The sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s is remembered as a time of great freedom for women. But did the sexual revolution have the same goals as the Women's Liberation Movement? Was it truly liberation for women or just another insidious form of oppression? In this provocative book, Shelia Jeffreys argues that sexual freedom sometimes directly opposed actual freedom for women. Anticlimax traces sexual mores and attitudes from the 1950s to the 1990s, exploring the nature of both straight and gay relationships and offering original and compelling commentary on Lolita, Naked Lunch, The Joy of Sex, The Masters/Johnson report, and other representations in the literature on sexuality. At the root of sexual liberation, Sheila Jeffreys finds an increasing eroticisation of power differences within heterosexual, lesbian and gay communities. Her alternative vision of sexual relations based on equality is a major statement in the debates over sex and violence that remain relevant in discussions about the Slutwalks, sexualisation of girls and the pervasiveness of porn culture.
Sheila Jeffreys is a radical feminist writer and activist who has worked mainly against male violence and for lesbian feminism. She joined her first Womens Liberation Movement group in the UK in 1973. In 1991, she moved to Australia to teach at the University of Melbourne where she is now a Professorial Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences. She moved back to the UK in 2015. She is the author of twelve books on issues such as the history of sexuality, lesbian feminism, prostitution, gay mens politics, beauty practices, the threat of patriarchal religion to womens rights, and the politics of transgenderism. Her most recent book is Trigger Warning: My Lesbian Feminist Life (2020).
Anticlimax is the most impressing and critical book that I have read in a long time. Jeffreys is clear, concise, smart, and critical and in all this incorporates a dark sense of humor that I truly appreciate. She delivers strong arguments that are difficult to disprove or argue against.Elin Weiss, Metaphsychology
