Marxism and Asexuality

[Phantasmal Fingers]

I originally wrote what follows below as an article to be published in AVENues, but in the end I withdrew it and decided to 'publish' it here instead. I think this is the right forum as the event I attended was a political meeting. This all came about because there was some interest on a thread in World Watch which Homer started back in February about an SWP branch meeting in York entitled 'Marxism and Asexuality'. So I thought I would go along and see what it was all about. But that was back in the days when it wasn't illegal to form a group of three or more people and you could just catch a train wherever you felt like going. It all seems a bit strange now...

 

Anyway, what follows is what I wrote. Feel free to comment, criticise etc, etc.

 

Marxism and Asexuality: a personal reflection on an evening with the Socialist Worker’s Party (SWP) www.socialistworker.org.uk

 

When Homer posted a thread in World Watch with a very short stub about an SWP Branch Meeting entitled “Marxism and Asexuality” being held in York I was intrigued enough - even though I am politically non-aligned in the sense that I can see pros and cons on both the right and the left - to decide I would go along. In a section of the SWP’s newspaper “Socialist Worker” (No 2692, 19-25 Feb, 2020) which I bought at the event (price £1) called “What We Stand For” I read “The present system cannot be patched up or reformed as the established Labour and trades union leaders say. It has to be overthrown.” But let me backtrack a little…

 

Before I attended the meeting I had taken the trouble of re-reading Lenin’s short 1917 classic, “The State and Revolution”. I have a Soviet era copy in English (Progress Publishers, Moscow, 7^th printing, 1972) in which Lenin argues that “the suppression of the bourgeois by the proletarian state is impossible without a violent revolution” (p21), castigates “sham socialists who replaced the class struggle with dreams of class harmony” (p24), advocates “the political rule of the proletariat, of its dictatorship, i.e. of undivided power directly backed by the armed force of the people” (p25), says revolution is “to set itself the aim, not of improving the state machine, but of smashing and destroying it” (p30), claims “anarchist dreams, based upon incomprehension of the tasks of the proletarian dictatorship, are totally alien to Marxism” (p46), and concludes that after a socialist revolution establishes the dictatorship of the proletariat a “higher phase” (p87) will happen during which “the state will be able to wither away completely when society adopts the rule: ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’, i.e. when people… will voluntarily work according to their ability.” (p88)

 

Arriving in York one Wednesday evening in February I wondered whether I was about to meet some idealistic utopian socialists? Or perhaps a group of steely-eyed political commissar types, glowing with passionate revolutionary ardour? It was with some little trepidation that I passed under the battlemented Postern Gate in the old medieval walls of the city of York and approached the venue, a handsomely renovated 18^th century coaching inn, now called “The Sea Horse Hotel”.

 

On entering the brightly lit front parlour I noted a sign in which The Sea Horse declares itself to be “a digital detox pub” (the use of electronic devices such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops is forbidden, as it is in all Sam Smith pubs) but found a very warm and cordial welcome from a group of 10 or so friendly and smiling faces. Both male and female bodied, from early 20s to retirement age, some of us seemed middle class, some working class; some - like me - were university educated, some employed as academics. (I myself work part-time as a Shop Assistant). All of us were white. To be trans-inclusive we introduced ourselves with our names and pronouns, though all of us were apparently cis and either ‘he/him’ or ‘she/her’. As I was ‘new’ I said I was not local, had never previously attended an SWP event, but was there because I was aromantic asexual. But I could already see that I wasn’t the only ace in the room.

 

First there was the 20’ talk - from an explicitly Marxist perspective - a Q and A, and then the speaker’s summing up. What follows is a highly condensed summary of the main points the speaker made, and some of my and others’ responses. It is thus my personal take - and no-one else’s - on the serious but good humoured interactions that took place that evening.

 

The speaker (who joined AVEN as Hlocnr the day following the meeting) wore a black ring on his right middle finger and began by almost immediately citing Lenin: ‘we should be tribunes of the people’. He argued that we need to live in a society in which QPRs and all other non-heteronormative relationships (whether sexual or romantic) are normalised. Continuing trans exclusion at LGBT+ events was deplored and asexuals, trans people and homosexuals were defined as oppressed minorities. (Interestingly, in the discussion which followed the police wearing rainbow coloured lanyards was dismissed by an audience member - without objection - as “not the kind of thing we support.”) Hlocnr defined asexuality as ‘the lack of ability to have sex’, and aromanticism ‘the lack of ability to be romantic’. The term ‘z sexual’ was preferred to ‘allosexual’, the confusing amount of terminology and definitions was noted, and some acknowledgement of a spectrum was made. In the more explicitly Marxist analysis that concluded Hlocnr argued that the predominance of the heteronormative nuclear family was the result of it being a capitalist tool that ensured the ruling class had enough population both to sustain economic growth and enforce wage slavery, Engels’s The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (a work I have not read) being cited as the source for this.

