Are children the losers of the sexual revolution? | Richard Reeves, Judith Butler, & more
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About the episode: Our biggest thinkers on marriage, family, and the sexual revolution.
How has the sexual revolution reshaped our understanding of relationships and family? After the sexual liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s began upending traditional norms, Americans started seeing greater personal freedoms and a more flexible understanding of relationships, sexuality, and family roles.
One lasting impact is that marriage is now based primarily on choice rather than societal expectations, and men are no longer always expected to be the head of the household.
But despite the clear benefits of increased egalitarianism and personal liberty, the sexual revolution arguably came with trade-offs. As journalist Louise Perry notes, one example is that far more children are being raised in broken homes today than they were decades ago, even though nearly every conceivable metric shows that it’s better for children to have married parents.
In this Big Think video, we explore the sexual revolution and its impacts on romantic relationships, families, and children in the modern world.
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@AditiThapa-w6u
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
''I've heard'' a phrase I never thought I'd hear from a researcher lol😂 sounds very odd when a literal researcher ends up the sentence with something like that
@alto7183
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Si la reproducción heterosexual sirve, para que repararla?, si no está roto la reproducción sexual heterosexual no hay por qué repararla, mejor potenciarla y darle up grade para que no se aburran en la vía láctea y nunca dejen de ser heterosexuales, sugerencia.
Edición genética e ingeniería genética grado civil controlado heterosexual para que no se aburran los pioneros y los que levanten todo en la vía láctea, así de simple.
@edinamertz6947
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Lower level of domestic abuse is not true completely incorrect in Romania relationships are monogamous but domestic abuse is extremely common. …
@JKDDarthSniper
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Men have always taken care of kids when they have to.
You DON'T have to REINVENT what it means to be a father. You have to REINFORCE what fathers are and have been. Reinventing marriage, same thing. Also, gay people are criminally over represented in this video. Gee, I wonder why. Marriage is a religious covenant between a man and woman. Anything else is just a civil union that means less.
@ChucksNPearls
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Still FAILING at what has become a Global Public health CRISIS which is the VIOLENCE & SEXUAL Predation of Males against women & children!
It is absolutely better & more healthier for children to be raised by a single mother as long AS THE ABUSIVE perpetrator isn't involved!
When the women & children being less than under Males IS Properly acknowledged, addressed, & remedied; we won't have EXPERIENCE ANY PROGRESS
@rodrigodiaz5003
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Better Help?= do not recommend the channel
@St_Josiah
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
This is the most depressing video ever. Marry for life, have lots of beautiful children. Yes it’s hard, that’s why it is worth doing.
@galacticambitions1277
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
It's totally absurd to say that monogamy is advantageous but heterosexuality isn't. How do you decide what parts of traditionalism to hold onto? This one-sidedness is spurious, random and capricious. An excellent example of bend-with-the-windist amorality.
@ashy969
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
I hate when people idealise marriage like this.
I was an accident baby. My parents stayed together solely because of me. And so I disagree with thid idea of parents staying together is always better. Parents splitting up rather than staying together but fighting all the time IS better (so says the research done in Europe, too).
Okay, It also didn't help that my mother was emotionally immature, narcissistic, and abusive. But the fighting stressed and scared me besides that, too. I vividly remember the shouting and door slappings…Having just a calm and kind but alcoholic father would have been better… Although I wonder if my dad would have been an alcoholic without my mom making his life a living hell…. And…I know it would have been better because my mother died when I was a teenager and so I did live only with my dad. My life got infinity calmer without the fights (okay, also without the beatings from my mom).
Of course the best would be to have two emotionally mature, mentally healthy parents who maintain a stable and mutually beneficial relationship with each other. Those people would realy do parenting and would provide a stable, safe and loving home. But these things can be done with just one such parent, too. The key is the emotional and mental state. The maturity. Not the togetherness.
I also had a classmate who's parents devorced and he also said it was infinity better to have 2 calm homes than 1 with the fighting. He got more attention and love, too…
Marriage is not a recipe for a stable and safe household. It is not guarantee for good parenting. It is not guarantee even for financial security.
My best friend married her partner after living with him for 8 years. 2 years later they got divorced because they realized they grew apart as persons. There was no fighting or such… they just became more of roommates than a couple. Another friend of mine got married after 3 months and 13 years later they're still happy – or seem to. It's largely a metter of luck besides having the right attitude towards each other – or the relationship itself.
And level of education didn't drop in single parent or split households in countries with free or financially supported education. Maybe not the family structures are the issue here…Just saying…
@ladybookworms
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Haha HA this is only the FINAL nail in the coffin. It is by NO MEANS the ONLY problem which had led to this… it is the proverbial last straw that broke the camel's back.
@alfredpetrie7920
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Kids need both parents,a parent who abandons you leaves a void in you that can never be filled.I KNOW
@alfredpetrie7920
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
I'm nearby 65 I feel guilty I never had children quite frankly I was terrified any child mine would suffer the pain of parental split like I suffered
@alfredpetrie7920
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
There was never a Golden age
@tw8464
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Notice how it is always "are children losers of 'the sexual revolution' or 'women's rights'" etc. insert distraction for the simple minded masses. And never the real question, "Are children the losers of the 'trickle down' mafia aristocracy's decades of wage theft, offshoring, draconian 'zoning' rigging the fake "housing market, and the other countless 'pull up the ladder behind me' greed crazed 'trickle down' mentality crime syndicates." Tells you everything you need to know and who is controlling the script and all the wealth everyone produces with our blood sweat and tears that's immediately stolen before it ever even crosses our pockets
@dereksniper
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
wonder which side is right…some researchers claimed as you marry later people are more stuck in their ways, suffered trauma, used to being alone…
@saramirza6709
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Sick, political benefited modernisations : LGTB
@Trymsi
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
This video is very biased in favor of monogamy and marriage. Please consider that polyamorous relationships are very capable of producing safe and stable environments for children.
