Sexual Utopia in Power

"Sexual Utopia in Power" is a 2006 essay by F. Roger Devlin, first published in The Occidental Quarterly. It's one of the most cited essays in Red Pill circles. Its central claim: the "sexual revolution" didn't deliver men's fantasy; it delivered women's. He structures it like the French Revolution: an anarchic phase, then a "reign of terror", then a reaction ("Thermidor").

The essay opens by tying its subject to the "catastrophic decline" of white birth rates, and returns to race and the survival of "the Occident" at several points (summarised below).

Two utopias

Men produce sperm by the millions; women release a few hundred eggs in a lifetime. So "males display and females choose."
The male utopia is a world without limits on female desire for him, a harem, as in James Bond films. Early post-war men (the Kinsey and Playboy era) thought abolishing traditional sexual morality would release a hidden reservoir of female desire.
Women aren't naturally monogamous, Devlin argues, but hypergamous: they want the best man, and the "best" changes over time. The female utopia is to mate with the ideal man and have him commit exclusively, which is impossible for all women at once. He cites Aristophanes' Assemblywomen, where women take power and decree that the most attractive men must sleep with each of them in turn.
Hypergamy means rejecting most men. The real revolution, he says, was women acting on their utopia, as encouraged by Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl (1962) and Cosmopolitan.

One revolution

In the 1960s, young women on campus began acting on this plan, framing it as liberation from marriage.
On the "double standard": traditional morality expected chastity from both sexes, and promiscuous men were condemned as rakes. Female fidelity was stressed more because women are better at monogamy, because monogamous women force men to be monogamous, because of paternity certainty, and because women benefit most from marriage. He argues most double standards actually favour women, and that modern women want a "right to adultery for women only".

"Date rape"

He describes a typical campus case: an inexperienced young man and woman, both taught that anything between consenting adults is fine and that the sexes are the same, end up in bed. She meets little more than token resistance, feels used afterwards, and decides it was against her will.
Devlin's position: that is not rape. His analogy is a lottery loser who claims he was robbed because he wouldn't have played had he known he'd lose. People must accept the consequences of their choices.
He argues rape was traditionally an offence against a woman's chastity and modesty (her duty to family and husband), not against her personal wishes. Feminists, he says, redefined it around consent, so "the same act may be a crime on Monday and a right on Tuesday" depending on her mood, and he calls their open talk of "redefining rape" an admission of false accusation.

The "reign of terror"

Feminists filled the vacuum left by the collapse of norms, insisting only women have rights without duties.
He calls sexual harassment rules (from 1975) a way to criminalise ordinary male courtship and unwanted approaches from unattractive men, which colleges encouraged women to report.
Chivalry: men's traditional reluctance to use force against women is a principle of honour, not something women are entitled to. He warns that it may not survive women's current behaviour: "If I were a woman, I would be worried about this."

Return of the primitive

Sexual liberation doesn't create more sex for men, only redistributes it. Without monogamy, most women pursue the same few attractive men, creating de facto polygamy like a baboon pack, with many men left out. Women are often drawn to promiscuous men because of their promiscuity, and then complain those men won't commit.

Modern chivalry

Men's protective instinct is now channelled into supporting feminist campaigns (denouncing "predators" and "date rapists"), which he calls risk-free gallantry. He argues young men face an impossible situation: seeking a mate makes them predators, finding one makes them rapists, and avoiding it makes them immature.

"The revolution destroys sex"

Besides promiscuous women there are spinsters. Devlin argues the "modesty" of women who hold out is really vanity and hypergamy. Media images (from Cary Grant onward) raise women's expectations. He lists other causes of women not marrying:

"Parasitic dating": women dating men they aren't interested in for free meals and gifts.
Date rape fear and self-defence culture that make trust impossible.
Divorce: women, he says, are responsible for most break-ups, then complain they can't find a replacement ("angry adulteresses").
Rudeness and lack of homemaking skills.

He also cites Henry Makow's theory that much female anger stems from sexual frustration.

The forgotten men

Ordinary, decent bachelors, the men who would once have married young, are left without wives. He contrasts them with women who spent their youth on attractive men, divorce or perfectionism and later expect these bachelors to support them and their children. He quotes Schopenhauer on female beauty as nature's tool to secure a provider, and calls Western woman "the new 'white man's burden'", which men are starting to throw off.

The marriage strike

He cites a 2004 study saying 22% of American bachelors aged 25–34 never want to marry, and talk in Germany of a "procreation strike". Men fear losing their children in family court. He says no woman is owed support, children, respect or love, that men should abandon the protector role, and that most Western women have "forfeited the privilege of marrying decent men". He notes men seeking foreign wives and feminist efforts to restrict that, and says chastity is now a man's only legal protection against accusations.

Devlin's proposals ("What is to be done?")

He says men currently have the upper hand and must not rush back to the altar at the first concession. His proposals:

Men should refuse to father children without a legally binding promise from the woman to "love, honour and obey" him, and the divorce industry should be shut down.
Personalised marriage contracts, which could let the husband vote on behalf of the family, which he says would erode the "superstitious belief" in a universal right to political participation.
Economic policy aimed at letting an ordinary working man afford a family, to "carry on our race and civilization".
A wife's claim to her husband's support should depend on her acting as a wife. If she leaves, she leaves the children and the house.
Date rape: "restoring shotgun marriage — but with the shotgun at the woman's back", i.e. the accuser marries the man.
Harassment accusations should be public record, so employers and suitors can keep lists of women who make them.
An end to universal co-education.
Men must act quickly to begin "unspoiling" women.

How monogamy works

Societies used to expect men to marry and made it easy, partly through the "grandmother effect": older women steering young women toward decent rather than merely attractive men.
Young women shouldn't be asked what they want but told: "sex is too important a matter to be left to the independent judgment of young women". He argues arranged marriages are often happy.
Monogamy is incompatible with equality of the sexes. Men are "supposed to have authority over women", and women don't stay with men they can't look up to. He says a man "preying upon" a younger woman of lower rank (e.g. a professor and a student) should be grounds for regarding him as a husband, not a rapist, and calls for an end to sexual equality.

Conclusion

Monogamy artificially strengthens men's position: each woman must choose a different man and stick with him, so even the least attractive man can find a wife. Abolishing it strengthens women over men and the attractive over the unattractive. Marriage was likely invented by men and made societies stronger. "If the Occident does not restore marriage, we will be overwhelmed by those who continue to practice it."