Liberation and its Discontents

The sexual revolution of the 1960s made a large promise: if we just let go of our inhibitions, we’ll be happy and fulfilled. Yet sexual liberation has made us no happier and, if anything, less fulfilled. Why?

These remarkable essays, drawn from the pages of the celebrated quarterly City Journal by its editor Myron Magnet, tackle the question head-on. As Modern Sex‘s authors show in moving and often eloquent detail, sex today is increasingly mechanical and without commitment — a department of plumbing, hygiene, or athletics rather than a private sphere for the creation of human meaning. The result: legions of unhappy adults and confused teenagers deprived of their innocence, on their way not to maturity but to disillusionment. Continue reading →