@Tempest-lk9t9
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
12:04 what?
@patriciaramnauth5710
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
I don’t understand what the point was of having these great thinkers if you weren’t going to use their expertise wisely
@suleymanpinarli
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Our society prides itself on equality, but this does not translate to happiness or functional family lives. The detrimental effects on children are well-documented and undeniable. Nevertheless, we follow our personal whims, ignoring what data and moral reasoning clearly suggest is the better path. In an effort to justify these primal urges, we cloak them in complex theories and rationalizations. Our primary concern seems to be personal satisfaction, with little regard for the well-being of the younger generation or the societal fabric at large. Despite this, deep down we recognize that our actions are misguided, both from a factual and ethical standpoint. This video was very educational. It is amazing to see the extent of biases, rooted in societal expectations, permeating even this supposedly enlightened space where people are expected to be more aware of their unconscious biases. Yes, we are free. We can choose to stand against our primal urges or obey them. If we didn't choose to stand against our urges, there wouldn't be a society decaying today. The evidence in this video is displaying a decay. Who cares what "they," think, it is right there if you dare to see it.
@VMorgenthaler-yp6yz
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
I think a lot of women have been losers in the sexual revolution. The only real winners are men. They get a lot more sex, especially their favorite kind: casual, with no true connection to the woman. Meanwhile, the woman is stuck with all the responsibility if she gets pregnant. What a shit deal.
@KevinMcNeill-n7h
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
We must be weird, we married young, we both, at different times, contributed to the bread winning and after 54 years we're still together.
@anon-soso-anon
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Judith Butler PHD, regardless of social structure, without a biological man and a biological woman you can't have your own children.
@worldadventuretravel
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
You would think at least one of these talking heads would have touched on the statistical fact that married women still get stuck with over 90% of the domestic labor, including being treated as the default parent every time school schedules change or kids are sent home sick etc., and they suffer the "motherhood penalty" in their careers. On top of this, they still do the lion's share of the mental and emotional labor in their marriage and in the family unit. Men add very little value in this equation. It doesn't seem to take long for most women to feel like they are raising another child instead of sharing a partnership with a husband and grown man. In short, for women, marriage just isn't worth it.
@Saurabh.Nikhade
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Richard Reeves is brilliant
@suntzu6122
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Everyone under the top 10% of men are losers in the sexual revolution.
Good luck explaining this to modern women. It will be another 70 years before they are able to admit wh0re culture isnt good for our society.
@fubytv731
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Yo, the model of marriage that was founded on economic dependency of women on men is still going strong in many non western countries.
@Overt_Erre
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Gotta love the confused mix of opinions that don't give any unified idea of what's going on or what to do about it and still can't help ending on a positive note of "things are fairer now! We can't go back!" right after noting how relationships are returning to a pre-civilization primitive state, children have been priced out of the economy, demographics are catastrophically low, while romance hasn't benefited either. They further say children benefit from stable heterosexual parents, as well as whole civilizations. But hey, everything's just alright!
Cognitive dissonance central over here. It's not hard to remove "economic dependency". "Economic dependency" as a term can be used interchangeably with welfare. The truth is no one has any desire to do anything serious about it, because of how unpopular meddling with people's lifestyles is in politics. Modern economies will just have to keep importing workers from poorer countries where "economic dependency" hasn't been entirely replaced and nuclear families display healthy birth rates.
@jgfderuufddfh
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Parents do not like excepting their mistakes…,anti natalism would solve Lifes wrong decisions….
@gdg1963
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Sexual immorality plays a huge role in the destruction of the human family, particularly in America. And financial greed and lust for material gains, "keeping up with the Joneses" only exacerbated it all. Feminism certainly fueled it. And the discounting of the importance of a father's love, and then a mother's love fuels it immensely!
@ChildFirst
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
6:52 ….. Slow Love & Late Marriage
Strange, I disagree with her an opinion/analysis…
It's actually about family becoming smaller, Just the Husband-Wife & their couple of kids (Low Birth Rate). Absence of Grandparents & Siblings of their Parents, Other extended family brother's & sister's…. Professional Engagement of both parents…. increasing Materialistic Life & decreasing Spritual Practices.
@Pangaea83
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
See a lot of the cultural dialogue around the state of men
@thepolishedwook
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
I've never seriously considered having kids an option because it's so far out of my budget it's not even realistic. I can't even imagine having a special needs child. It has absolutely nothing to do with a sexual revolution. I already have to work 60 hours a week to afford to live. Thousands of dollars of child care every month is not an option. Not only that, but as a kid who grew up with a Dad that bailed and made my life hell in high school doing everything he could to avoid paying child support, guys benched themselves. They are no longer providers or protectors and are incredibly emotionally immature. Most men I know simply can't handle any kind of stress, throw tantrums when anyone tells them no and are financially irresponsible even if they make good money. They spend 80% of their time staring at their phone and want sex on demand while still expecting women to clean, cook and raise the kids while they sit around watching TV and doing nothing. Men didn't get benched- the cost benefit analysis of having a partner doesn't work out a lot of the time. Offer better and you'll get better results. It turns out women don't owe you anything just because you were born a man. And if we have the choice, setting self care and personal goals aside to make a man a priority when they don't offer much just isn't worth it.
@ayanaxdanielle
October 16, 2025 at 9:25 pm
Read the Bible.
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