Fascism and Sex

[MedleyMisty]

Here's the link to a book I've been reading the last couple of days - http://www.whale.to/b/reich.pdf. It's The Mass Psychology of Fascism

As so often happens in my life for some reason - it's a text that takes the thoughts I'd been having lately and expands and clarifies them and puts them into order. I'd been working my way towards the problem of the authoritarian personality. Especially once I realized that the anger and hatred I felt for most humans came from not understanding it.

It feels incredibly awful to see what humans are doing to the world and to know that you alone cannot stop it, that there's no way you can stop it, that you would need the cooperation of masses of people to stop it. And for a decade, I have watched as the masses seemingly accepted their fate and went along with it, that a great deal of them in fact cheered it on. So the helplessness and frustration and grief turned to rage.

I couldn't even educate people because I couldn't understand why they didn't already know or why they wouldn't stand up for themselves. Authoritarianism and not being informed is so far outside the range of my lived experience that it didn't even occur to me, and the only way I could explain people's inaction to myself was to assume that it was a conscious choice and that they wanted the consequences of their inaction.

This goes back to that statement by my high school best friend that has been blowing my mind for over a decade. But now I can see that she was more authoritarian than me. Thus why she asked why I didn't do drugs or smoke if I didn't believe in God. Because she had not learned self-control and how to handle personal freedom.

Wow - I just totally realized the connection there, because in our last phone call ever she lectured me about how omg I couldn't wear white on my wedding day. I hung up in the midst of her lecture and never talked to her again. I got married in my car in a drive-thru chapel in my blue jeans and I don't wear a ring, because I just don't care about arbitrary meaningless cultural rituals and restrictions. My mother didn't either.

I've noticed that authoritarians project everything. If a right wing authoritarian in power calls OWS lazy hippies who want to live on government money, you might find that they are a Congressperson whose only "work" is taking bribes from lobbyists and that they have become millionaires off government money while in office, or perhaps they are a banker whose "work" is sitting at a desk and wrecking the world economy and then being bailed out with taxpayer money. If they call OWS rapists, you might find that one of their presidential candidates has a history of sexual assault. If they call OWS druggies, you might find Rush Limbaugh's Oxycontin stash.

If they say that other people don't have personal responsibility, you might find that they themselves are incapable of it.

Because I am privileged, because my mind has never been colonized, I find it really hard to understand the colonized mindset. Like someone born into wealth and thus unable to understand poverty, I look at someone sunk in the mental poverty of authoritarianism and I demand that they pull themselves up by their own cognitive bootstraps.

Some interesting quotes from the link (because it's long and I doubt anyone else is going to actually read it):

In trying to distinguish himself from the manual worker, the lower middle class individual can do so only in the forms of his sexual and family life, since his economic position is no better than that of the industrial worker. He compensates for what he lacks economically by way of sexual morality. This is the official's strongest motive for his identification with state authority. Since one does not enjoy the economic position of the upper middle classes but at the same time identifies oneself ideologically with them, the sexual moral ideologies must make up for the economic deprivations. The forms of sexual and, with that, of cultural living, serve mainly the purpose of snobbish distinction from the "lower" strata.

What is important here is the following: the sexual inhibitions which constitute the prerequisite of the continued existence of the authoritarian family and the essential basis of the structure of the lower middle class individual are brought about with the aid of religious fears which thus become sexual guilt feelings and deeply anchored. This leads to the problem of the connection between religion and denial of sexual pleasure. Sexual weakness undermines self-confidence; compensation is effected by rigid character traits or brutal sexual behavior. The necessity for sexual self-control, for maintenance of sexual repression, leads to the development of compulsive, emotionally highly charged ideas of honor, duty, courage and self-control.

The compulsiveness and emotional charge of these ideas, however, is in strange contrast to the actual behavior. The genitally gratified individual is honest, conscientious, courageous and self controlled, without making any fuss about it. These attitudes are organic parts of his personality. The individual with a weakened genitality and a contradictory sexual structure, on the other hand, must incessantly remind himself to control his sexuality, to preserve his sexual honor, to fight temptations courageously, etc. Every child and adolescent goes through the struggle against the temptation to masturbate. In this struggle, all elements of the reactionary human structure develop. In the lower middle classes, this structure is most strongly developed and most deeply anchored."

Someone posted an OP earlier with an observation of the weird violent psycho-sexual perversion on display in how conservatives react to the beating and pepper spraying of OWS protesters.

I read an account of a Nazi labor camp - Dora, I think, was the name. The prisoners made V-2 rockets, and they were a wide cross section of ethnicities and it wasn't a majority Jewish camp, IIRC. Anyway - the author described watching a guard have an orgasm while beating a prisoner to death.

Ah yes, here's a site on Dora - http://www.dora.uah.edu/history.html

Do remember, while you read that, that a labor camp is the best possible solution for capitalism. You can't get cheaper labor than prisoners who don't have to be paid or fed very much or receive health care. And then you might want to think about the current American prison system.

Anyway, the point is - it is right to connect sexism and homophobia to capitalism, although it may not be so consciously an economic motivation to breed workers as I thought. That is certainly a benefit, and I think fascist leaders are aware of its economic motivation, but for the followers it's just the abusive authoritarian bubble that they live in.

