Did Orwell ever talk about what he was trying to accomplish with 1984? (hexbear.net)

submitted 4 months ago by Frank@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

62 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Some nerds were doing that thing where 40k fans are like "OH NO SEXZ IS HERESY!" when it's pretty definitively not and is basically one of the only things in 40k that isn't heretical (as long as you're not doing evil slannesh shit) and it got me thinking about repression of sex under "in bad country regimes".

And a whoooooooooooooooooooooooooole fucking thing in 1984 was how liberating and humanizing it was that the author's grungy middle aged self-insert was boning a 19 year old member of the Junior Anti-Sex League, and, like... America has several thousand different Junior Anti-Sex League and I'm not sure if the USSR ever had any? Like, yeah, maybe they did, but under capitalism Americans have literally convinced themselves they'll go to hell if they see a tiddy and the English famously just hate joy. So what the fuck was Orwell trying to critique with his "Junior Anti-Sex League" in spoooooky Stalinist England?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] Frank@hexbear.net 15 points 4 months ago

“When you make love you’re using up energy; and afterwards you feel happyand don’t give a damn for anything. They can’t bear you to feel like that. Theywant you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up anddown and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour. If you’re happyinside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?”This was very true, he thought. There was a direct, intimate connectionbetween chastity and political orthodoxy. (110–11)

This is so perfectly British.