- Rajesh Tyagi/ 15.11.2018
Sexual relations of the man are part of and integral to overall social relationships among humans. In turn and in final analysis, but in final analysis only, these relations are relatable to definite modes of production, within whose ambit they emerge and exist. Nevertheless, the relations continue to exist and under certain conditions, for fairly long periods of time, even when the modes of production in which they were born and flourished, whither away or are overthrown, long back. Existence of these relations, devoid of an economic base corresponding to them, creates an illusion, a blinding of the consciousness of man who lives through these relations, as if these relations exist independent of their own, as ‘free choice of free man’.
Every mode of production has its own corresponding set of social relations that are specific to it. It is these relations that are translated into norm within the realm of morality. In this sense, every society in history, has been a complex territory for a distinct system of social relations, that find their echo in morality of that society.
These relations, becoming petrified into diehard habits, get fossilized over time, into the consciousness of human beings, who are subjected to themselves by these relations. They refuse to die down even when the economic realms, where they were domesticated for long, get evaporated.
The traditions and morality of bygone era, in which man remains entrenched customarily by habit, thus loom large upon the back of descending societies.
We may be conscious or not to it, but our choices, preferences, behaviours, selections and thoughts are influenced by the social conditions that exist around and that in turn are determined by a complex cobweb of economic relations.
The study of ethics and morality, of choices and behaviours, of norms and patterns, thus, at its helm, is nothing but an inquiry into this complex of production relations, as a whole.
Sexual relations occupy a very special and peculiar place on the canvas of this social spectrum. And this, for at least two prime reasons, among others: Firstly, they are driven by the motor force of most basic, crude and animal instinct for sex and secondly, but not less importantly, they are circumscribed, defined and put to shape by the continuum of contemporary social relations, within whose conjuncture, they exist and interact. Not infrequently, the crude urge is mutilated, spoilt and deformed by the conservative and ossified social relations.
Sexual behavior and conduct of man is finally outlined and determined by a varied and continuous interplay between his instinctive urge, that constitutes the motor force behind this interplay, and the social conditions that harness and shape it to fit their overall regime.
For this, despite the existence of the same basic instinct carried over generation after generation, we find a whole rainbow range of diverge sexual behaviors and choices that differ from each other in all material particulars and constitute a whole torrent of varied patterns in this arena.
From this, arises the illusion of ‘free choice’. What appears to the naked eye and to a casual, offhand observer as ‘free choice of a free man’ remains, at its helm, a rationed dispensation of the society to its subject- the social man. Under the class society, there can neither be free men and consequently nor free choices. All choices will always remain the choices of enslaved man- the sham choices.
Sexuality of the man, remains a dialectical struggle between the nature and the society, between the natural instinct and societal norms, between the crude urge and moral fetters, between the natural and social construct of the man, between alienations and social existence. The more a society is conservative and reactionary, the deeper would go the wedge in this conflict.
This conflict finds its resolution and reconciliation in three broad expressions: Firstly, through germination of perversions, deviations and deformities in sexual behavior and choices under pressure of taboos. Secondly, through stealth, torpedoing of all taboos and norms and thirdly by open rebellion against them. In the first case, people present themselves to the social system as mere victims, in second, cheaters and in the third, rebels.
The challenge before man, however, is to eliminate this conflict, not only by moulding the social relations in consonance and harmony with the natural urge, but also to get rid of the baggage of old spoilt behaviors, born and developed in the preceding societies and ossified into habits.
The social pressures, created by the operation of definite economic relations, originate innumerable social alienations that remain integral to the sexual relations, as to other social relations.
These alienations- that include the alienation of man from the man, of man from the society and of man and the society from the nature- are taken under Capitalism, to their zenith. This results in unprecedented perversions, deformities and deviations in social relations, including sexual behaviours.
The mass of the workers and the soldiers, who are compelled to go to distant territories, pursuing prospects of decent or even better employment, face the conditions of forced celibacy, often in prime youth of their life, and not infrequently, immediately after their marriage. With each passing day, these atrocious living conditions compel them to seek the alternatives beyond the marital union. This results not only in extra marital relations, that is so common in bourgeois societies, but goes further. Encapsulated inside a small tenement or a barrack with his same sex colleagues, and away not only from his partner, but from opposite sex in general, a worker or a soldier, is left with two options- either to go to prostitute or have sex with same sex partner. Prostitution is, however, the option for a male who has spare bucks to spend continuously. Under these revulsive conditions of life, emerges the retardation of sexual choice and indulgence into not otherwise preferred sexual overtures.