We have to break that bubble if we want the species to survive and if we want any kind of decent future. So please - think of the children, and tell them that masturbation is cool. :)

[banned from Kos]

1. interesting - but fascism is not capitalism. Camp labor was to enrich the state

In fascism, the state is exalted, not money. Sex was for procreation which fed the state as well. Hitler banned abortion not on religious principle but out of racial purity and state needs (although abortion for non-Aryans was fine).

Good subject.

[ret5hd]

7. the exaltation of the state was for the masses.

[swilton]

31. and related to that is the notion of nationalism which was afterall

created so that the poor of one nation could be mobilized to fight the poor of another

[girl gone mad]

28. Capitalism and Fascism go hand in iron glove.

"The real Fascists of America are never named in the commercial press. It will not even hint at the fact that there are many powerful elements working against a greater democracy, against an America without discrimination based on race, color and creed, an America where never again will one third of the people be without sufficient food, clothing and shelter, where never again will there be 12,000,000 unemployed and many more millions working for semi-starvation wages while the DuPont, Ford, Hearst, Mellon and Rockefeller Empires move into the billions of dollars.

I call these elements Fascist. You may not like names and labels but technically as well as journalistically and morally they are correct. You may substitute Tories, or Economic Royalists, or Vested Interests, or whatever you like for the flag-waving anti-American Americans whose efforts and objectives parallel those of the Liga Industriale which bought out Mussolini in 1920, and the Thyssen-Krupp-Voegeler-Flick Rhineland industry and banking system which subsidized Hitler when Naziism was about to collapse. Their main object was to end the civil liberties of the nation, destroy the labor unions, end the free press, and make more money at the expense of a slave nation.

Both succeeded. And in America one similar organization has already made the following historical record:

• 1. Organized big business in a movement against labor.
  
• 2. Founded the Liberty League to fight civil liberties.
  
• 3. Subsidized anti-labor, Fascist and anti-Semitic organizations (Senator Black's Lobby Investigation).
  
• 4. Signed a pact with Nazi agents for political and economic (cartel) penetration of U. S. (Exposed in In Fact).
  
• 5. Founded a $1,000,000-a-year propaganda outfit to corrupt the press, radio, schools and churches.
  
• 6. Stopped the passage of food, drug and other laws aimed to safeguard the consumer, i.e., 132,000,000 Americans.
  
• 7. Conspired, with DuPont as leader, in September, 1942, to sabotage the war effort in order to maintain profits.
  
• 8. Sabotage the U. S. defense plan in 1940 by refusing to convert the auto plants and by a sit-down of capital against plant expansion; sabotage the oil, aluminum and rubber expansion programs. (If any of these facts are not known to you it is because 99% of our press, in the pay of the same elements, suppressed the Tolan, Truman, Bone Committee reports, Thurman Arnold's reports, the TNEC Monopoly reports and other Government documents.)
  
• 9. Delayed the winning of the war through the acts of $-a-year men looking out for present profits and future monopoly rather than the quick defeat of Fascism. (Documented in the labor press for two years; and again at the 1942 C.I.O. Convention.)"

Naturally enough the President of the United States and other high officials cannot name the men, organizations, pressure lobbyists, and national associations which have made this and similar records; they can only refer to "noisy traitors," Quislings, defeatists, the "Cliveden Set" or to the Tories and Economic Royalists. And you may be certain that our press will never name the defeatists because the same elements which made the above 9-point record are the main advertisers and biggest subsidizers of the newspapers and magazines. In the many instances even the general charges by the President himself have been suppressed. In Germany, in Italy until the seizure of government by the Fascists, the majority of newspapers were brave enough to be anti-Fascist, whereas in America strangely enough a large part of the press (Hearst, Scripps-Howard, McCormick-Patterson) has for years been pro-Fascist and almost all big papers live on the money of the biggest Tory and reactionary corporations and reflect their viewpoint now.


--George Seldes. (1943), Facts and Fascism

Capitalism -> Corporate Collectivism -> Fascism. Same as it ever was.

[stevenleser]

44. They really don't. Extremes of authoritarianism can occur (or not occur) with any economic model. nt

[Warren Stupidity]

83. That does not dispute the poster's assertion.

The claim that fascism and capitalism are linked is not falsified by a counter claim that authoritarianism can exist in other economic systems. Fascism is the authoritarian version of capitalism, and in its classic 1930's form, the totalitarian version of capitalism.

[stevenleser]

89. It does, actually, dispute the poster's assertion.

How many examples would you like of a non-Fascist capitalistic system in place? Give me a number.

[AntiFascist]

49. Fascinating! All set into motion in 1943, carried through with the help of the Bush dynasty n/t

[Taverner]

63. They don't always have to, but Capitalism ALWAYS leads to Fascism

Once you have exploited all resources, there's nowhere left to turn

[thucythucy]

35. True, but the camps

were quite profitable to major German corporations as well. Everyone from the builders of the ovens to the producers of Zyklon-B made money, while the managers of I.G. Farben were quite happy to use the slave labor made available to them at Auschwitz.

[blue neen]

2. I wouldn't put anything past the corporate powers-that-be.

They will brainwash the sheeple in any possible way.

