Wilhelm Reich Redux

     A letter was published in your paper that found a measure of merit


    in the  old superstition that masturbation causes blindness.I remember

    reading a book in my early twenties that made a deep impression on

    me: Wilhelm Reich's " Sexual Revolution ". I recall it began with

    this rather startling sentence :" Happiness in life is primarily

    sexual happiness". Of course it is easier to believe the younger you

    are! I'm not sure I agreed with Mr. Reich even way back then. But this

    point of view had a measure of merit.

       He was a courageous - or some might say depraved champion of the

    " sexual rights of adolescents". He advanced quite respectable arguments

    connecting the sexual repression of youth with the economic structure

    of society. Sexual repression  he thought helped create the " authoritarian

    personality. "  In George Orwell's " 1984 " we have the ridiculous

    " Anti-Sex League ". The hero of novel, Winston Smith, concludes that

    the crude and " vulgar " sex act was indeed a rebellion against Big

    Brother. His girl friend in her own unsophisticated way agreed : after

    a sexually fulfilling union you didn't care about " all their rot ", thought

    Julia. Winston concluded that paradoxically the " animal " in you

    could preserve your " humanity".

        I am no advocate of sexual anarchy in the Age of Aids. But the

    tragedy of the modern plague is that it set our thinking back a whole

    century on the subject of the sexual liberation of young people.

       I am a great believer in RATIONAL sexual repression. It can keep you

    out of a life time of trouble! But I still deplore this medieval reaction

    in our midst.

         I do nevertheless recommend that the real danger of deadly disease

    compel hot blooded youth to find  HAPPINESS in many things,