Sex not sexuality was: Lenin on sexual "excess"

[Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Lord Olaechea, the Knight of the Shining Path and the Prince of the Prolix
wrote this:-
>
>Many of the decayed bourgeois "orgiastics" in this list adduce that such a
>Party will have no mass appeal.  That is because they see the proletariat
>party as a "mass party" and not as the "Party OF the Masses" (in Leninist
>terms).
>
>They are out - not to make revolution - but to win votes, and for that they
>pander ever more to the lowest common denominator and the smuttiest wish
>list of any juvenile delincuent or gross materialist entitled to a ballot in
>bourgeois elections.
>
>A chicken in every pot, and turgid tits, steaming vaginas and spurting
>penises for everyone's phantasies and sado-masochist "torture chambers"
>seems to be their program.
>
>New Fascism - like quite a few expressions of the old (witness the orgiastic
>nature of the Hitlerite brown shirts - the film The Damned - Luchino
>Visconti - is a good expression of this tendency in fascism) also seems to
>be seeking to mobilise masses under hedonistic banners worthy of
Heliogabalus.
>
>Unfortunately, for these New Fascists, they will hardly be able to mobilise
>such masses away from the flesh pots and the speakeasies in more than a
>perfunctory fashion and only under the banners of "leave us alone to do as
>we wish". The epitome of the "I am alright Jack" philosophy!
>
>How far from Lenin, how close to Caligula they have become!


I know comrades have resorted to the delete button to protect themselves
>from the absolute tide of verbal diarrhoea that Lord Olaechea has fouled
this list with, but I urge them as a matter of political interest to read
carefully the above.

This thread began as a challenge to the PCP to make its postion on gays
clear.  This has now been partly satisfied.  However there is another aspect
of this affair.  I have repeatedly challenged the Don to say wheter he would
publicly condemn Stalin's criminalisation of homosexulaity.  He refuses to
answer this.  His subsequent postings however reveal that he has very little
understanding at all of the politics of sexuality.
Indeed his tactics here were quite similar to when Comrade Proyect raised
the question of Stalin's disastrous stupidity on fascism.  Don Adolfo simply
repeated Stalin's crassness.  Stalin stigmatised homosexuals as fascist and
decadent. Don Adolfo simply repeats Stalin's crassness.

Ignorance is of course not always a matter for condemnation but when it is
allied to the kind of aristocratic arrogance and crudity that Don Adolfo
habitually displays then the results are execrable indeed.

Let  me then try and inform  the revolutionary aristo and his homophobic
henchman, Chatterjee.  Gay loberation can best be understood as part of the
politics of recognition.  The central aim is really not about a licence to
have any particular kind of sexual practice but rather to be recognised as
human beings. It is about sexuality not sex.  It is about what kind of
identity one can be permitted to have.  Of course one should note here that
queer theory has attempted to challenge identity politics, but  such fine
distinctions are obviuoulsy beyond this junker who can write about "steaming
vaginas".

I make no apology whatsoever for championing the cause of gay emancipation.
I admit freely that I have not been as active in gay politics as I would
have liked to have been over the years.  I chose however to put most of my
efforts into traditional left politics.  Part of my rationale for this was a
conviction that the cause of socialist revolution would automatically lead
to the emancipation of gays and other oppressed groups.  I never ever
thought that I would arrive in a forum like this when to raise the cause of
gay emancipation would lead to the charge that one is an "orgiastic" or on
about "spurting penises".

But then I would never have thought that I would have been denounced as a
"fascist" either.

I would like to comment briefly on some other comrades who contributed to
this thread.  I appreciated the comments by Louis Gondena.  I was also
surprised.

Comrade Anderesen took the homophobe Chatterjee to pieces with great
analytical precision.  I enjoyed this greatly.

Comrade Howard continues to argue his point of view with considerable skill.
For his civilised and erudite contributions he has had to bear the vile
comparisons with Caligula. He has my sympathy.  For these and all the other
comrades who have defended the traditions of revolutionary tolerance and
self emancipation of the oppressed, my sincere thanks.


Regards

Gary



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