Podcast

Culture

Feminism

S&U interviews

14 May 2023

4 min read

My conversation with… Louise Perry

Re-enchanting sex. Yes, you read that right. Belle Tindall reflects on her somewhat spicy conversation with Louise Perry for the Re-Enchanting podcast.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen.

A woman smiles as she speaks into a microphone. In the background is Big Ben.

Louise Perry recording at Lambeth Palace Library.

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Radical feminist. Counter-feminist. Arch-conservative. Progressive puritan: the name Louise Perry comes with a milieu of labels attached to it, and after spending a couple of hours in her company, I would suggest that not one of them can adequately contain her.

Louise has written and released an utter grenade of a book. Love it or loathe it, you simply cannot ignore it. The Case Against the Sexual Revolution is exactly what it claims to be, a thorough (and admittedly compelling) dismissal of the notion that the 1960s sexual revolution was a leap forward for the well-being of women. According to the book, the idea that it was/is some sort of feminist victory is simply a myth, or more sinister than that, a lie.

If Louise is wrong, she has boldly given us the opportunity to enjoy disagreeing with her and her provocative views. But if there is even an ounce of truth in what Louise is suggesting, then it surely needs to be shouted from the rooftops.

Personally, I found myself in both agreement and disagreement while speaking with her for the Re-Enchanting… podcast. I’ll start with the disagreements, of which I admittedly wish there were more.

Where I have tended to focus my feminist efforts on achieving equality among the sexes, Louise is promoting wellbeing.

Louise defines herself as an agnostic, I define myself as a Christian, we both define ourselves as feminists. And yet, in what is perhaps an unexpected turn of events, Louise sits in a more conservative space than I do when it comes to what that feminism tends to look like. Maybe that makes me the exact type of person for whom her book was written. Where I have tended to focus my feminist efforts on achieving equality among the sexes, Louise is promoting wellbeing. And, according to Louise, they simply are not always the same thing. A solution to a society where masculine attributes are always favoured is not, Louise suggests, to encourage women to assimilate these masculine attributes (for therein lies the ultimate flaw in the sexual revolution). Rather, we should demand that our society learn to value attributes that are distinctly feminine, such as motherhood.

In hindsight, I wish I had asked Louise what such a society would look like for me, who is not a mother. How can I be valued? Are women who don’t, for assorted reasons, fit the mould of wife and mother inevitably pushed to the margins of this kind of ideal? Is the discrimination that we may face simply a result of the un-traditional unfolding of our own lives?

There is so much truth in Louise Perry’s bleak diagnosis of our modern sexual ethic, it almost hurts to hear it. The thing is, it needs to be heard.

That, and her emphasis on evolutionary biology as the primary explanation behind sexual assault (something which, working at a rape crisis centre, she has witnessed the trauma of in close proximity), are where Louise and I come to a fork in the road and seemingly favour differing routes. Call it naivety, but I suppose I leave a little more room for redemption and innate goodness in my worldview (and therefore, a lot more room for the condemnation of societies that propagate male violence because I have decided to expect, and therefore ideologically demand, more from men) than evolutionary biology tends to allow.

Despite this, I would suggest that there is so much truth in Louise Perry’s bleak diagnosis of our modern sexual ethic, it almost hurts to hear it. The thing is, it needs to be heard.

We spoke a lot about ‘sexual disenchantment,’ something which she mentions in her book. In keeping with Max Weber’s definition of such, sexual disenchantment is the (very recent) idea that sex is meaningless; it is just one of the many social interactions we have on any given day, akin to making a coffee for a colleague in the office, or meeting someone for a game of tennis. There is nothing inherently unique, sacred, or distinct about it. At least, not if one decides there isn’t. Any meaning attributed to sex can be an added extra.

The interesting thing, according to Louise, is that while society may believe on some ideological level that this is true, most of us simply do not live like it is. Afterall, if there is no unique understanding of sexual activity, there can be no unique understanding of sexual assault. As Louise chillingly stated, if this were the case, rape would just be a form of theft. And yet- both instinctively and legally, that is not how we perceive it.

Therefore, whether we like it or not, Louise forces us to ask ourselves this deeply uncomfortable question: is such a disenchanted perception of reality truly benefitting women in the way that we have been told that it is? Or is she right, have we been sold a lie? Is it time to make a societal U-turn and re-enchant sex once again?

Listen to our episode of Re-enchanting… Sex with Louise Perry and come to your own conclusions. Whether you agree or disagree with what she says (or, as in my case, a little of both), you’ll be mightily glad that you did.

Review

Art

Culture

26 July 2024

5 min read

Paradise cottage: Milton reimagin’d

Artist Richard Kenton Webb converses with the blind poet in his former home.

Jonathan Evens

Jonathan is Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell. He is co-author of The Secret Chord, and writes on the arts.

A black and white illustration shows a man holding a walk stick standing among tomb-like structures.

The blind poet. Charcoal and white chalk on paper, 2022.

Richard Kenton Webb.

‘Waiting to Speak to Milton’ shows the artist Richard Kenton Webb on a rain-swept night waiting in a valley for a car whose headlights can just be seen at the crest of the hill. For this image he has imagined himself waiting for a lift from John Milton to discuss the poems Paradise Regain’d and Samson Agonistes. As the opening image to Webb’s exhibition at Milton’s Cottage in Chalfont St Giles it is appropriately positioned in the porch by which visitors enter the cottage.

