Fascist Sexuality

What drives people towards supporting and voting for political representatives who in no way, shape or form will serve their interests? Even more pressing in these times of rising fascism is the question why they vote for authoritarian leaders, knowing perfectly well that this is against their best interests?

We like to think that human beings are rational actors. It's what our entire socioeconomic and political systems are based on; capitalism relies on the assumption that we all make choices in accordance to our own best self-interest, and we assume democracy works best when all individuals vote for politicians who serve their class interests. We know these assumptions are wrong; we see people make choices all the time that don't serve or even are antithetical to their own interests. As much as we sometimes like to think or believe otherwise, we're primarily motivated by our emotions and subsequently also manipulated through those emotions. One of the best examples of this truth is the attraction of fascism in times of deep economical, political and social uncertainty.

Now before I go on, let me say that what follows is based on an idea I only recently stumbled across, one that I haven't had a chance to examine much yet, so keep that in mind and take this as an opportunity to investigate it further on your own. I was immediately attracted to this idea partially because of what I know already about this phenomenon of fascism; it's a subject I've already written numerous posts on. But, as with all other opinion-pieces, there lurks the spectre of confirmation-bias on my part, so be warned.

Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian psychoanalyst, a student of Sigmund Freud, who lived in exile after the Nazis took over in Germany. He had written a book called The Mass Psychology of Fascism, which was burned not only during the Nazi book burnings, but also in America on the request of the Food and Drug Administration by a judge in Maine in 1954 The latter burning was because of his radical view on sexual liberation and his strong affiliation with socialism during the second Red Scare. The question at the heart of Reich's book was this: why did the masses turn to authoritarianism even though it is clearly against their interests? As a psychoanalyst and as a student of Freud his answers are found in the deep sexual instincts or the suppression thereof:

Suppression of the natural sexuality in the child, particularly of its genital sexuality, makes the child apprehensive, shy, obedient, afraid of authority, good and adjusted in the authoritarian sense; it paralyzes the rebellious forces because any rebellion is laden with anxiety; it produces, by inhibiting sexual curiosity and sexual thinking in the child, a general inhibition of thinking and of critical faculties. In brief, the goal of sexual suppression is that of producing an individual who is adjusted to the authoritarian order and who will submit to it in spite of all misery and degradation. Initially, the child has to submit to the structure of the authoritarian miniature state, the family, which process makes it capable of later subordination to the general authoritarian system. The formation of the authoritarian structure takes place through the anchoring of sexual inhibition and anxiety.
_{source: Wikipedia}

Like I said in the opening: we are motivated by and manipulated through our emotions. Fear and sexuality are some of our most deeply embedded instincts, which is why they're so effectively used in all manners of manipulation; "sex sells" and "fear sells" are motto's of any self-respecting marketing agency. Politicians rule by fear of real or implied enemies. Cars sell better when they're depicted with an attractive woman. Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, was the master and pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda and the architect of the famous Torches of Freedom publicity campaign to boost cigarette sales by encouraging women to smoke.

Reich's theory immediately struck a chord with me because of the prevalence of authoritarianism among fundamentalist Christians and the Evangelicals who formed Donald Trump's core base. I've said in previous posts that deeply religious people, not just Christians, have a predisposition for believing things without evidence and things coming from a higher authority; it's much easier, as proven by Trump's success among Evangelicals, to lure them into a cult of personality and to make them believe things without a shred of evidence; not just the Big Lie about the "stolen" elections, but also belief in QAnon conspiracy theories is widespread among Trump's support-base. Heck, he couldn't even prevent some of his audience from booing him when he said he wasn't against COVID-19 vaccinations.

But this angle of suppression of sexuality during childhood and no sex before marriage, that's new to me. So I invite you to watch the below linked video for more on that.

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