[RKP5637]

9. We are living in very dangerous times IMO, just watching the reactions to OWS

demonstrate how deep authoritarianism runs in this country, the ugliness, and how derailed we are when it rears its ugly head. Uncontrolled, it could run wild across this country easily IMO. And the sheeple would rapidly embrace totalitarian authoritarianism as good.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

3. I read this paragraph you wrote....

"I've noticed that authoritarians project everything. If a right wing authoritarian in power calls OWS lazy hippies who want to live on government money, you might find that they are a Congressperson whose only "work" is taking bribes from lobbyists and that they have become millionaires off government money while in office, or perhaps they are a banker whose "work" is sitting at a desk and wrecking the world economy and then being bailed out with taxpayer money. If they call OWS rapists, you might find that one of their presidential candidates has a history of sexual assault. If they call OWS druggies, you might find Rush Limbaugh's Oxycontin stash.

If they say that other people don't have personal responsibility, you might find that they themselves are incapable of it."

It reminded me of something. Yesterday, for some reason I can't even explain, I landed on TLC which was broadcasting their usual fare for Saturday afternoon: stories of husbands and boyfriends murdering their wives. (Ghastly, but that's what they have every Saturday afternoon). Your paragraph about authoritarians reminded me of this because the murderers all seemed to project. If they were deceitful, they accused others of being deceiptful, if they were perverts, they blamed others of being perverts, etc.

I have long believed that authoritarians are psychopaths, which is why I can't stomach right wingers.

[RKP5637]

5. Same here! "I have long believed that authoritarians are psychopaths!" n/t

[Sarah Ibarruri]

8. I'm glad to hear others out there have noticed or felt the same thing about right wingers nt

[Warren DeMontague]

15. the authoritarian urge to dictate the terms of consenting adults' sex lives is rampant

and sadly it's not limited to 'right wingers'.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

16. You're absolutely right. Authoritarians, for example, enjoy the sexual degradation of women

And they promote an image of women as sexual clowns.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. No, authoritarians like to tell consenting adults what to do with their bodies

and they like to dictate the forms of entertainment consenting adults can enjoy, or the sorts of material they can read, or watch.

THAT is how authoritarians try to run peoples' sex lives. Saying "authoritarians are responsible for the excessive freedom we have in this society" is fucking ridiculous.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

20. Actually, they like to fashion a society in which women are the servants and sexual clowns

Are you completely unaware of that, or merely pretending?

[Warren DeMontague]

23. Words MEAN things. Merely slapping the label "authoritarian" on everything that makes you mad

or everything that might hurt your feelings, is nonsensical.

I'm not pretending. I think it's idiotic to try to somehow contort matters in such a way that more freedom and sexual freedom is somehow oppressive. If you don't like sexual speech or expression, for instance, you're free to ignore it or come up with some sexual speech or expression you DO like.

For instance: do you think this woman is an authoritarian or somehow contributing to oppression?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2011/11/egypt-feminist-nude-photo-controversy.html

[Sarah Ibarruri]

25. Why are you off the wall angry? I'm merely saying authoritarians degrade women, treat them like

sexual clowns, servants, and hope to create an image and a world in which women are ONLY viewed that way.

You need to drink some wine or something. Calm down.

[Warren DeMontague]

26. And the answer to speech you don't like is speech you DO like.

I ask again: The Egyptian blogger- is she on the side of freedom, or not?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

27. What on earth are you talking about? You clearly have some sort of problem with my statement

that authoritarians degrade women and ENJOY the degradation of women in society. However, your objection is really not my problem. It's your problem.

[Warren DeMontague]

39. Guess you don't want to answer the question about the Egyptian Blogger.

Big fuckin' surprise.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

46. Clearly, you're trying to get at something

But you're too scared to ask it directly. Get some courage and ask it already.

[Warren DeMontague]

51. I'm asking what your opinion is of the Egyptian blogger who posted nude pictures of herself.

Is she fighting oppression, or enabling it?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

54. She might wish to degrade herself. However, of much more importance is the degradation of a society

Or do you think 1 person is of far more value than a society's degradation?

[Warren DeMontague]

57. So we're clear: She is 'degrading herself', in your opinion.

see, because I think that THE SOCIETY THAT IS TELLING HER SHE CAN'T DECIDE FOR HERSELF WHAT TO DO WITH HER OWN FUCKING BODY, THAT IS WHERE THE "DEGRADATION" IS IN THIS SITUATION. I THINK SHE'S A HERO, AND SHE IS STANDING UP FOR FREEDOM.


You, Ma'am, are an AUTHORITARIAN. Fucking OWN it, already.

[LadyHawkAZ]

38. No answer, but much ad-hom ridicule

should tell anyone reading it everything they need to know on the subject.

[Warren DeMontague]

42. "Dammit! Telling consenting adults how not to get their jollies IS fighting for freedom!"

"Conversely, mistakenly believing that you can do what you want with your own body is the WORST sort of totalitarianism!"

:crazy:

[LadyHawkAZ]

69. It's all about "teh PORN"!!!

You chauvinist you! You just want women to have freedom so you can see them nekkid!! :eyes:


It's sad that so many supposed feminists have now become the patriarchy that they fight. There's a core group of radfem that genuinely believes that dehumanizing men and stripping them of their sexuality somehow raises up women, who have been historically dehumanized and stripped of their sexuality- and then they seek to continue to dehumanize and desexualize women because allowing them to mate with males might bring pleasure to a male. And they wrap this lunacy in feminist language and try to call it feminism. It's crazy.