Take another example from conservative life of rural mainlands in India, for instance. Here, even interaction between the opposite sexes, is a social taboo and is not only looked down upon but is suppressed through violence. This creates immense pressure and alienations that result in retardation and distortion of what otherwise must be a natural tendency.
Alongside these conservative and backward societies, immersed to their necks in innumerable suffocating taboos, on the other extreme of modern civilization, exists a world with porn industry, markets of prostitutes, extramarital affairs etc.
Biological evolution of the species has progressed and is progressing towards more and more separation of sexes. From embryonic form of cellular life in amoeba to the man over billions of years, there exists a trajectory of progression of the biological evolution that is directed towards more and more differentiation in sexual development of male and female. Though determined by different combination of chromosomes, the expression of sex distinction is becoming more stark with this progression, that is to say: male is becoming more masculine and female more feminine in biological built up.
Hetero-sexuality that rests in consonance with this biological progression, is thus progressive, while same sex relations that relate back to the dawn of cellular evolution, to the age of amoeba and hydra, to the era of sexual indifference in nature, are retrogressive. They are retrogressive as the intra-species sex, the bestiality, is regressive and degenerate after gradual differentiation of the living organism in different species.
Ruling bourgeoisie, denies that the society under it suffers from terminal sickness. It covers up the thorns with flowers to claim that thorns are not thorns, but flowers. It claims that addiction to porn and prostitution, the homosexuality or bestiality, is not deviation, deformity or disease, but normal and free choice of a free man. In this, it asserts that the bourgeois society is society of free men with free choice. Can there be bigger lie than this?
Man is not free in bourgeois society, but is in chains everywhere. He is victim under the axe of brutal capitalism. His choices are the dictates of a society that is nothing short of a yoke upon his shoulders. He is not only a victim of the inhuman conditions of the capitalist society but more of its hypocrisy, to the false claims of morality of a deeply immoral society.
In the first phase, the bourgeois society took exception to its sickness. For long, it attempted to control the degeneration through methods of iron arm, through police state measures, through societal repression. All societies in decay or retardation, that include those under Stalinists, attempted to suppress the sexual deviations through state terror, instead of looking into the wider degeneration of their state and society. It created homophobia, i.e. further victimization of the victims- societal repression alongside of the State and laws. Desperate to control the spreading gangrene and in the hope of purifying its blood, bourgeois tried to vaccinate its society with Victorian values, but got only its blood further poisoned. The vaccine was poisonous even more than the germs of gangrene.
Despite swallowing the bait of state terror and homophobia, as the germs of its decay went viral, sections of the bourgeoisie started to deny the illness itself. They claimed that in addiction to drugs, porn, prostitution, in homosexuality, bestiality and practically in everything that in the preceding era it itself recognized as disease and had suppressed through force, there is no illness but free choice of free man, that the perversions, deviations and deformities instead of being symptoms of a terminally ill society, are but natural.
Needless to say that by any means, these perversions are not specific to capitalism. They had existed in all class societies even before capitalism was born- firstly as the products of alienations that the decay of these societies had generated itself; and secondly, as the baggage of their past, the inheritance from the societies that had existed earlier to them.
While expressly recognizing that the deviatory behavior of the individuals is product of concrete objective conditions, created by the sick social systems around them and over which individually they hardly have any control, socialists are duty bound not only to frankly recognize this sickness that is hotbed of all perversions and deranged human behavior, but to discreetly inquire into their origins, anatomy and effects.
While opposing any stigmatization or persecution of the victims by the state and society both, socialists must fight for elimination of those objective conditions that find their expression into these deviations and diseases. While opposing any and all interference of state and society in the personal affairs and choices made by the individuals, we socialists, in public discourse on these choices and behaviors, have all right to diagnose the deviant behaviors as expressions of a sick society, the symptoms of a disease, that needs to be cured.
To support their untenable argument- that the deviatory behaviors are relatable to the biological built-up of man and not to the social organization and the alienations generated by it- liberals, point to the distinct groups of sufferers of biological deformities and disabilities. This argument, on the contrary, goes against them. The choices made by such groups are not free choices from any angle, but are imposed by their natural conditions, to their biological deformities. The task is- to eliminate these physical deformities through genetic or other interventions- at least in future generations if not in the present- but not to justify or glorify the deformities, in any case whatsoever.
