Subhaditya
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robbo203 wrote:Maurice Briton's 1975 pamphlet "The Irrational in Politics" sort of touches on this theme in relation to Wilhelm Reichhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/brinton/1970/irrational-politics.htm#h8
Thanks robbo203 for pointing out the article…I didnt knew all that happened in Russia regarding sexual politics.Made me realize its probably a bad idea to let someone else determine what your needs are… seems like Russians especially the young were trying bring about a sexual revolution and the leadership led by Lenin smothered it.I cant figure out why would they shut down the communes young people were forming to move away from the patriarchal family and experience more sexual freedom.Even if resources being generated was not enough to provide security to all and people had to rely on the family to survive isnt a commune better than a patriarchal family ? People will get more love and kids would have more adults to look after them…. and it resembles the communes of 10,000 years ago, the default mode of our existence until agriculture came along.Also Lenin seems to think we would just sit on our asses all day long and have sex and do nothing else if our sexuality was freed up… weird.The Tahitians seemed to be pretty well fed when europeans first came in contact with them … and their attitudes to sex as described in "Sex At Dawn" blew my mind away… and the Tahitians had private property and chieftains they had to submit to…. the key thing that allowed them to be sexually free was matrilineal inheritance of property from mother to daughter… seems like patriarchy is the biggest cause of our sexual misery.Also wasnt Soviet Union supposed to be like a union of communes ?
ALB wrote:Talking of India, a comrade there drafted a leaflet a few years ago which contained the following (in English translation):Quote:As humans, everybody has the right to live, to get a partner, lead a happy life, go anywhere in the world and discover new and striking facts.No doubt it would be good if every human (man or women) could "get a partner" but it is difficult to see how the exercise of this "right" could be implemented (quite apart from whether this would be a temporary partner or one for life). Maybe the writer was thinking that partnerships could be arranged somehow, as I think has been the case in most human societies before the coming of capitalism and its ideology of individualism which has left individuals to fend for themselves.
Who constitutes a 'partner'?Say for the matrilineal Mosuo in China is the brother who helps bring up the children the woman's partner or are the unknown number of men she sleeps with the partners, I dont know.Women like Dossie Easton, Janet W. Hardy, Dr. Susan Block I think are already showing how we can go about it.Books like "The Ethical Slut" by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy or "The Bonobo Way: The Evolution Of Peace Through Pleasure" by Dr. Susan Block can lead us to that idealized place I was talking about where every person can have several people they can turn to to release their tensions. All we need is enough people taking to it.Mass media could have helped but its controlled by the capitalist class who seem to prefer promoting monogamy and hatred of promiscuous females, come to think of it religion also seems to promote the same thing.Its the same way it will come about as communal control of resource generation… when most people start wanting it.We must encourage this… discouraging this will be same as discouraging socialism.I dont think socialism can succeed as long as men continue to fight with each other over women.
Jondwhite can you name one inegalitarian patriarchal society where property passes from father to son that is sexually liberated.I cant think of one rich father who is ok if his 'wife' gives birth to someone else's kid. If he is not ok with his wife giving birth to someone else's kid how will he be comfortable with his wife having sex with another man. I see him only trying to discourage his wife from having sex with other men. He will only be comfortable with monogamy or polygamy since there his paternity is gauranteed, and he will be pushing for such a setup.He is not pushing for monogamy because he is only attracted to his wife he is pushing for it as he doesnt want his wife to have sex with others.How are you going to have a sexually liberated place if no one is comfortable with their wives having sex with other men.In all the promiscous communities I heard of either the 'husbands' werent powerful that is the place seemed egalitarian or it was a matrilineal place where mother to daughter property transfer took place where knowing the father is immaterial and sometimes there wasnt even a concept of a husband, the brothers acted as fathers along with other elders from the mothers family. Or they were hunter gatherers with no concept of private property.It seems to me the moment men start to own property and become richer than others all sorts of sexual restrictions are put in place to discourage the women(their wives I think) from behaving promiscously. Its curious that the powerful men themselves often create exceptions for themselves like the concept of 'temporary marriage' the muslims have or secretly well not being all that monogamous.In the 'Kamasutra' it says at the beginning that happiness comes from experiencing pleasure and 'Kama' that is love and intense physical pleasure is the greatest pleasure there is, but you need to be rich to trully experience it. Why ?… a poor man only has his wife. Rest of the book mostly advises men how to seduce married women and courtesans how to make their clients fall in love with them.That is the thing you need to be rich to be happy in a place where men own the property. Or you can go down the suicidal path of renounciation and hope to god you dont come back to live on this wretched world again.Its why I dont think we will be able to liberate ourselves sexually in an inegalitarian place where property is mostly owned by men. And thats how capitalism always seems to look like with its inequality and ultra rich men at the top owning most of the wealth of the land. Worse is the machiavellian power struggles that seems to be a perennial feature of capitalism.Maybe if capitalism somehow managed to become very egalitarian things will change but I only see the reverse happening at the moment.
