In the past ten years, we lost hope in American politics, realized we were being watched on the internet, and finally broke the gender binary (kind of). So many of the beliefs we held to be true at the beginning of the decade have since been proven false—or at least, much more complicated than they once seemed. The Decade of Disillusion is a series that tracks how the hell we got here.What was sex in the 2010s? It’s hard to say exactly. At the beginning of the decade, sex positivity was the pervasive message. The fierce debates that had divided the feminist movement in the 70s and 80s— Is heterosexual sex inherently violent? Is porn inherently exploitative? Should women seek liberation through sex at all?—had virtually disappeared from the mainstream in the 21st century, and a relatively optimistic, politics-free view of sex yawned into the 2010s.
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Perhaps women were more free to pursue their erotic desires: The 2010s transformed the dating landscape for women with the introduction of apps like Tinder, allowing them to find a sexual partner at a moment’s notice, if they wanted. As pop feminism became ascendent, women spoke out against the forces designed to constrain their sexual expression relative to men's. TIME magazine called 2014 “the best year for women since the dawn of time.”Yet key moments of the decade made clear the limits of women’s sexual freedom and the persistent, lopsided power differential of heterosexual dynamics. College campuses became the repository for broader sexual anxieties, and in the extreme, a lack of concern for other people’s boundaries resulted in the egregious sexual assault cases that punctuated the decade. But the discussions surrounding consent and power dynamics in the earlier part of the decade paved the way for #MeToo, the mass reckoning that has colored the sexual politics of the years that followed.It may be that now, sex—and in particular, heterosexual sex—is becoming reinfused with politics. A movement to decriminalize sex work is, for the first time, winning broad support. Renewed attacks on reproductive health care are exposing the threat sexual freedom poses to conservative ideals. And people are once again evaluating whether the way they have sex—how and with whom—aligns with their political views.
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Where will it lead? We don’t know yet, but here’s what the last 10 years looked like:
April 3, 2011 — The first SlutWalk takes place in Toronto, Ontario, starting discussion about victim-blaming and slut-shaming
September 12, 2012 — Tinder launches for iPhone users, irrevocably changing the dating landscape
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October 15, 2013 — Emily Yoffe’s essay “College Women: Stop Getting Drunk” reflects moral panic around hook-up culture
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September 2014 — Emma Sulkowicz begins mattress protest on Columbia’s campus, advancing conversations around consent and sexual assault
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December 12, 2014 — Director Lina Esco’s film Free the Nipple raises awareness about the ways in which women’s bodies and sexuality continue to be policed
October 5, 2017 — The New York Times’ Harvey Weinstein investigation catalyzes an international movement
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“I think in general #MeToo is a movement we can be proud of, but it’s still missing the key concept of, ‘What are our desires and how can we fulfill them?’” said Nona Willis Aronowitz, a sex columnist for Teen Vogue.
December 2017 — A machine learning algorithm creates a fake porn video of Gal Gadot, foretelling the rise of deepfakes and AI-assisted porn
February 14, 2018 — A 19-year-old man who idolizes Elliot Rodger kills 17 in Parkland, bringing discussion of incel culture to the mainstream
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April 11, 2018 — President Donald Trump signs anti-trafficking legislation with devastating effects for sex workers
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