To be sure, what we are opposing, is not homosexuality or any other form of sexual intercourse. On the contrary, we defend the right of individuals to opt for whatever they chose for themselves in their private affairs, including sex. We stand against any interference, pressure or oppression by the state or the society in the life of individuals. We advocate full freedom of men and women in their personal affairs. What we are opposed to is the capitalism and the conditions created by it that give birth to deformities. We are opposing those, who instead of seeking a cure for the society, are justifying its illness, who are telling us that there is no decay at all, that there exists a free man in free society with free choices.
Even our opponents cannot attack us except by falsifying our stance and positions on the subject. To deceive themselves and their blind followers, they accuse us of siding with ‘homophobes’ like Stalin, who outlawed and then criminalized same sex relations. The fact goes however that we opposed this persecution, still oppose it and will always do that. We deem this persecution as victimization of the victims and an instrument to increase the pressure that would only induce further deformities and perversions. We deem this as an admission not only of terminal sickness of the society at its bottom, but the inability of the ruling elites to cure that.
On the other hand, the proposition of the liberal ideologues that the sexual behavior or orientation is determined by genes or the biological make-up of man, is equally flawed. Socialists are convinced that it is nothing else but the social conditions of existence that are solely responsible for social behaviour of man, including his sexual behaviour, choices and preferences.
To socialists, the struggle for free-sex, is integral to the class struggle of the proletariat, the struggle against the contemporary society, its commands, its pressures and alienations. To them, the struggle for sexual freedom implies not only the struggle for freedom of man from society but also from the nature.
We demand ‘free sex’! But, for us, this demand does not mean a call for sexual anarchy, for going berserk with a bang or a re-turn to animal kingdom, a detour to savagery. To us socialists, ‘free sex’ means- the freedom of civilized sexual life from the cramping fetters of old society and from all pressures, compulsions, perversions and alienations that it has continuously churned out and brought to the life of the society. To us, ‘free sex’ means- ushering into a new dawn of sexual relations based on monogamy, the highest form of sex-love- which the bourgeois society only dreamt and talked of, but could never achieve.
Sexual relations of the man are part of and integral to overall social relationships among humans. In turn and in final analysis, but in final analysis only, these relations are relatable to definite modes of production, within whose ambit they emerge and exist. Nevertheless, the relations continue to exist and under certain conditions, for fairly long periods of time, even when the modes of production in which they were born and flourished, whither away or are overthrown, long back. Existence of these relations, devoid of an economic base corresponding to them, creates an illusion, a blinding of the consciousness of man who lives through these relations, as if these relations exist independent of their own, as ‘free choice of free man’.
Every mode of production has its own corresponding set of social relations that are specific to it. It is these relations that are translated into norm within the realm of morality. In this sense, every society in history, has been a complex territory for a distinct system of social relations, that find their echo in morality of that society.
These relations, becoming petrified into diehard habits, get fossilized over time, into the consciousness of human beings, who are subjected to themselves by these relations. They refuse to die down even when the economic realms, where they were domesticated for long, get evaporated.
The traditions and morality of bygone era, in which man remains entrenched customarily by habit, thus loom large upon the back of descending societies.
We may be conscious or not to it, but our choices, preferences, behaviours, selections and thoughts are influenced by the social conditions that exist around and that in turn are determined by a complex cobweb of economic relations.
The study of ethics and morality, of choices and behaviours, of norms and patterns, thus, at its helm, is nothing but an inquiry into this complex of production relations, as a whole.
Sexual relations occupy a very special and peculiar place on the canvas of this social spectrum. And this, for at least two prime reasons, among others: Firstly, they are driven by the motor force of most basic, crude and animal instinct for sex and secondly, but not less importantly, they are circumscribed, defined and put to shape by the continuum of contemporary social relations, within whose conjuncture, they exist and interact. Not infrequently, the crude urge is mutilated, spoilt and deformed by the conservative and ossified social relations.
Sexual behavior and conduct of man is finally outlined and determined by a varied and continuous interplay between his instinctive urge, that constitutes the motor force behind this interplay, and the social conditions that harness and shape it to fit their overall regime.
For this, despite the existence of the same basic instinct carried over generation after generation, we find a whole rainbow range of diverge sexual behaviors and choices that differ from each other in all material particulars and constitute a whole torrent of varied patterns in this arena.