Sorry if I gave the impression that women are objects… I meant for an ideal situation where every person always has several people they can turn to to release their tensions… women can seek physical pleasure / tension release from whoever they like and get it… gay men can turn to men and get it… thats what I was trying to mean a situation where several people are willing to release the tensions a person is feeling so the average person always has several people they can turn to to release their tensions… this person may be old, young, man or a woman doesnt matter.I am just reminded of what James W. Prescott said about violent societies are almost always ones that try to deny physical pleasure to its people from adolescence onwards and the reverse is also true that is societies are more peaceful when people are allowed to seek physical pleasure from their adolescence onwards. Its just physical affection given to a child that makes it feel good that starts looking very sexual from adolescence onwards. Its just something that makes a person feel good. Getting this feels way better than doing violent things. It also promotes sharing and caring. Invariably violent people are ones being denied this from their adolescence.British soldiers in India used to sing of "a lass and lakh a day" while drinking where lakh is 100,000 rupees. It was money and sex they were looking for not just money.To me its clear sex is as important a need as money and people will go to war over it just as much as they would for money. And you dont even have to look at foreign shores for it there is plenty to be had right there in the local community so men in the community will just get busy killing each other sort of competing for a vital resource that in this case is sex. Hence the violent societies are made of men who arent getting enough.Some people have also pointed at our closest living relatives chimps and bonobos and shown the same thing…That the more sex starved chimps are killing each other all the time and machiavellian power struggles are going on among the chimpanzee males where a few males are always trying to take over power and even the alliances are temporary. And what one big thing they do if they succeed they try to exclude the other males from the limited sex that is available. Sex is much more limited as the females only have sex when they are ovulating.In contrast the bonobo females like humans conceal their estrus and are having sex all the time even when they are not fertile… so much so the males cant even tell if they are the father when a baby is born… heres the thing bonobos have yet to be observed killing each other within the group in 50 years of intensive observations. When two groups of bonobos meet and tensions start rising they often release that tension not by killing each other but by an impromptu orgy. They are using sex to prevent violence and promote sharing. It helps that the bonobo environment has plenty of food for everyone.I forgot where I read it but the article talked of an experiment where a pile of food was given to an adult chimp, what did he do… he kept it for himself. When it was given to an adult bonobo it called the others and started sharing the food with them.Chimps and bonobos are showing the same pattern James W. Prescott noticed in human societies where to turn a society violent you deny it physical pleasure and to subdue violent behavior you enhance physical pleasure people are getting. Here is the thing he included monogamous societies among violent ones… clearly one man / woman isnt enough for most.In "Sex At Dawn" the authors even gave anatomical evidence to show that we are not at all a monogamous species. And personally I have never felt like a monogamous being and now I dont think we are either as a species. The picture of every person being able to turn to several people to release their tensions is just an idealized vision if you think of us as promiscuous beings.I know powerful men with huge properties want their kids to benefit from the wealth they own. These men will never encourage promiscuity among women, a situation where they cant tell if a child is theirs or not which I suspect is what will happen if their wives and daughters werent punished for promiscuous behavior. They control religion and mass media and through them they promote these attitudes that make people do things like 'slut shaming' and worse, they dont want a woman to be a respected member of society if she is promiscuous. The more wealth seems to concentrate at the top the more strongly female promiscuity seems to get discouraged… not a recipe for a happy content peaceful place.Its why I dont have much faith in capitalism… its full of hypocrisy and shame… I mean a wealthy powerful man can create a harem in his factory/ office or his home if he wants to and no amount of laws seem to be able to stop him from doing it as long as he is turning a profit and doing it discreetly. So while the class discourages promiscuous behavior individuals in it can create their own harems if they like as long as they do it discreetly. Reading allegations about Gaddafi, Jimmy Saville or Sir Edward Heath it seems to me that the laws on morality are only meant to be followed by plebeians not those who live in palaces. If you are powerful / important enough the state will instead help you satisfy your passions no matter how coercive or violent they are as long as it can be done discreetly.In India while you were advised by the gods to have total control over a female from birth to death to ensure her chastity… in the sacred scriptures a king is given the right to have sex with whichever woman he desires as long as she is part of his kingdom.I think if power is needed to get enough sex a socialist place wont remain socialist for too long. And no way monogamy will keep a place socialist for too long either.
