Anticlimax (book)

Jeffreys discusses the sexual revolution of the 1960s, arguing against the view that it was a "positive development for women." Among other topics, Jeffreys discusses pedophilia. She criticizes the activist Tom O'Carroll and his book Paedophilia: The Radical Case (1980).[1]

Anticlimax was first published in 1990 by The Women's Press and New York University Press. In 2011, a second edition was published by Spinifex Press.[2]

Anticlimax received positive reviews from Veronica Groocock in New Statesman and Society,[3] Ann Jones in Ms,[4] and R. W. Smith in Choice,[5] and a mixed review from Vera Whisman in the Women's Review of Books.[6] The book was also discussed by the feminist Julie Bindel in The Guardian.[7]

Groocock described the book as "comprehensive, timely and forcefully argued".[3] Jones described the book as "remarkable".[4] Smith wrote that the work was vigorously argued, and had a "Good bibliography and index".[5] Whisman described Jeffreys's views as "unreconstructed radical feminism". Though she granted that this position made some valid points, she also considered it "deeply troubled". She considered the last two chapters of the book, about "the feminist movement's organizing and theorizing around sex", lively and well-written, but argued that Jeffreys "misses a great deal by her refusal to admit nuance and paradox", asking, "If heterosexual intercourse has been forced on women by men—and their sexologist co-conspirators—then how can we talk about the fact that not all heterosexual couplings are equally blessed, equally enforced?"[6] Bindel credited Jeffreys with exposing "the myth of the 1960s sexual revolution".[7] Jane Egerton described The Spinster and Her Enemies as a major work.[8]