[Warren DeMontague]

73. I like how someone risking her own life to stand up to totaltiarian, fundy religious shits

is 'degrading herself'.

I mean, above and beyond sex and sexuality and sexual freedom, I think the mere bravery of the act and the willingness to put one's self at risk for the pursuit of greater freedom; that woman DIGNIFIES herself, and the rest of us through her. I salute her, and frankly I think that the poster who, presumably, is sitting in comfort and safety here in the US talking about how this blogger is 'degrading herself' because she posted a picture of her own damn body (which belongs to who?) is the one who is degrading herself.

Thanks for your post, BTW.

[thucythucy]

29. My guess is

he's worried you're going to try to take away his right to watch porn.

The supposition seems to be that porn always equals "freedom" and that authoritarians never tolerate or promote porn. Never mind that the Nazis mass produced anti-Semitic porn as a way both to entice people into antiSemitism, and get off while they were doing it. Julius Streicher and Der Sturmer are the best known examples of this, but I'm sure there are others.

Your observation that authoritarians often treat women as "sexual clowns, servants..." is spot on. Claudia Koonz wrote a book called "Mothers in the Fatherland" about the role and status of women and girls in Nazi Germany that you might find interesting.

Best wishes.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

34. Aaaaaaaaaaaah! I see. He attributes a lot of power to me, doesn't he?. However...

regarding pornography, it really DOES degrade females, and presents females in a light that is that of a subjugated, sexualized 'thing' whose purpose is strictly that of a ridiculized, subservient creature whose only purpose is to spread her legs and perform sexually.

The overwhelming majority of het porn is incredibly degrading to females. As a feminist, I will never endorse anything that degrades females.

Great post, and thank you!!!

[Warren DeMontague]

41. So Larry Flynt is an authoritarian, and James Dobson & Phylis Shlafly are freedom fighters?

...interesting.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

45. I have no idea what you're talking about

But I'm sure in your mind, you make sense to someone.

[Warren DeMontague]

52. Do you know who Larry Flynt is? James Dobson? Phlyis Shlafly?

If you do, it should be relatively easy for an English Speaking person to parse out the meaning of that post.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

55. Sure I do. Why. Are they your heroes? nt

[Warren DeMontague]

56. And, another question you evade actually answering.

Again, big fuckin' surprise.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

67. You're a one-trick pony. Run along and go re-enact your trick elsewhere. nt

[Warren DeMontague]

68. You have a woman who is risking her life to stand up for freedom

against fundamentalist assholes, and you insult her.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

[themadstork]

87. I don't even get where it comes from

I think he just walked into this thread looking to start a fight. How he got from your initial responses to whether getting nekkid digitally is degrading or empowering is beyond me.

[Warren DeMontague]

91. I know, I won't let the usual suspects turn a thread on "fascism and sex" into another series of

hand-wringing screeds about "what are we going to DO about all the rampant, degrading nekkidity"?

And what's your opinion, bub? Is the lady in Egypt "degrading" herself by posting a picture of her own body? What the fuck is so degrading about nakedness? How did we get so many god-damn church ladies around here?

[themadstork]

92. You jumped to the topic with pretty much no provocation.

And seeing now that someone else mentioned a dialogue with you in another thread, it makes sense that you're having some kind of cross-thread conversation here. Because after one person said that authoritarians like to degrade women you just HAD to swerve the discussion toward your thing with the Egyptian woman, even though it made no sense at all and came across as weirdly aggressive.

Also, "bub?" Really?

[Warren DeMontague]

99. would you prefer "Jack"?

how about "chief"?
:shrug:

[themadstork]

86. Plenty of amateur porn that is just about two hot people being hot

No need to put down an entire medium. Back when I watched porn that was all I found interesting. The fiance is uncomforrable with it though so now I read erotic fiction, which also can be quite hot and non- icky.

[Warren DeMontague]

40. Ah, thank heavens, the "backup" arrived.

:spray:

Anyway, the topic of the OP is sex and fascism. Totalitarianism and sexual repression go hand in hand, as not just Reich but Orwell also noted.

Yes, "freedom". Eeeeeew.

[thucythucy]

43. True, and yet you don't deny

that your primary concern here is porn. And "sexual freedom" evidently doesn't mean freedom for women, sexual or otherwise, if your replies to Sarah's comments about how authoritarians and totalitarians seeking to limit women and girls is any indication.

BTW, isn't there a section of "1984" where Orwell describes how the Party makes porn available to the proles, to keep them distracted and submissive? Orwell was more sophisticated about such things than you think.

[redqueen]

47. " Orwell was more sophisticated about such things than you think."

:thumbsup:

You are correct that in 1984, pornography was one of the means by which the the masses were kept distracted and happy.

Panem et circenses...

[Warren DeMontague]

58. At least, until the Junior Anti-Sex League succeeds in abolishing the orgasm.

What a happy day that'll be, huh?

[redqueen]

59. "The compulsiveness and emotional charge of these ideas, ..."

