“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. At first the child has to submit to the structure of the authoritarian miniature state, the family; this 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.”
Wilhelm Reich, from The Mass Psychology of Fascism
http://www.blackmagpietheory.com/2010/09/math-girl-and-the-mermaid-masturbation-in-early-childhood-and-american-politics/
A preschool teacher with two and a half decades of experience shares her perspective on masturbation. She has observed a correlation between early childhood masturbation and cognitive function. Interesting theory.
I would not be the person I am today if I hadn’t taken matters into my own hand — heh — and explored guilt free masturbation in my late 20’s after having been exposed to some very unhealthy views on the subject of sexuality prior to that. My liberation was kick started by hanging around with a photographer who took a lot of wonderful nude shots of herself and of others, and her openness instantly rubbed off on me and forced me look more deeply at myself and my repressed upbringing.
I’m with fontanelle here and agree that Half’s latest post at 10:08am does an excellent job of furthering a much healthier discussion around the topic of masturbation, especially describing it as an activity which is best engaged in when one is fully and more “consciously embracing its spirit.” To orgasm from that responsible and ultimately freeing state of awareness and ownership, helped me to unleash my spirit and begin the healing of a deep disconnect which somedays I truly and honestly thought would never, ever heal. I used to cry from deep in the heart of me after orgasming for quite some time, but nowadays it’s more likely that I will laugh and giggle and breathe in deeply the wonderment of life, the universe and everything.
Most especially, that’s the attitude toward sex that I have passed onto my teen age son and when he and I converse about sex along these lines, I know I have done something right in the world.
I spent a fair amount of the day debating this debate in my head. Half De Witte offers something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism
The above link may prove useful for people. Basically, language is well suited to promoting Essentialist conceptuality and that is a big problem on the masturbation question.
Synonyms may help a little.
When unpacking the idea I am happier with self-exploration than self-nurture.
We bring all our conditioning to all our activities. And this is where Essentialist drivers can limit our experience of self. We have genital fixation in the West. If we bring that to masturbation, we suffer.
Often, I would rather stroke my thigh and experience and reach beyond than grab my cock and start furiously rubbing it. All this depends on your unique wiring and also what you are seeking to acquire from your self-exploratory practice.
There is no monolith of masturbation and when we allow an idolatry of language to reduce it to a culturally normative concept then all we will invest masturbation with is some intensely polarizing emotional trip.
Masturbation is not a thing. It is not a linear practice. If we do not explore what it might mean in real terms, and practice it holistically, we reduce it to a parody of itself.
The whole debate seems either to attack or defend the parodied essence indwelling the label.
Masturbation can have drawbacks if it is done without consciously embracing its spirit. It can be very unsatisfying and I think it crucial that the whole exercise be placed in a more expansive context of self-whatever at all times.
I should masturbate more, but do not reserve enough time in my schedule. We all need to understand precisely what is at stake here. Reducing the practice to the label, and debating that, would constitute a loss of opportunity that is surely counter-intuitive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbjzujo1Qx8
And the sex abuse starts with the suppression of masturbation. That is the first crack in the foundation of the psyche, the injection of toxic shame that becomes a war with existence. The people who push an anti-masturbation agenda know exactly what they’re doing.
We don’t tend to be much interested in the victim until they have been choosing their own poison for a good while. Once they themselves become perpetrators, we readily defend them as ‘victims’. Isn’t that strange? What does it tell us about our guilt?
Well, if chose no longer to be a victim, that would make me a very BAD person. Standing up for oneself is wicked I tell you. And if I can’t say ‘fuck off’ to authority I must be a very obedient and compliant good person.
Fuck being good – lets start being real. You’ll get guilt tripped and punished and maligned but hey, they were destroying you anyway… slowly.
“both Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell feel like untreated abuse victims to me, who in turn will do every thing in their power to control every one else’s sexual expression in order to keep their own denial in tact.”
Mary, speaking from the POV of a treated and “I am aware now” abuse victim, personal abuse beginning with daddy and grandpa and brother and uncles etc and ending with the former spouse, I say Amen.
That’s the nut in the shell, isn’t it. My family cannot understand why I have distanced myself from them. After all, they are ‘good’ people. But I have watched most of my very large extended family drift further and further into fundamental religious zeolotry; even those individuals whom as a child I never would have thought to lose their “grip on reality” as it were.
This issue of abuse screams at us from all social-economic levels. Eric, you have so rightly said again and again, who of us has not been abused?
An accurate definition of Abuse and use of the concept is part of what is still missing from our language.
Control others to maintain their own denial indeed.
Fontanelle,
Would you please define what you mean by “on purpose”?
Also, we do have many avenues of help available, many books, and so on. Once you leave the realm of fundamentalist religion, there is a world of help. Most people avoid it.
Eric,
I don’t think people are doing that on purpose. We don’t have the infrastructure to address our wounds adequately, not in this country and not on a scale that would be meaningful. Then again, all we need is our self. Hmmmm
Mary, and then it works the other way as well. The people who identify with them as leaders are getting the service of someone in a position of ideological power who grants them permission to take a “simple” approach to their problem, denial. This cycle feeds on itself.
Reich described this condition as the ’emotional plague’.
