The question, though interesting and possibly important, is not easily answered. Depending on which historical context one is thinking of, the answer can be either yes or no. Right now the question is raised when trying to locate the current populist movements spreading through Western democracies—and not easily answered at all.
In Greek mythology Apollo and Dionysus—mind you, both gods—represent opposites: intrinsically conservative political and sexual order, and the strongly sexual and potentially revolutionary frenzy that disrupts every sort of order. To protect order, the Dionysian frenzy must be segregated into specific places and times. This defanging of unhinged sexuality occurs throughout history—the orgies of Mardi Gras followed on the next day by a sober return to orderly life. Since the French Revolution the correlation between sexual liberation and the Left has been quite marked. Marianne, the symbol of the Revolution has a naked breast exposed as she waves the Tricolor on the march toward, in the words of the Marseillaise, “the day of glory.”
One of the more improbable advocates of sexual liberation as a leftist project was the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), who is best known for having given his name to psychopathic cruelty in a series of pornographic novels, which he re-enacted personally in a number of “sadistic” crimes (many perpetrated against prostitutes) for which he was periodically imprisoned. He was a prisoner in 1789 in the Bastille when it was stormed by the revolutionary mob, was briefly freed, became a delegate to the republican assembly, and was a judge during the Terror (incidentally known for his leniency; the guillotine evidently did not turn him on). He briefly became an icon of the French Left after 1947, when Simone de Beauvoir (herself a leftist icon and a founder of modern feminism) published an essay celebrating him as a hero of freedom. Before his death in the lunatic asylum of Charenton (by which time Napoleon was establishing a new order after the excesses of the Terror), Sade wrote a tract with the title “One more effort, and you will be true republicans!” Much suffering, he wrote, is caused by sexual oppression which the republic should end. Sade proposed that a truly republican government should legislate the right of every citizen to have access to the body of every other citizen. I doubt that the framers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence would have agreed with Sade’s fantasy of the republic when they added “the pursuit of happiness” to the allegedly self-evident rights of life and liberty.
When one talks of sexual liberation today, one rarely thinks of the centuries-old story of alternating Dionysian frenzy and Apollonian restoration of order. Usually one thinks of the 1960s, when the current Dionysian explosion (a.k.a. the counter-culture) occurred, probably first in California, then rather rapidly spreading to Europe and beyond. Whatever ideas and ideologies were linked to it, it was sexual happiness that was pursued. An important technological factor was the ready availability of effective contraception and of antibiotics, which greatly reduced the two major risks of promiscuous sex: unwanted pregnancy and venereal disease (until the onset of the AIDS epidemic, which, temporarily, interrupted the enjoyment of insouciant happiness). If one wanted a single date for the ceremonial inauguration of this era, a good choice would be August 1969, when some 400,000 people congregated at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in a huge open field in the Catskills north of New York City. It lasted for several days, a mass orgy—lots of nudity, sex, and drugs, accompanied by the steady beat of rock and affiliated musical styles. Woodstock gave birth to a Dionysian celebration reiterated, in very similar form, all over the world by ecstatic young people and older people who want to hold on to the fantasies of youth. The core motif is always the same—unrestrained sexual enjoyment. Of course there have been counter reactions, some political (no system of power can tolerate ongoing frenzy), some religious (every religion inculcates an idea of order)—often, of course, the latter blesses the former. In the United States, Woodstock was the opening shot of the ”culture war.” Politics creates different alliances around this conflict—most recently the collapsing Obama coalition of racial minorities (African Americans more solidly than Latinos), college-educated feminists and LGBT activists, and rent-seeking labor unions, countered by the (probably temporary) Trump coalition of economically struggling and culturally resentful working-class whites, most white Evangelical Protestants and many conservative Catholics (including quite a few Latinos), and a significant portion of the corporate elite (there is another portion that bets on the other side). As to Trump himself, no one knows what he really believes (which, by the way, is also true of Hillary Clinton), but he has been attacked as a “misogynist” and a “bigot.” I wonder. He seems to like women personally, and he has explained the loutish video in which he brags about episodes of sexual assault as “locker-room talk,” which implies that it never happened. (Is there an analogy to the time when Saddam Hussein bragged to his generals that he had weapons of mass destruction?) And after the Orlando massacre Trump said that he would stand up for gays.
