Sexuality not sex

[Siddharth Chatterjee <siddhart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 15 Apr 1996, Jeffrey Booth wrote:

>
> Gary,
>       I'm hurt that you didn't acknowledge my paraphrase of Emma
> Goldman.
>       Anyway, Gina and Lord Adolpho responded exactly as I thought they
> would.  The Maoist individuals (groups would be an exagerration) that I've
> run into actually print in their papers that abstinence is the truly
> revoltionary practice; that sex is somehow an act of exploitation, etc... .
>    It reminds me of *1984*:  "sexcrime" and all that.  I think it's worth
> showing again and again what sick morons these maoists are.  If people
> start to associate maoism with marxism:  we'll never have a revolution.
>
>       It's also once again clear from this thread that Gina and Adolpho are:
>
>               A)  Bourgeois or upper middle class.
>
>               B)  Homophobic.
>
>               C)  From another planet.
>
>               D)  Complete shit-heads.
>
> The list could continue.  If only I had the time to post on all the crap
> they raise on this list but some of us have to work for a living.
>       
>                       For Socialism AND Sex,
>                                               Jeff Booth


The above list of charges actually read like a (to paraphrase Mr.
Henwood) "bible-thumper's" list of accusations. Since sex and sexuality
are on the table, let us put all the cards on the table, Mr. Booth. That
is, let us go one notch up and take this debate to its ultimate
bourgeois conclusion.

1. There are in this world people who practice incest. Incest can occur
between siblings (male-female, female-female, male-male) and also between
parents and siblings (father-daughter, mother-son, father-son, mother-
daughter). Incest is frowned upon in current society although once
upon a time some varieties of incest was sanctioned by humans.

Examples are Ancient Egypt where brother-sister sexual relations was
acceptable. Even today certain communities allow marriage between
first cousins. In Northern India, hetrosexual marriage between first
cousins in Moslem families, in the Parsi community and in South India,
marriage between uncles and nieces are prevalent today. The
offspring that result from such close marriages have been found to be
susceptible to various debilitating diseases that affect the central
nervous system. Thus from a biological point of view (even though
biology may not be fit the description of science according to the
criteria of some of the eminent scientists on this list - that is,
it is not "completely predictable with nary a deviation"), incest can
lead to species weakness and ultimately threaten its very survival.

Now we live in an age where condoms, pills, diaphragms, etc. are widely
available and people who practise incest can respond to the accusation
that they are creating weak offspring by saying that all they are in-
terested in is the pleasure of sex and they will not create any offspring
by their actions. So the bilogical argument against incest falls. But
still incest is condemned in most of the world. Why? (That is why it
is practiced in a hidden way.) Two questions come to mind. First, is
the incest between 2 partners performed with "equal" consent on both
sides? From the list of cases which occasionally come up in the media,
most of the time this is not the case. Usually, one of the partners is
forceful or the initiator. That is, there is a "coercer" (e,g.,father)
and the "coerced" (e,g.,daughter). So there is an exploitative relation
involved here. But let us stretch it even farther and assume there was no
coercion involved in the incest, that is, both parties freely consented
to the incest. Here, the second question arises. What would be the state
of human society if incest was widely and "freely" practiced? Would
a society like that be a step towards freedom (defined as the
"consciousness of necessity") FOR HUMAN SOCIETY AS A WHOLE
or would it be a step backward towards Caligula's court (assuming that
the liberators agree that Caligula was a maniac)? If incest was
sanctioned freely, would it lead to a free-for all?
(We have not used any moral arguments so far).

So what about the rights of the practioners of incest in today's world?
What about INCEST LIBERATION, Mr. Booth, Mr. Maclennan, Mr. Henwood,
Mr. Andresen, and numerous others? After all, incest is even more
hidden and has potentially much more societal sanctions than homo-
sexuality.

2. There is today, a huge traffic in children as sex slaves.
Examples are Thailand and other poor countries from where children
are bought and sold to the rich Gulf family dictatorships. If this
traffic is stopped, say by international enforcement, huge outcries
would be emitted by the profiteers and the rich sex-masters saying
that their "freedom" (founded on the slavery of others) is being
infringed upon. And for another close and living example,
what is the liberators' attitudes towards NAMBLA (North American
Man Boy Love Association)? Are they prepared to denounce this
"voluntary" association, praise it as a "fount of freedom", or be
non-commital?

The question of human freedom is an extremely complex issue. On one hand,
there is individual freedom and on the other, there is freedom for
human society as a whole. Both are not proportional. An increase in
personal freedom can be detrimental to the freedom of society. No
traffic regulations would initially increase personal freedom, thereby
causing massive traffic jams which would then cause a decrease in freedom
for most in going from one place to another (an exception being
a stray bicylist). A bridge is a complex structure, the failure of
a single beam or its "freedom to move freely" can cause the whole
bridge to collapse.

The liberators should think these questions carefully over before they
reply.




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