That section of the quoted piece jumped out at me.

Can you guess why?

As for a response to your post... did anyone suggest that orgasms are evil or should be outlawed, or are you just throwing out more of the strawman "arguments" (that's not even an argument, is it, though... it's just a random meaningless outburst, apparently) with which we are all very sadly familiar?

[Warren DeMontague]

60. We can't even have a thread on the link between fascism & sexual repression

without a small, angry, dedicated cadre falling all over themselves to define freedom as oppression, or openness as censorship, or speech as the silencing of speech, etc.

Talk about Orwell.

[redqueen]

61. Look in the mirror.

Sarah has posted a lot, second only to you it looks like, and mostly in response to you. Guess what would happen if you weren't once more demonstrating the hair-on-fire behavior? I bet she wouldn't have 35 posts in this thread.

Me? I think I have 3 or 4.

I'm done with this, you don't want a discussion... I don't know what you're after but it's very obviously not an exchange of ideas.

Have a good one.

[Taverner]

66. You project - classic case of your statements proving the OP right

[Taverner]

65. Yep. As for projection, I think the Anti-Porn types are a perfect example of that

They project their own hatred of sex, hatred of their bodies, hatred of others on the "evil demon pornographers," even though porn has become so home grown, so democratic, that there really aren't any "pornographers" in the sense they decry....

[thucythucy]

75. I certainly have never

posted anything that even hints that I "hate sex," favor censorship, hate my body, or any of the other nonsense either you or Warren or the other reflex defenders of porn routinely toss out as straw man arguments.

I engaged in a dialogue with Warren on another thread (so he and I have some history on this issue) in which I posted the simple proposition that responsible progressives should apply to porn all the critical tools they might apply to any other media, even works of media we enjoy or admire. As an example I cited how "Birth of a Nation," though it was a groundbreaking film in many respects, was also filled with toxic racism and was a major factor in the resurgence of the KKK in the first half of the 20th century. The NAACP even picketed showings of "Birth of Nation"--was W.E.B. DuBois therefore a proponant of "censorship?"

We can analyze the anti-working class bias of network TV (see Sut Jhally's excellent "Class Dismissed"), we can discuss the racism in "Gone with the Wind," we can point out the homophobia of right wing "Christian" pronouncements... but somehow, when it comes to even suggesting that we look at the political and social messages both implicit and explicit in specific examples of porn, we're told, "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" "Censorship!" "You must hate sex!!!" "you want to abolish the orgasm!!!" and all the other drivel I get in reply to my very simple, and to my mind very obvious proposition.

Anyone interested in working for social change should try to have at least some understanding of how the media work and the messsages they convey, even the media we enjoy. To counter any attempt at such discussion whenever and where ever it occurs with an unthinking use of personal attacks and straw man arguments is to my mind far more censorious than wanting to draw attention to the sexism, implicit and explicit, in much of what is categorized as "porn."

If you can wrap your mind around that, we might then have a discussion. But if you simply want to continue to throw out the straw man arguments, then there really is nothing left to say.

[noiretextatique]

77. most rational post ever

good luck with the porn addicts :hi:

[thucythucy]

79. Thank you!

and best wishes.

[Taverner]

106. I guess I am an "addict" then...

Even though I know real addicts, who cannot control themselves in buying heroin, or crack, or ______________________

(fill in favorite drug here)

[Taverner]

82. That's because when you say "porn" you really are talking about a lot of things

Is Gay Porn harmful to women?

How about housewives in their 40s and 50s sharing pics?

How about swingers who share pics?

----------------------

As per how harmful porn is to women, let's take a classic example: rape porn. The simulated rape of women on film. The person who is turned on by this may or may not be a rapist - but if they are, wouldn't you rather they take satiation from this rather than the actual act?

The people who are turned on by this don't watch this to incite themselves to violence - quite the opposite in fact. They find it to be a healthy catharsis in place of a very unhealthy act.

The truth is, anything and everything you can think of has had porn made of it. Everything from furries playing Star Trek fanfic sex, to rape porn.

Let's just say we ban porn - does this mean we should ban BDSM role playing? Should we ban rape role playing? If you say "no woman would ever consent to that" - I call BS.

[thucythucy]

97. Is this in response to my post?

I ask because you don't seem to be responding to my questions/statements.

Can I take it that you've re-thought your "anyone who has questions about the political content of porn hates their body, hates sex, and wants to outlaw orgasms" point of view? . If so I'd be happy to try to talk some things through with you. But I need to know first whether the nasty, snarky caricature you posted no longer represents your point of view.

Best wishes.

[Taverner]

105. If you want, we can take this offline

I don't mind

Let's just agree on terms before we do

[themadstork]

88. lovely post!

[thucythucy]

76. Still making the straw man arguments,

I see. Look over our exchanges, Warren, in previous threads or in this one. Please point out to me an instance where I even hint that I would be happy "abolishing the orgasm."

And you still haven't countered the very first assertion I made in this particular back and forth, namely, that your primary interest in attacking Sarah's initial post at the top of this sub-thread was a defense of porn. So I have to assume I hit that nail on the head.

See my post below for a reiteration of my explanation of why porn is a legitimate area for progressive political and social analysis. You've seen it already -- we've had this "debate" before -- but maybe this time you'll at last be able to figure out what it is I'm actually saying, as opposed to your projections of what you think I'm saying, thinking, and feeling.