 

I questioned the appropriacy of ‘lack of ability’ in the definitions offered. At least one other chimed in with this. I used the analogy that as I don’t play golf I cannot explain to a golfer, in golfing terms, what it is like not to play golf, but that I don’t see this (non-pejorative) lack as a lack of ability. I also stated that as an aro-ace I had never felt oppressed and quoted an anecdote in which I described myself as asexual back in the early 80’s, and that my interlocutor’s repeated refusal to accept my self-identification was - in my view - ignorance rather than prejudice. There was disagreement about who was oppressed and who owns the right to define this. Someone cited tv presenter Philip Schofield (who fathered children and came out as gay at age 57) as having led “an asexual lifestyle” which I questioned. Someone else (widowed, I think) mentioned that as she currently “wasn’t getting any” she was now “basically asexual” (!) but made a good point about heteronormative exclusion citing the comment she received (“Oh, it’s all about couples!”) as an explanation of why only she amongst her neighbours had been excluded from an event.

 

It is impossible, in a very short piece such as this, to mention everything that was discussed or to do full justice to the friendly and nuanced tone of the debates (during which I was - quite touchingly - referred to as ‘comrade’) or the openness to what for some were new and unfamiliar ideas, e.g. the difference between celibacy and asexuality and what exactly a QPR is. At the end of the evening I left feeling that the aggressive and disturbing rhetoric often to be found in the Socialist Worker and the works of socialist heroes such as Lenin inevitably promotes the sort of visibility that is - in my view - not at all representative of the people with whom I had just spent a very interesting and enjoyable evening. 

[Phantasmal Fingers]

The original World Watch thread I mentioned above is below:-

 

@Hlocnr gave the talk at the event I went to, @Homer posted the thread above.

 

The following users posted on Homer's thread hence I've tagged them here just in case there's still any interest: @Snao Cone, @OptimisticPessimist, @Rev Comrade Kershaw, @Anthracite_Impreza, @Yoruka, @DarkStormyKnight and @such 

[HikaruBG]

Oh boy, I was curious what this was about, had high expectations of this and came out incredibly disappointed.

 

 

 

[everywhere and nowhere]

2 hours ago, Moderne Jazzhanden said:

The term ‘z sexual’ was preferred to ‘allosexual’

"Z-sexual" is a stupid word play, not a term. I prefer "allosexual" and "non-asexual", and as for concerns that "non-asexual" supposedly presents asexuality as the norm - so what? Here most people are asexual, and even outside - we should accept different perspectives.

2 hours ago, Moderne Jazzhanden said:

I questioned the appropriacy of ‘lack of ability’ in the definitions offered.

I agree that "lack of ability to have sex" is a very inaccurate defnition of asexuality, but on the other hand... As a sex-averse person - and I think that some other sex-averse people could agree with me - I really feel psychologically incapable of having sex. Such an idea is so scary, my nudity aversion forms such an impassable force field, that even if for some reason which I can't even imagine I would agree to try sex, with all likelihood I really couldn't get through with it. "Lack of ability to have sex" is obviously not a definition, but it happens to reflect my own attitude quite well.

[Phantasmal Fingers]

@HikaruBG - if you were looking for anything other than what struck me at the time as rather doctrinaire and mostly out of date 19th century politics I think that's entirely understandable.

 

I still found what I heard interesting but tbh I don't reckon it will have very much to say to people here. Still, I said on Homer's thread that I would report back on what was said that evening, hence what I've posted here. 

[Zagadka]

I've been a member of the socialist Peace and Freedom Party for years, mostly because I want to support them in qualifying for things. I'm not quite a Marxist, but it makes more sense as time passes, and I follow their election guidelines. I associate more with them than I do with the Democratic Party (I'm currently registered as No Party Preference to vote in the primaries)

[gisiebob]

thanks for the report

[HikaruBG]

20 hours ago, Moderne Jazzhanden said:

@HikaruBG - if you were looking for anything other than what struck me at the time as rather doctrinaire and mostly out of date 19th century politics I think that's entirely understandable.

