Over 30 years of anarchist writing from Ireland listed under hundreds of topics
Sex, Gasmasks & Pantyhose
Date: Wed, 1994-06-22 12:29
THE 'BACK TO BASICS' propaganda campaign has been undermined because the Tories failed to meet their own moral standards. In condemning the Tory party we must be careful not to take on their morality. There's nothing wrong with shagging. No one should expect human sexual behaviour to be expressed in only one way. It's strange that while we accept diversity in tastes in food, music, book, films when it comes to sex we talk of rights, wrongs and norms.
Heterosexual penetrative sex in the missionary position is assumed to be the norm. Yet, who would ever assume that most normal people eat meat and two veg every day of their lives? Who would think it was peculiar to consume and enjoy curry or chilli or potato soup. While variety is accepted and unquestioned in every other one of our senses, our sexual behaviour is regulated by culturally (and sometimes legally) enforced rules. Rules so deeply embedded in society we often aren't even aware of their existence.
The problem with the Tory party is not that they have extra marital affairs or that some of them enjoy cross dressing. Sure they are guilty of hypocrisy and often of lying to their friends and family. However the trouble with criticising these things, is that given that their morality is the dominant one in society it can look as we support their basic viewpoint. It can seem that we would accept the Tories if only they'd be more honest in bed.
Capitalism attempts to limit our sexuality in order to keep us in line. Most obviously they've targeted gays and women. If only for our only personal well being, we should be aware of how these factors operate upon us and how they curb the range of experiences available to us. However a far greater crime of the Tory party in Britain and of the ruling class world wide is the way it keeps us the working class in either poverty or wage slavery. Once their economic system tumbles down, their rotten and weirdly restrictive morality will crumble with it. And then we will really start to have fun.