Best wishes.

[Warren DeMontague]

53. I don't know how the fuck you deduce that 'indication' from my post.

I support sexual freedom for consenting adults of ALL genders and orientations. It's a simple position, yet one that nevertheless invariably causes some authoritarian types to break out in hives and conniption fits. :shrug:

[thucythucy]

78. Ah, so you did respond...

my mistake.

I made my deduction from our previous back and forth on other threads.

So you're not defending all instances of porn as a simple assertion of "sexual freedom?" Good for you. There may be hope for you yet.

If that's ALL you've been trying to say in all these posts, then we have nothing to argue about. If, on the other hand, you're saying that any critical discussion of porn is an attack on "sexual freedom,"--then I still haven't got through to you.

And when have I ever argued against "sexual freedom for consenting adults?"

[thucythucy]

80. I should add to this reply

that your immediate attack on Sarah for stating that authoritarian right wing regimes often impose or come from a demeaning and objectifying view of women was also a dead giveaway. Somehow, Sarah making this assertion (which is evident really to anyone who has studied the "kitchen, children, church" ideology of Nazism, or the status of women under Pinochet's Chile or Franco's Spain, or...well, there are many other examples) became to your mind some kind of attack on your "sexual freedom." Sarah was understandably confused at where all this snark was coming from.

Anyway, if your comments weren't a thinly disguised defense of porn, what were they? Who, exactly, are these left wing authoritarians you decry, so eager to take away your sexual freedom?

[Warren DeMontague]

90. One, maybe you should let "Sarah" speak for herself.

As you may have noticed, it gets a little confusing, around here, figuring out whose voice is coming out of whose mouth. Dig?

My comments- my initial comments on the thread- were exactly what they appeared to be, and they stand alone. If porn, as you repeatedly assert, doesn't need "defending" because there are NO "left wing authoritarians" interested in censoring it, then you can safely assume that my comments don't apply. I think history has shown that there ARE plenty of folks on the left who most certainly WOULD like to see censorship- oh, they are careful to couch their language in different terms, they talk of "balancing so-called free speech concerns" with the alleged "harm that porn does to women and society". Anti-porn hero Robert Jensen is a perfect example.

And then we have the historic example of Catherine MacKinnon's anti-porn law in Canada. So, yes, there ARE people on the left who are interested in restricting the rights of consenting adults to watch other consenting adults fuck on film. Simply because (honest!) none of them supposedly post on DU, doesn't mean they don't exist.

[thucythucy]

94. And simply because

as you stated on another board, you're not familiar with the most misogynistic or racist forms of porn doesn't mean they don't exist either.

"The historic example of Catherine MacKinnon's...law." Historic is right. How many decades ago are we talking about? Why not drag in the Meese Commission while you're at it? I mean that was only a quarter of a century ago. Meanwhile, the types of media messages sent out by the manufacturers of porn, slasher films, mass media advertising, etc., are updated every second of the day. And we're not even allowed to critically examine the messages or their possible impact because, because....oh, right, because a couple of decades ago Catherine MacKinnon got a law passed in Canada.

I'm still left to wonder (since you never seem to address this point), do you or do you not see a legitimate case to be made for analyzing the content of porn, much as progressives analyze the content of every other form of media? Can you understand that analysis is not synonymous with censorship or even the desire for censorship? Or do you still believe that any discussion whatsoever of even the possibility that porn (and other forms of media) might include content detrimental to progressive aspirations of justice and equality is somehow by definition "authoritarian?"

A little while back I posted on another board about the right wing bias of Fox News. Does that mean I (and everyone else in that discussion) is a left wing authoritarian intent on censorship?

If Sarah wants to join in the discussion she is perfectly welcome. Thus far she doesn't seem to have any problems with my posts, but I'm sure she'll let me know if she does. I'm glad though you've acknowledged that your true concern here is the defense of porn. Really, that's all my initial comment to Sarah was intended to convey.

[Warren DeMontague]

98. who is 'not allowing you' to critique anything?

I mean, shit, here you are derailing a thread about fascism and sex, because the 'critiquing' the totalitarian mindset of puritanical control freaks, apparently, hits too close to home and ruffles a few folks' feathers a bit much.

So critique away (wheee!)- what I DON'T see, however, in any of these threads, is any distinction of specific instances of the media that has you so lathered up. Rather, it's the same old "oh you know how it is" broadsides against 'the culture', 'the media', 'porn', etc. As if ANY of those things were monolithic.

[Moses2SandyKoufax]

50. The thing I love most about DU sex threads

is that you can accurately guess who the participants will be BEFORE you click on the thread!

[TK421]

103. +whatthefuckeverinfinitydude

[BlueToTheBone]

21. Republcan = Psychopathic Authoritarian Hypocrite. n/t

[Sarah Ibarruri]

22. Yup. And boy, they sure do hate the poor and love to hurt them. That thrills them nt

[BlueToTheBone]

36. As children, they tortured small creatures

for pleasure. In their teen years, it became erotic to torture, as adults they are numbed and have to torture more and more to get a smaller charge.

