Amerikan poliitikot ovat mätiä

The women in the photo are Palestinian and Israeli women.
They are part of a group of queer activists located in Israel.
The group connects their struggles as queer people
in a conservative nation to colonialism and nationalism
that their nation participates in. They are called
Kvisa Shchora (Black Laundry).The body paint reads
[in Hebrew]: "I have sex with Palestinian women."
A neurotic political/religious world view

that hates and fears sex is

a one way ticket to national castration

But why even bother to talk about this

when all we have to do is take a long hard

look at our President and Vice President?

Sexual repression is one of the main pillars of exploitation. Neuroses and fascistic tendencies are the consequences.

That's what the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich has showed.

It is essentially within the middle-class patriarchal family unit that the process of sexual repression and the learning of obedience to authority are reproduced.

Never in the history of our country has American politics been so dominated by sexually repressed men. It's that weird fascist thing.

Inadequate men are so obsessed with goose stepping to glory that they're able to forget their insecure sexuality.

Republicans, to say it straight out, simply seem to be terrified of sex. Bush's buddy Christian fundamentalists inevitably conjure up visions of Salem Witch Trials.

A neurotic political/religious world view that hates and fears sex is a one way ticket to national castration.

But why even bother to talk about this when all we have to do is take a long hard look at our President and Vice President? And throw in Karl Rove while you’re at it.

See any sexual life forms?

And this isn't just being flip. There's something deadly about a government without humor or sex -- and there’s about as many laughs in the Bush White House as the back ward of a mental hospital.

Republicans, to say it straight out, simply seem to be terrified of sex. Bush's buddy Christian fundamentalists inevitably conjure up visions of Salem Witch Trials.

A righteous hatred (or fear) of sexuality has historically been associated with a contempt for women.

Patriarchal religions are always filled with warnings about the "Goddess" and "nature religions". The very word "pagan" means country dweller. Does this have anything to do with why Republicans are always raping Mother Nature?

And take this wacko Armageddon business (the Baptist Big Bang). Will someone please tell me why these people are so eager to get "blown up"?

Surely it has something to do with their hatred of anything physical. Well, sexual abandon is about as "physical" as it gets, so it must be evil incarnate. Right?

In a way this all full circles around to Freud's notions of Eros and Thanatos (death), and there's certainly no doubt that the pugs have put all their money on Thanatos.

In fact, they can't even wait for Armageddon, so they keep starting preemptive wars as fast as they can. Hey, wars/death/Thanatos -- doesn't that beat an active sex life all over the place?

Sure, some of this is fun talk, but most of it is life and death serious, because a neurotic political/religious world view that hates and fears sex is a one way ticket to national castration.

'1984' & All That

George Orwell was well aware of the link between sexual repression and an authoritarian state.

This extract from '1984' is Winston Smith's discussion with his co-conspirator regarding the Party's use of sexual denial as a means to control thought and channel energy into hate and violence:

"I could have stood it if it hadn't been for one thing," he said.

He told her about the frigid little ceremony that Katherine had forced him to go through on the same night every week.

"She hated it, but nothing would make her stop doing it. She used to call it -- but you'll never guess."

"Our duty to the Party," said Julia promptly.

"How did you know that?"

"I've been at school too, dear. Sex talks once a month for the over-sixteens. And in the Youth Movement. They rub it into you for years. I dare say it works in a lot of cases. But of course you can never tell; people are such hypocrites . . .

Unlike Winston, she had grasped the inner meaning of the Party's sexual puritanism. It was not merely that the sex instinct created a world of its own which was outside the Party's control and which therefore had to be destroyed if possible.

What was more important was that sexual privation induced hysteria, which was desirable because it could be transformed into war fever and leader worship...

"They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour. If you're happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minute Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?"

This was very true, he thought. There was a direct, intimate connection between chastity and political orthodoxy.

For how could the fear, the hatred, and the lunatic credulity which the Party needed in its members be kept at the right pitch except by bottling down some powerful instinct and using it as a driving force?

The sex impluse was dangerous to the Party, and the Party had turned it to account.

Is that true? Is there a "direct, intimate connection" between sexual chastity and orthodoxy?

If not, why do orthodox movements have a recurring fascination with sex and and unyielding need to define, control and repress human sexual behavior but have no such qualms about physical violence and war?

Doesn't it seem like violence is glorified and celebrated in direct proportion to a society's degree of sexual repression Collage by Ed Strong