Ray Challinor: The Dialectics of Having Your Nookie

By Ray Challinor, Column in Socialist Worker, 5 April 1969, titled The Dialectics of Having Your Nookie.
Thanks to Ian Birchall for unearthing this gem.

They don't write them like this any more.

"PETER SEDGWICK of the International Socialists has recently attacked the theories of Herbert Marcuse, the philosopher of student revolt. One of the most fascinating questions to arise is: Where is the best place to have sexual intercourse? 


In his book One Dimensional Man, Marcuse suggests that the environment of capitalism and its technology militate against sexual fulfillment.


He compares the prospect of making love in a car or on a Manhattan Street with doing it in a meadow or near a lovers' walk. In the former, capitalist technology intrudes whereas with the latter, place and purpose harmonise.


But Peter argues that Marcuse has made a false comparison. Had Marcuse compared a "damp, cold, bug-ridden meadow" with the erotic environment usually provided by capitalist technology - namely, a bed - then "nature's advantages might have been less apparent".


From my own practical experiments on this interesting theoretical problem I am inclined to come down on the side of spring mattresses. 


SEDGWICK'S critique of Marcuse on the whole range of current political and philosophical issues is, I think, correct. It would be a pity, however, if Marcuse's mistakes on contemporary problems should lead us to forget his exposition of Marxism which is the finest, clearest yet written. His book Reason and Revolution has been my constant companion since 1955. Now it has been re-issued by Routledge & Kegan Paul as a paperback. Let me recommend it to all readers."

Coming soon from the AMM / Unkant Publishers: Ray Challinor, The Struggle for Hearts and Minds: Essays on the Second World War.