[Taverner]

62. Wow...we agree on something: "authoritarians are psychopaths"

Vonnegut called them "Psychopathic Personalities"

He was right

[alcibiades_mystery]

4. You should read Klaus Theleweit's "Male Fantasies" (vol 1 and 2)

Perhaps the best study of this topic around.

http://www.amazon.com/MALE-FANTASIES-Floods-Bodies-History/dp/0816614490/ref=pd_sim_b_1

[thucythucy]

32. This looks very interesting

and I'll check it out when I get the chance (I'm way behind on my reading).

In return, I would recommend Claudia Koonz, "Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family, and Nazi Politics," St. Martin's Press, 1987.

Best wishes.

[saras]

6. K & R - it's not just the New Deal, it's twentieth century social science they want to obliterate

[Taverner]

64. I would take it a step further, and say they want to undo the enlightenment

They never were comfortable with that whole "round Earth" thing

[Warren DeMontague]

10. It's all about control.

And it's a pernicious aspect of the human psyche.

[RKP5637]

11. This paragraph you wrote has stuck in my mind, much as watching a train wreck occur - One sees it

occurring, but the bodies in motion are so massive they can't be held back, as they take their natural course onward toward destruction.

"It feels incredibly awful to see what humans are doing to the world and to know that you alone cannot stop it, that there's no way you can stop it, that you would need the cooperation of masses of people to stop it. And for a decade, I have watched as the masses seemingly accepted their fate and went along with it, that a great deal of them in fact cheered it on. So the helplessness and frustration and grief turned to rage."

[immoderate]

12. They really don't need to breed workers. Well maybe farm stuff.

Workers are being replaced by machines. Fewer workers needed, with productivity increased. Do the math.

Work camps will not be as useful as death camps.

--imm

[femrap]

13. They need Cannon Fodder. Plus

it keeps the women oppressed...and they enjoy exercising their sadistic crap on them.

[Warren DeMontague]

24. I know. Just keep cranking em out.

Don't worry, we'll make more!

Right?

[femrap]

14. Have you ever read John

Dean's book, 'Conservatives w/o Conscience?' It really explained a lot to me. Basically, researchers wanted to know how a Hitler could occur in a society. They found that about 22 to 23% of a culture are sheeple and they LOVE Authoritarians. They simply can't handle 'grey'....things must be 'Black or White.' So the authoritarians tell them what to think. Many of these sheeple are, of course, very religious.

I was born with the 'Question Authority' gene and NEVER understood the sheeple and/or willfully ignorant....now I have a much better understanding of them.

Anyway the other 77% of society has to keep its eye on this 23% or they'll run over all of us and voila! Hitler!

I downloaded the article and plan on reading it.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. Wilhelm Reich in hell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqigQxX82Qg

[CanSocDem]

48. Good link.

Predictably, the neo-feminists barge into the discussion full of their anti-pornography righteousness and dismiss the historical analysis of psycho-sexuality by Freud and Reich.

Not surprising, considering that endless thread the last couple of weeks about the harm that pornography does, but completely oblivious to the true nature of sexual repression. Reich, an early associate of Sigmund Freud, wrote extensively on the issue and would probably have saved the USA from becoming this vast society of sexual dysfunction and repression, had he not been silenced and imprisoned in an American prison.

"Only the sexually-frustrated societies showed such correlations to violence and distorted sexual expression."

http://www.orgonelab.org/makavejev.htm

There are no easy answers when there is a distinct lack of historical perspective that the early pioneers of psychology provided. Opinions formed from emotional responses to the sociological memes of the day do little to further the cause of creating a well adjusted society.



.

[lindysalsagal]

19. Much prefer wine and sex.

But that's just me. :evilgrin:

[lindysalsagal]

30. That 24% of hard-line fanatics will always be there.

I know someone very well who is the sweetest guy, but he’s a stiff catholic, and loves the conservative control freaks. He knows I’m a librul atheist feminist, and likes me anyway.

So there’s a disconnect between the harbingers of society control and the need to control the people in their lives. They really just need to control the people outside their lives. I find it to be an insecurity stop-gap. Also, this person had a shattered childhood, and now his parents are “in heaven.” So he’s convinced that by signing on with the church, a lot of his losses are mended. Childhood questions are resolved. His world was topsy-turvey: Mom was an institutionalized schizophrenic, and never nurtured him. He was in an orphanage at a young age. His entire map of the world is crooked and uncertain. The solid-rock, absolute and judgmental nature of Catholicism feels like a good substitute to him.

Now, I know there will be writers on here who will not like this insecurity theory. But really, when you’re invested in the great daddy in the sky who’s looking out for you, is that really so hard to understand? I need no such promises, personally, so, mythology is just fiction to me. Amusing and colorful fiction. And it leads to institutionalized child abuse and war. So, I have none of it. But my friend needs the structure and the promises. There are automatic payoffs built into the system that still appeal to him, in his 50’s. I think that is why many more elderly people become religious: In their youth, when they still felt indestructible, the had no need for god.

So my answer to these questions always comes down to personal, internal psychological needs and issues. My friend is the last guy to be authoritarian in his life or with his friends and family. He's so soft-spoken, he's really shy. He'd never impose himself on others or even ask for what he wants. All that authoritarian stuff applies to strangers in his life, and it is applied indirectly from on high.

