 2023 · Perry's arguments rely on a false premise that casual sex is increasing among young people when it has been decreasing for many years. She also ...
[87]
UK Supreme Court rules legal definition of a woman is based ... - BBC
Apr 16, 2025 · The Supreme Court has ruled that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex, in a decision which could have far-reaching implications.
[88]
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2825%2900834-7/fulltext
[89]
The UK Supreme Court's ruling and the rights of transgender people
May 2, 2025 · On April 16, 2025, the UK Supreme Court ruled that only those who are what it terms as biologically female can be defined as women.