 

I still found what I heard interesting but tbh I don't reckon it will have very much to say to people here. Still, I said on Homer's thread that I would report back on what was said that evening, hence what I've posted here. 

It was everything, really. Heck, even their take on Asexuality sounds like it's from 19th century! I didn't think that this was possible but here it is.

 

Their take on Asexuality is one of the thing that I wanted to hear, yes (and now, I think it's to be problematic) but as I read your post, I happened to be interested in their take on Marxism.

 

You see, lately, I have been checking out the BreadTube (basically, leftists Youtubers) and some of them do talk about Marxism as well, but unlike these 19th century people, they do try to put a modern twist on the Marxism (and some of them do think that a revolution is needed on the West, or the very least, USA and to rebuild the system, because the current one is very corrupt) and other philosophers, politicians. They also try to break down different modern problems and such.

 

Spoiler

Those being ContraPoints, Vaush, PhilosophyTube, Xanderhal, Peter Coffin, Hboomerguy (who is literally a typical SJW... Would go so far to outright use censorship on the opposition), Destiny (apparently) and so on.

 

Also, there is apparently shit ton of drama as well. I mean, ContraPoints was apparently cancelled multiple times by now, the last time being literally 2 months ago.

And the drama is mainly just different leftist movements (The Woke Movement vs BreadTubers in this case) bickering with each other.

Other promenade left Youtubers (like Suris and Mr. Atheist and such... who more or less part of the Atheist YouTube Community or whatever) don't seem to be involved.

 

I do find their content interesting and entertaining (as opposed to the right wing youtubers, which yesterday I found out that they act like it's still 2016, not to mention horrendous, inaccurate, hypocritical, all based on appeal to emotion and so on) I'm still kind of sceptical and rather to not subscribe to them. Some of the takes BreadTube has is still kind of "Yikes" for me.

Spoiler

I'm currently working on a Hot Box topic (because I found this certain topic to get a lot of heat across all social medias) on an issue (very slowly tho, because this topic can exhaust very fast) that the left either ignores, downplayes or thinks that is a non-issue.

 

[Alawyn-Aebt]

Too bad they messed up using more standard definitions and terms.

On 4/3/2020 at 4:05 PM, Moderne Jazzhanden said:

In the more explicitly Marxist analysis that concluded Hlocnr argued that the predominance of the heteronormative nuclear family was the result of it being a capitalist tool that ensured the ruling class had enough population both to sustain economic growth and enforce wage slavery, Engels’s The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (a work I have not read) being cited as the source for this.

I can confirm that Engles did say that. I guess I don't see what is so earth-shattering about a Marxist perspective on Asexuality, it would fit in with standard Marxist sexual-and-gender views which are in a nutshell what I quoted from you. Marxists were often strong supporters of feminism and of non-heterosexual orientations and asexuality fits right into that.

On 4/3/2020 at 4:05 PM, Moderne Jazzhanden said:

I used the analogy that as I don’t play golf I cannot explain to a golfer, in golfing terms, what it is like not to play golf, but that I don’t see this (non-pejorative) lack as a lack of ability. I also stated that as an aro-ace I had never felt oppressed and quoted an anecdote in which I described myself as asexual back in the early 80’s, and that my interlocutor’s repeated refusal to accept my self-identification was - in my view - ignorance rather than prejudice.

Marx's writings were often against self-identification. The entire idea of false consciousness can be read as effectively saying self-identification is wrong. The reason for this is that if people can be misled into what is their own interests, leading them to be misled into self-identification. This can only be rectified with they are enlightened into the true nature of the world (labour and economic relations) and they either choose to join the Proletariat or join the Bourgeoisie (there is no neutrality or center in Marxism, sitting by the sidelines is the same as joining in for the status quo). Even though false consciousness is not the central point of Marxism it is the only solution to a number of sticky problems and it is near-impossible to completely sever Marxism from the concept of false consciousness. I am not surprised by their refusal of self-identification, if they were completely in favor of it I would question how Marxist they actually were (and question how they solve the sticky questions that then arise). Might it be an issue? Depends on how you look at it. AVEN's ToS would look down upon it though.