The threat of sex strikes as punishment for the ever-increasing assault on the “reproductive rights” of women has become a point of derision for the internet right. Many cultural commentators have pointed out that progressive women seem to be reverse-engineering healthy sexual practices as a response to having to take an unwanted pregnancy to term in the wake of new abortion restrictions across the country. After Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization struck down Roe v. Wade, these threats have only increased.
Some have taken this as an indication that the country may be on the verge of a return to traditional sexual ethics. Easy access to abortion has all but eliminated the social risks of casual sexual encounters (barring the occasional STD), which has led to the rise of the so-called “hookup culture”. Did you have a bad sexual experience and wound up pregnant? No biggie; just stop by your local Planned Parenthood and get an abortion. Now that abortion access has been curtailed, we can expect casual sex to decrease rapidly.
Except, it's not as simple as that. The sexual revolution was well underway when the U.S. Supreme Court decided on Roe v. Wade in 1973. Roe was not the catalyst for the sexual revolution, but a means by which women could fully participate in it. The optimist may hope that the death of Roe will result, in turn, in the death of hookup culture, but the global liberal order has an interest in a loose sexual ethic and the continuation of the sexual revolution. It will continue because it must. Dobbs is just a delay.
Even if Dobbs and (hopefully) a future federal ban on abortion manage to change Americans’ minds on the unborn as a people with equal protection under the law, this still does little to put an end to hookup culture. Hookup culture is a result of a public square that lacks objective morality regarding sexual matters. Most public and private institutions have done nothing in recent years to promote a healthy sexual ethic, and have arguably done yeoman's work to destroy it.
How did we arrive at a public square that almost completely lacks a sexual ethic? Although the answer is multifactorial, we can place part of the blame on liberalism and the modern liberal order. Liberalism promised the neutrality of the state and public institutions, institutions that do not endorse a specific moral order and, therefore, allow disparate worldviews to exist under its umbrella. This, however, has turned out to be a lie. Concerted efforts on the part of the state in recent years to destroy the nuclear family and to promote sexual liberation have proven the impossibility of neutrality on the part of public institutions and have evidenced their hijacking by postmodernists, moral relativists, and activists for sexual liberation.
These activists have been busy and have not wasted time using public institutions as their instruments for sexual liberation, first by villainizing any attempts to legislate traditional sexual morality as fascism, and then by imposing their own worldview through the public school system, civil law legislation, and human rights groups. Have these re-education efforts worked? The slippery slope we have been sliding down these past few years surely indicates it. It took less than fifteen years to go from federalized gay marriage, to drag queen story hour, to minor-attracted persons (pedophiles) being pushed toward acceptance in academic circles.
Fortunately, the new right has increasingly recognized the pedagogic aspect of the law and abandoned the “politics is downstream from culture” only mindset. However, one cannot expect the law to change the minds of Americans on abortion and sexual liberation overnight. It may take decades for this effect to take place. The common moral purpose of society takes generations to dismantle, and it may take many more to recuperate.
Although there may be a few progressive women who truly embrace the “sex strike” mindset, and there may be a small number of men who diminish their openness to sex with strangers after the death of Roe, most of them will not change their behavior. Abortion is undoubtedly used as a form of birth control. Even so, unlike most forms of birth control, it could never release itself completely from a certain social stigma. The “shout your abortion” crowd is relatively small even among pro-abortion progressives.
For sexually active young people, abortion has been and will be continued to be used as a last resort. Contraceptives are still widely available, and there is almost no cultural incentive for people to stop using them, or for them to stop participating in hookup culture altogether.
For hookup culture to end, abortion restrictions will never be enough. Limiting access to contraceptives may be a good start. Justice Clarence Thomas signaled the possibility in his concurring opinion of the Dobbs decision, where he opened the discussion to the overruling of Griswold v. Connecticut and other substantive due process-related decisions.
However, for hookup culture to truly die, public and private institutions will have to participate in the promotion of a public square that is morally thick, emphasizing the dignity of the human person and the unitive aspect of all facets of his life. If we wish for a healthy citizenship, health must be pursued not only in the physical sense, but in the relational, spiritual, and psychological sense as well. The state has a role to play in this.
And why should we procure the death of hookup culture and a reversion to the damages brought on by the sexual revolution? For the pursuit of the common good and the creation of a healthy society, where people can truly flourish and reach true happiness.