Of course we can we do all the time. I mean can we talk about it openly? I would like to get some sort of measure of how much of our current political talk, in one way or another, revolves around suppressed sexuality. The history of the struggles between those who want to suppress it for various reasons and those who want others out of their lives goes back a long way. What is Sexual repression?:
Sexual repression is a state in which a person is prevented from expressing their sexuality. Sexual repression is often associated with feelings of guilt or shame being associated with sexual impulses. What constitutes sexual repression is subjective and can vary greatly between cultures and moral systems. Many religions have been accused of fostering sexual repression.
It should not be difficult to associate these attributes with recent political events in our political theater. Most of the issues involving birth control, abortion and less clearly sexual issues are all centered around a history of men controlling women's sexuality. The question we need to ask in the context of this series is how does this fit into the new paradigm we have been exposing in this series? Let us examine this a further below the break.
First of all can we all agree that with all the "sophisticated" analysis we have woven together we have never ventured into this minefield. I have been using sources to establish the theme and the answer is simple. They don't mention it. That has a variety of possible interpretations, among them their judgement that it is irrelevant. I suspect that that is not the reason. I suspect that to play the game of being into rational thought and analysis one risks undermining one's credibility by going into this area. I'll be very frank. How can you hope to weave together a picture of human mental activity and its relationship to the human body as Lakoff and the others profess to have done without going here? My assertion is that it is too risky! If that is so, then why? Are we not really looking at a basic underlying force in all our social interactions that is so strong as to be excluded by necessity? For if we were to open this can of worms the fact that we are basically animals by biology has to be discussed. And the undercurrents of religious myth are so strong here. Adam and Eve. The Fall. And so on. We dance around the one biological truth that no one can deny: Without sex there is no species! Can you understand the evolutionary pressure that made sex so pleasurable? Let's face it, these are not choices they are built into us.
So why not use it as a political tool? Why not try to create a political weapon based on the most basic and unspoken aspects of our being? Especially because it has proven effective over history? And that effectiveness weaves in so nicely with the religious undercurrents that are imbedded in our unconscious. Frued has a sense for this incomplete as it was:
Sigmund Freud was the first to use the term widely, and argued that it was one of the roots of many problems in western society. Freud believed that people's naturally strong instincts toward sexuality were repressed by people in order to meet the constraints imposed on them by civilized life. However, Freud's ideas about sexual repression have not been without their critics. According to sex therapist Bernard Apfelbaum, Freud did not base his belief in universal innate, natural sexuality on the strength of sexual desire he saw in people, but rather on its weakness.
Interesting bit of double talk there. Indicitive of the fear to come out and discuss the issue?
Clearly this is not a "uniform" trait among people. It varies. That's not how the politics sort out though. Just like every time we talk about violence against women as a social/political issue someone might say but "all relationships are not violent" and "women often are violent towards men". Yet on the level of politics it is one sided and clearly so and we know the reason. Things tend to wind together. If women can't be controlled then relationships have to be based on something else. Very seldom is male "promiscuity" an issue. In the men's locker room it is where you score points among the others.Is the Rush slur a new one? "Sluts" are women. Men who indulge in pleasure are "getting it".
We have been exploring the way our minds are used to form world views. This interplay between sex and politics is deep down there and I have probably already demonstrated it by simply writing this diary. I have lot's more to say, but this is enough for now.