It is an often confusing and constantly changing picture. But both the offspring of the “Woodstock nation” and their opposition have changed. On one side, the ideal of all-embracing tolerance has morphed into the new orthodoxy of punitive “political correctness,” which in academia has become very powerful (ironically, a new Puritanism of the Left). On the other side, notably in the very large Evangelical subculture, Woodstock ideas have infiltrated. In Evangelical colleges both faculty and students can still be expelled for non-marital sexual behavior and young women students take vows of chastity until marriage and wear rings to symbolize these vows, which are annually renewed in ceremonies with fathers accompanying their daughters. But at the same time, Evangelical institutional voices are raised in favor of more tolerance for so-called “transgressive sexuality.” I would not dare to predict the future course of these shifting constellations. I’ll only point out that the “Woodstock side” has one very important factor in its favor. Since the 1960s there has been a remarkable relaxation of legal and cultural restraints on sexual behavior (in addition to the aforementioned pharmaceutical innovations). As result, the pursuit of sexual happiness has become much easier. Imagine that somebody with a craving for sweets has been given a gift certificate for ongoing purchases at a candy store. This individual will be an object of envy by others, and will be enraged if anyone threatens to cancel the gift certificate. I think this explains a lot of what is going on. I think it also explains survey data which I came across some time ago—to the effect that Evangelical women report better sex lives in marriage than their less pious sisters: If you and your boyfriend have been frustrated by years of imposed chastity, the sudden lifting of the great taboo as soon as you go off on your honeymoon must produce great happiness indeed. You hold the gift certificate in your hands, the candy store is open, and you can enjoy all it has to offer.
If for a moment one would adopt the worldview of Simone de Beauvoir (a feat that would be difficult for me), the Marquis de Sade could be perceived as a victim of sexual repression. An interesting successor suggests himself. Wilhelm Reich (1887-1957) was an Austrian psychoanalyst who started his career as an associate of Sigmund Freud’s clinic in Vienna. In the 1930s he published the two books that made him famous, The Mass Psychology of Fascism and The Sexual Revolution. From early on he tried to combine psychoanalysis and Marxism. He came to understand orgasm as a release of an energy he called “orgone”—some, he said, call it “God.” Neurosis is supposed to be caused by an “armor” repressing this energy. Among other things that upset Freud was Reich’s practice of massaging naked patients to break up their “armor” and allow them to experience orgasm. As was his custom, Freud expelled Reich from the psychoanalytic community. Reich was close to the Communist party, but that political community, in the throes of the new Stalinist orthodoxy, also dissociated itself from Reich’s libertarianism. After his emigration to America, Reich became ever more eccentric. He claimed that the “orgone,” which he allegedly discovered, existed in space as well as in the human body. He thought that it could be collected from space by a contraption called an “orgone accumulator” (a.k.a. an “orgone box”). He started a center in Maine to perform the cosmic extraction and to construct the therapeutic box (an alliance of astronomy and pornographic technology). The box could be purchased through interstate commerce and thus fell under the jurisdiction of the Federal Food and Drug Administration. The FDA tested the box and found Reich’s claims for it to be fraudulent. A Federal court issued an injunction forbidding the interstate sale of the box. Reich ignored the injunction, was arrested and sent to Federal prison for a term of two years. He died of heart failure shortly before he would have been eligible for parole. He wrote some moving letters from prison to his son.
The Marquis de Sade and Wilhelm Reich: Both, however eccentric, advocated sexual liberation. Both died in prison, put there by defenders of order against the forces of frenzy, respectively Napoleon Bonaparte and the U.S. government. Both frenzy and order can be religiously experienced and legitimated. Unless rigorously segregated, frenzy rarely lasts. In general, order lasts much longer.
I have had one less than happy encounter with an orgone box. I was once invited to a party in Greenwich Village while I lived there as a graduate student. It was a sedate event. Despite the location in the then-heart of New York’s bohemia, there was no sign of any orgiastic intentions. But one of the young women there was in the midst of Reichian analysis. She went on and on about its great benefits. She was easily the most attractive and vivacious woman at the party, and the thought crossed my mind that she didn’t seem to be much of a victim of sexual repression. She then mentioned that she owned the orgone box that stood in one room of the apartment—anyone was welcome to sit in it and experience the energy flowing through it. We followed her to the other room and looked at the surprisingly small box, about the size of a phone booth. I was mildly curious and volunteered to sit in it. There was one narrow seat and I just managed to squeeze into it. The box was uncomfortably hot, smelly, and wobbly. Its proud owner had closed the front opening. I tried to push it open, to let in some air. That was not a good idea. The box began to wobble very seriously, and was obviously about to collapse. Trying to get out, my movement completely destabilized the box. It fell apart and I landed with my behind on the floor. The Reichian devotee helped me up, pronouncing her most damning putdown: “Your armor obviously needs a lot of work.” Maybe so. But I have been suspicious ever since of all projects of sexual liberation, whether religious or not.