This image of light appearing in the dark night of the soul symbolises the beginning of Webb’s journey with Milton and his late poems Paradise Lost, Paradise Regain’d and Samson Agonistes. This has been a 10-year journey that Webb began following a conversation with his son in front of John Martin’s mezzotints for Paradise Lost at the Tate. Following on from his son’s encouragement to begin work, over that period, Webb says Milton has been a companion like Virgil to Dante guiding him through the narrative of his own life including the dark nights of redundancy and lockdown. The result has been 128 drawings, 40 paintings and 12 relief prints forming A Conversation with Milton’s Paradise Lost, a commission of 12 drawings in response to Milton’s pastoral elegy, Lycidas, for the Milton Society of America, and the 13 drawings forming this exhibition, A Conversation with Paradise Regain’d & Samson Agonistes.

Milton proved an effective companion because he, too, had passed through his own dark night of the soul. He arrived in Chalfont St Giles to escape the Great Plague of 1665 after the Republican cause to which he had dedicated more than a decade of his life - being Oliver Cromwell’s unofficial spin doctor - had collapsed around him with the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. He had been lucky to escape with his life following imprisonment and the banning of his books. In addition, he had lost his sight, his beloved second wife, much of his money and all of his influence.

Despite these traumas, Milton was able to express his love for his Creator wonderfully in Paradise Lost, which was completed at the cottage in Chalfont St Giles, and Paradise Regain’d, which was inspired whilst there. In both Paradise Regain’d and Samson Agonistes Milton deploys his rich verses and visions of spirituality and the forces of good and evil to reflect on the Restoration of the Monarchy and the loss of the English republic, doing so by means of Biblical stories concerning Jesus and Samson.

Browse Webb's exhibition

A black and white illustration show a person crouching in the corner and lifting as it was a stage drape.

Modes of Apprehension by Richard Kenton Webb – charcoal and white chalk on paper, 2022.

Inside a history cottage, black and white illustrations hang on the wall.

Webb’s exhibition at Milton’s Cottage in Chalfont St Giles.

A black and white illustration shows a two people close together on a pinnacle.

The Pinnacle by Richard Kenton Webb - charcoal and white chalk on paper, 2022.

Webb’s exhibition at Milton’s Cottage in Chalfont St Giles.

In Webb’s view, “Paradise Regain’d is about overcoming impossible situations” while, in Samson Agonistes, Milton’s Redeemer shows “Samson, the blind and foolish man”, “that we can always find hope in our living God even when society does not”. These poems moved Webb out of despair to discover hope because he knew they were heading towards redemption. As a result, he sees Milton as “a great English poet who gives hope, which in itself is a creative act for these difficult times”.

Although the story of Samson pre-dates that of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness, Webb’s painting series begins with images inspired by Paradise Regain’d, just as Samson Agonistes followed Paradise Regain’d when both were jointly published in 1671, because Jesus’ resistance of temptation ultimately redeems those, like Samson and Adam and Eve, who were unable to resist.

These are images set against a dark background with the exception of the final Paradise Regain’d image with its white sky depicting a paradise within as Jesus has overcome temptation, is in full communion with God and is about to begin his ministry by calling his first disciples. The images move from the trauma and test of temptation – whether involving hunger, greed, lust, threat, pride or ambition – to a calmness of mind that is equipoise and liberation and which also enables the destruction of false temples.

They are images in which movement is arrested in still moments which form theatrical tableaux. These, like medieval and early Tudor morality plays, involve the viewer in an epic struggle between good and evil, involving temptation, fall and redemption. Webb’s use of charcoal and white chalk on paper emphasises the binary nature of this struggle. Being formed of charcoal and chalk, despite his use of contemporary equivalents for the temptations, the look and feel of Webb’s images also accords well with their exhibition setting, in rooms of low ceilings, uneven white walls, dark beams and furniture.

Webb’s works and exhibition also universalise Milton’s own experience of the dark night of the soul by merging that story with Webb’s own.

As Paradise Lost was the first illustrated poem in the English language, Milton’s poetry has, as Kelly O’Reilly, Director of Milton’s Cottage, has noted “inspired many of our greatest artists, from Blake to Turner, Dore to Dali”. Webb, who consciously works in the continuing tradition of Blake’s visionary art, is extending the tradition of illustrating Milton’s poems. It is appropriate, then, that, by exhibiting these drawings in Milton’s Cottage, they are placed alongside examples of illustrated editions of the poems, plus other paintings and prints relating to Milton.

Milton’s works are not only a repository of rich verse, which also gifted over 600 new words to the English language, but are also a conversation with scripture, its stories and their interpretation, plus the social and political ramifications of the Reformation in the British Isles. Webb’s works and exhibition also universalise Milton’s own experience of the dark night of the soul by merging that story with Webb’s own and linking those powerfully to the themes of Milton’s poems.

The key image, in this regard, is the first in the Paradise Regain’d series (‘Modes of Apprehension’), which sees Jesus in the wilderness turning up the corner of the wilderness backdrop, as in a theatre, to reveal another dimension or reality to existence and experience behind it. Hope is discovered in the midst of desolation, resilience found in the face of temptation. In these ways, Webb achieves his own hope for these works, that, “by responding to Milton’s universal themes of creation, destruction, temptation, love and loss”, he “can help new audiences find fresh ways to engage in Milton’s legacy”.

A Conversation with Paradise Regain’d & Samson Agonistes, Milton’s Cottage, 3 July – 8 September 2024.

Visit the exhibition web site.