In my 30 years as a psychotherapist, I have found many people’s natural sexuality was repressed through violent means. I cannot emphasize strongly enough the impact of our denial of the extent of sexual abuse of children, girls and boys, in all strata of our society. My experience shows that it is often in the most “god-fearing” homes where children are viewed as objects and live very unaware of their basic connection to their bodies.
I have nothing but intuition to base this on, and a look at both of their charts, but both Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell feel like untreated abuse victims to me, who in turn will do every thing in their power to control every one else’s sexual expression in order to keep their own denial in tact. They identify with their abusers.
Hi Len,
Well, I’m not much of a historian when it comes to the details of history. You make a good point about women. Sadly. Personally I’m hoping to be a voice for reason in the health industry. So much has been kept hidden; it is hard to know what to fight for. I stick to common sense and try not to get hung up on politics (truth being in between poles), although it does seem pretty obvious that universal health care goes over far better than we imagine. Of course, getting back to nature and breathing deeply and moving our bodies would do a lot to avoid the costs of a flooded westernized/industrial system. A thought occurs: as far as religious history goes, maybe we are trying to avoid the flood in symbolic terms; don’t flood the hospitals or expense accounts of the materially wealthy or the private parts as this posting might suggest.
fontanelle,
Plato as much as killed his father. Abraham as much as killed his son. Who knows, maybe the ending was re-written and they actually did. Plato + Abraham equals Western Civ. Ever since, men (predominantly) have squandered the resources of the Earth to finance killing their brothers. This is plain to see. The amount of energy that goes into not seeing it is astounding. This is no underbelly. This septicemia is in our face. If women can be said to have a buy-in (which is not certain in my mind) it would be something along the lines of “come home with your shield or on it”.
This is nothing new. Greater minds than mine have written it down way better.
Len,
Well, I would not be bored by the connected dots and the answer is yes.
Thanks
fontanelle,
Ah, thank you for asking the right question.
In The Dialogs, Plato records himself as having voted to acquit Socrates. In the Republic he prescribes precisely the same penalty for the same “crime”. Won’t bore you by connecting the dots but would you not consider patricide to be sociopathic if not pathological?
In effort not to be vague; something of detriment to a Pisces Sun conjunct Icarus:
“Calvin and Hobbes is a syndicated daily comic strip written and illustrated by American cartoonist Bill Watterson, and syndicated from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. It follows the humorous antics of Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his sardonic stuffed tiger. The pair are named after John Calvin, a 16th-century French Reformation theologian, and Thomas Hobbes, a 17th-century English political philosopher[2].”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes
I was given at one time to believe that the strip contrived “conversations” between the two (that is, the theologian and the philosopher), but really, um, cute; but not so much.
wait, plato turned into a sociopath ?
I’d say the Catholic church suppresses sex as much as possible. Good grief when is the last time you visited that backward place? Mexican peasants didn’t become so by accident. On the other hand, my protestant church talks about sex a lot, as a normal part of life. Grew up in a Catholic environment and don’t plan to ever go back.
Anyone who wants and desires a good church need only shop around. There are plenty of loving Christians in the real world, and most are afraid to express opinions these days for fear of the backlash and litigation.
(Sigh; apparently Merc’s returning to Direct hasn’t helped slow down the chatter.)
Len,
Apparently I’ve some Plato reading to do……and really, I always DID prefer Hobbes.
Does this make me awordonarolledgewise?
And is the roll gluten-free?
xo
aword,
Wow, you have been on a roll. This process you describe having seen in individuals and generations was first self-documented (in Western Civilization) by Plato. He started off as a passionate poet and ended up as Sociopath Prime, perhaps even Psychopath Prime. Generation after generation the same pattern that Plato set down, afraid of death and sacrificing all and any to that fear in vain. What we are witnessing has been seen before – remember a fellow named Calvin (and i don’t mean the one with Hobbes)?
and slowly but surely they conform, changing values, adapting to a more “radical right”. I’ve watched it in individuals and generational-ly.
These same people, of whom I am familiar, are also in denial of many many other truths.
And again I stress, graduate-degrees, doctorates, ‘liberal-minded’ Democrats – who are confused and docile, but do not want to see it.
I’ve been reflecting on my family, my upbringing, that history etc as this discussion flows – and it’s not the first time I’ve reflected on how puritanical “values” have distorted our connection to lifesource, motherearth, sex and sexuality, on and on.
My personal founding fathers came here with (probably mostly subconscious) intent to control, suppress, and abuse women and children – and men who would not submit and conform.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say again, “at least the Catholic church admits that sex exists”.
Protestant culture denies that sex and sexuality exist – as even what is “allowed within the sanctity of marriage” is, well, barely sex. And I come from a well-educated upper-middle class background But sex and sexuality are profoundly denied.
And I don’t agree that most people masturbate. Maybe up until they realize they’d best conform and quit – and around then is when they decide to get married – and the next emotional decision is that sex isn’t so important anyway – so they sink themselves into other activities – but in denial of their Source. This is a Protestant’s vantage point.
I could write volumes on this.
Thank you, Eric. Read it twice and glad i did. These are words of reason and sanity. How amazing that reason and sanity sound revolutionary and even heretical.