[applegrove]

33. You are correct about projection and the authoritarian personality. Hitler was impotent and he

would f*** with peoples souls in a frenzy during his speeches.

[RZM]

37. Here's a book I'm pretty sure you will be interested in

http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Public-Incarnation-Soviet-Ideology/dp/0691026254/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321849485&sr=8-1

It's called 'Sex in Public.' It is a little strange, but it's also a valuable look at the early years of the Bolshevik state through the prism of sexuality. It's quite a read if you're interested in this kind of thing.

If you're interested in sexuality/gender issues in the Soviet Union, I have many more titles I can give you.

[thucythucy]

81. It looks like an interesting read. It's strange

that in the American public mind at least, "Bolshevism" in the early 20th century was often linked to "free love"--meaning sex outside of marriage, which was one of the reasons "good Christians" were supposed to oppose it.

How convoluted our thinking and our politics become, as soon as sex is involved.

[RZM]

95. There certainly was that strain in the early years

If you haven't read it already, you would probably also enjoy this work:

http://www.amazon.com/Bolshevik-Feminist-Life-Aleksandra-Kollantai/dp/0253312094/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322005456&sr=8-1

Kollontai was the most prominent early Bolshevik woman. She actually was kind of a free-love type. Lenin didn't particularly approve of that and he had a very funny slap down of that mindset, the details of which escape me at the moment.

Of course Bolshevik feminists (including those who were men) were highly critical of 'bourgeois feminism' as well - they believed it was much more important to focus social energy on liberating the working class. Only after you had done that could you move on to women. If you just focused on women, they believed you were missing the whole point.

Of course, as time passed, the Soviet state turned further and further away from their early progressive attitude on gender issues and eventually came to embrace the traditional hierarchy since it was more agreeable to the goals of the Stalinist state (the increase and maintenance of state power, industrial growth, demographic health, etc.)

[thucythucy]

96. Thanks again!

One of the reasons I come to DU is because I get turned on to so much interested reading.

Best wishes.

[Odin2005]

70. Wilhelm Reich was a sex-obsessed woo-woo. I would take his rantings with a dump-truck of salt.

[LadyHawkAZ]

71. Freud did coke

but still made a lot of breakthroughs in psychology. Being personally woo doesn't always equate to being professionally wrong.

[Odin2005]

72. I'm no fan of Freud, either.

Psychoanalytic therapy does more harm than good, IMO. Psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience, it has been supplanted by truly scientific forms of therapy like cognitive behavioral therapy that are based own actual knowledge of the workings of the brain.

[Warren DeMontague]

74. That's only because you haven't had your orgones properly accumulated.

Anyway, Tesla was fairly well buggy, and Edison was a complete thug and criminal goon... yet they both were right about some things. Jesus, don't try to read Dr. Bronner when you're not high, but his soap is still good stuff.

I think the connection between totalitarianism and sexual repression (not to mention repression of shit like free speech) is fairly obvious, you don't have to be Wilhelm Reich to see it.

[Warren Stupidity]

84. Newton was a nut-bag too.

All caught in alchemy and other nonsense.

Sometimes with geniuses you have to separate the wheat from the chaff.

[CanSocDem]

85. Too funny.

Granted he did claim to have invented a cure for cancer but that hardly justifies burning his books and equipment.

http://www.orgonelab.org/fda.htm

As far as him being "sex-obsessed", project much...???

He wasn't as into Freud as you would like to believe. He did surmise, correctly IMHO, that most neurosis was caused by repressed sexuality. Sound familiar? Psychoanalysis may not be the best therapy but I doubt if your idea of sure-cure pharmacopeia is any better.

What Reich did in Vienna was create free sexual hygiene clinics open to the adolescents who were troubled or confused with repressed sexuality. You may have noticed this condition in your own country. I would ask how you're dealing with it, but sadly it is painfully obvious.

"Key concepts in social welfare and clinical social work - concepts such as person-in-environment, women's rights, prevention and outreach-had as precedents the pioneering theory and practice of Europe's free psychoanalytic clinics of the 1920s. Sex-Pol, a Viennese community-based clinical network created in 1927 by Wilhelm Reich, perhaps the most overtly political of the first psychoanalysts, was motivated by reformist social goals he shared with Sigmund Freud. This historical study of Sex-Pol draws on Reich's own words to explore his use of the term “social work” where clinical work is predicated on an activist ideology of human liberation."




.

[Odin2005]

107. I reject the notion that most neuroses stem from repressed sexuality.

IMO most neuroses come from life experiences reinforcing an individual's negative personality traits in a positive feedback look. An example would be how an introverted "nerdy" individual develops Avoidant Personality Disorder and Social Anxiety Disorder because of constant rejection and humiliation by his/her peers.

[themadstork]

93. Excellent analysis.

[Warren DeMontague]

100. you're funny.

So you REALLY don't think there's a connection between totalitarianism and sexual repression, huh?

[themadstork]

101. You have mistaken me for

someone interested in having any kind of debate with you.

[Warren DeMontague]

102. guess that's a "no".

inconvenient to the narrative, huh?

[TK421]

104. Hey people, sex is overrated anyway...thread over

or should be.

next important topic?

[Odin2005]

108. +1,000,000