From this, arises the illusion of ‘free choice’. What appears to the naked eye and to a casual, offhand observer as ‘free choice of a free man’ remains, at its helm, a rationed dispensation of the society to its subject- the social man. Under the class society, there can neither be free men and consequently nor free choices. All choices will always remain the choices of enslaved man- the sham choices.
Sexuality of the man, remains a dialectical struggle between the nature and the society, between the natural instinct and societal norms, between the crude urge and moral fetters, between the natural and social construct of the man, between alienations and social existence. The more a society is conservative and reactionary, the deeper would go the wedge in this conflict.
This conflict finds its resolution and reconciliation in three broad expressions: Firstly, through germination of perversions, deviations and deformities in sexual behavior and choices under pressure of taboos. Secondly, through stealth, torpedoing of all taboos and norms and thirdly by open rebellion against them. In the first case, people present themselves to the social system as mere victims, in second, cheaters and in the third, rebels.
The challenge before man, however, is to eliminate this conflict, not only by moulding the social relations in consonance and harmony with the natural urge, but also to get rid of the baggage of old spoilt behaviors, born and developed in the preceding societies and ossified into habits.
The social pressures, created by the operation of definite economic relations, originate innumerable social alienations that remain integral to the sexual relations, as to other social relations.
These alienations- that include the alienation of man from the man, of man from the society and of man and the society from the nature- are taken under Capitalism, to their zenith. This results in unprecedented perversions, deformities and deviations in social relations, including sexual behaviours.
The mass of the workers and the soldiers, who are compelled to go to distant territories, pursuing prospects of decent or even better employment, face the conditions of forced celibacy, often in prime youth of their life, and not infrequently, immediately after their marriage. With each passing day, these atrocious living conditions compel them to seek the alternatives beyond the marital union. This results not only in extra marital relations, that is so common in bourgeois societies, but goes further. Encapsulated inside a small tenement or a barrack with his same sex colleagues, and away not only from his partner, but from opposite sex in general, a worker or a soldier, is left with two options- either to go to prostitute or have sex with same sex partner. Prostitution is, however, the option for a male who has spare bucks to spend continuously. Under these revulsive conditions of life, emerges the retardation of sexual choice and indulgence into not otherwise preferred sexual overtures.
Take another example from conservative life of rural mainlands in India, for instance. Here, even interaction between the opposite sexes, is a social taboo and is not only looked down upon but is suppressed through violence. This creates immense pressure and alienations that result in retardation and distortion of what otherwise must be a natural tendency.
Alongside these conservative and backward societies, immersed to their necks in innumerable suffocating taboos, on the other extreme of modern civilization, exists a world with porn industry, markets of prostitutes, extramarital affairs etc.
Biological evolution of the species has progressed and is progressing towards more and more separation of sexes. From embryonic form of cellular life in amoeba to the man over billions of years, there exists a trajectory of progression of the biological evolution that is directed towards more and more differentiation in sexual development of male and female. Though determined by different combination of chromosomes, the expression of sex distinction is becoming more stark with this progression, that is to say: male is becoming more masculine and female more feminine in biological built up.
Hetero-sexuality that rests in consonance with this biological progression, is thus progressive, while same sex relations that relate back to the dawn of cellular evolution, to the age of amoeba and hydra, to the era of sexual indifference in nature, are retrogressive. They are retrogressive as the intra-species sex, the bestiality, is regressive and degenerate after gradual differentiation of the living organism in different species.
Ruling bourgeoisie, denies that the society under it suffers from terminal sickness. It covers up the thorns with flowers to claim that thorns are not thorns, but flowers. It claims that addiction to porn and prostitution, the homosexuality or bestiality, is not deviation, deformity or disease, but normal and free choice of a free man. In this, it asserts that the bourgeois society is society of free men with free choice. Can there be bigger lie than this?
Man is not free in bourgeois society, but is in chains everywhere. He is victim under the axe of brutal capitalism. His choices are the dictates of a society that is nothing short of a yoke upon his shoulders. He is not only a victim of the inhuman conditions of the capitalist society but more of its hypocrisy, to the false claims of morality of a deeply immoral society.
In the first phase, the bourgeois society took exception to its sickness. For long, it attempted to control the degeneration through methods of iron arm, through police state measures, through societal repression. All societies in decay or retardation, that include those under Stalinists, attempted to suppress the sexual deviations through state terror, instead of looking into the wider degeneration of their state and society. It created homophobia, i.e. further victimization of the victims- societal repression alongside of the State and laws. Desperate to control the spreading gangrene and in the hope of purifying its blood, bourgeois tried to vaccinate its society with Victorian values, but got only its blood further poisoned. The vaccine was poisonous even more than the germs of gangrene.
Despite swallowing the bait of state terror and homophobia, as the germs of its decay went viral, sections of the bourgeoisie started to deny the illness itself. They claimed that in addiction to drugs, porn, prostitution, in homosexuality, bestiality and practically in everything that in the preceding era it itself recognized as disease and had suppressed through force, there is no illness but free choice of free man, that the perversions, deviations and deformities instead of being symptoms of a terminally ill society, are but natural.
Needless to say that by any means, these perversions are not specific to capitalism. They had existed in all class societies even before capitalism was born- firstly as the products of alienations that the decay of these societies had generated itself; and secondly, as the baggage of their past, the inheritance from the societies that had existed earlier to them.
While expressly recognizing that the deviatory behavior of the individuals is product of concrete objective conditions, created by the sick social systems around them and over which individually they hardly have any control, socialists are duty bound not only to frankly recognize this sickness that is hotbed of all perversions and deranged human behavior, but to discreetly inquire into their origins, anatomy and effects.
While opposing any stigmatization or persecution of the victims by the state and society both, socialists must fight for elimination of those objective conditions that find their expression into these deviations and diseases. While opposing any and all interference of state and society in the personal affairs and choices made by the individuals, we socialists, in public discourse on these choices and behaviors, have all right to diagnose the deviant behaviors as expressions of a sick society, the symptoms of a disease, that needs to be cured.
To support their untenable argument- that the deviatory behaviors are relatable to the biological built-up of man and not to the social organization and the alienations generated by it- liberals, point to the distinct groups of sufferers of biological deformities and disabilities. This argument, on the contrary, goes against them. The choices made by such groups are not free choices from any angle, but are imposed by their natural conditions, to their biological deformities. The task is- to eliminate these physical deformities through genetic or other interventions- at least in future generations if not in the present- but not to justify or glorify the deformities, in any case whatsoever.
To be sure, what we are opposing, is not homosexuality or any other form of sexual intercourse. On the contrary, we defend the right of individuals to opt for whatever they chose for themselves in their private affairs, including sex. We stand against any interference, pressure or oppression by the state or the society in the life of individuals. We advocate full freedom of men and women in their personal affairs. What we are opposed to is the capitalism and the conditions created by it that give birth to deformities. We are opposing those, who instead of seeking a cure for the society, are justifying its illness, who are telling us that there is no decay at all, that there exists a free man in free society with free choices.
Even our opponents cannot attack us except by falsifying our stance and positions on the subject. To deceive themselves and their blind followers, they accuse us of siding with ‘homophobes’ like Stalin, who outlawed and then criminalized same sex relations. The fact goes however that we opposed this persecution, still oppose it and will always do that. We deem this persecution as victimization of the victims and an instrument to increase the pressure that would only induce further deformities and perversions. We deem this as an admission not only of terminal sickness of the society at its bottom, but the inability of the ruling elites to cure that.
On the other hand, the proposition of the liberal ideologues that the sexual behavior or orientation is determined by genes or the biological make-up of man, is equally flawed. Socialists are convinced that it is nothing else but the social conditions of existence that are solely responsible for social behaviour of man, including his sexual behaviour, choices and preferences.
To socialists, the struggle for free-sex, is integral to the class struggle of the proletariat, the struggle against the contemporary society, its commands, its pressures and alienations. To them, the struggle for sexual freedom implies not only the struggle for freedom of man from society but also from the nature.
We demand ‘free sex’! But, for us, this demand does not mean a call for sexual anarchy, for going berserk with a bang or a re-turn to animal kingdom, a detour to savagery. To us socialists, ‘free sex’ means- the freedom of civilized sexual life from the cramping fetters of old society and from all pressures, compulsions, perversions and alienations that it has continuously churned out and brought to the life of the society. To us, ‘free sex’ means- ushering into a new dawn of sexual relations based on monogamy, the highest form of sex-love- which the bourgeois society only dreamt and talked of, but could never achieve.
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