The Sexual Revolution (1934)
by Felix Marti Ibanez
Robert Graham, ed., Anarchism: A Documentary
History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume 1: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE-1939),
(Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2005). Selection 122.
Felix Marti Ibanez (1913-1972) was a
doctor active in the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist trade union federation,
the Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo (the CNT). The following excerpts
are from his article, "Eugenics and Sexual Morality. The Sexual
Revolution," originally published in Estudios, 135, November 1934.
The translation is by Richard M. Cleminson of the University of Leeds,
author of Anarchism, Science and Sex: Eugenics in Eastern Spain, 1900-1937
(Bern: Peter Lang, 2000). It is published here with his kind permission.
***
We recognize that the revolutionary subversion
of contemporary social life will be the basis of a new state of things.
But beneath the revolutionary slogans,
under the new order, many of the disgraceful social disorders which
afflict us today will persist. And the sexual aspect may be included
here.
I imagine that some will find this statement
ill-advised. But let us pause and think. Sexual freedom and the liberal
criteria as far as sexuality is concerned are things which affect the
deepest and most hidden spiritual side of the personality. Things so
intimate and so personal that a simple change in social reality may
do little when confronted by our deepest biological tendencies...
It is precisely the sexual prejudices
that are the most difficult to banish. This is because sex and life
itself are mixed up in the final analysis-just as sex and death are
united in our amorous tribulations.
The ideological orientation of social,
political, economic or scientific matters is easily changed. An eloquent
example is given by politicians and scientists, by those who abandon
what seemed to be firmly held ideas in order to adopt others, just as
the snake sheds its old skin to bask in its new multi-coloured vestment
in the light of the sun.
But the sexual life of man is not easily
changed. The sexual tendencies are what provide the motor behind many
ideological stances and actions of man. This, today, is an unquestionable
truth, without necessarily accepting the extremes of Freud who makes
the libido the mother of all human activity. Sexual practices, which
stem from the mysterious complexities of the organism, from the intimate
dynamics of the cells, are changed with great difficulty. In any case,
they cannot be altered through external imposition, by the mandates
of a Catholic or Communist State, because in order to change them they
have to have undergone a previous process of evolution. For this reason,
the collective sexual revolution, the social liberation from the laws
and dogmas which today bind sexuality, will never manage to implement
the individual sexual revolution. State imposition, just as it was not
able to kill off the desire for sexual liberation harboured by many,
will not be able to twist the sexual destiny of those who live their
love lives pleasurably although surrounded by the dominant hypocrisy...
The sexual question cannot be resolved
by a revolution, at least not by a rapid, theatrical, ostentatious revolution.
The sexual revolution must be begun now; it must forge itself systematically
and without interruption, "unhurried, but without a pause, like
a star," as Goethe said. Sexuality cannot be dominated and channelled
by some hastily written decree, drawn up on the barricades of victory;
it needs to be preceded by an evolutionary process.
The great revolutions were never made
in a violent and sudden manner, like the marionette that pops out of
the hatch in a puppet theatre, but were the mature fruit of a long evolutionary
process. They have been mined as a mole digs its lair, not in a lion's
leap.
To believe that a violent revolution,
which falls from the sky like a thunder bolt on to society, can destroy
old oppressions and create a new, liberal state of things is an act
of tremendous ingenuousness. This would be to accept the old version
of History, which thought of itself in the romantic mode-a history of
heroes and leaders, conquests and revolutions. But if it is judged serenely,
History can be seen to be a scientific process, a collective History
of labour, where peoples and collectives have substituted the romantic
fighters and where revolutions have been replaced by creative evolution.
It is in this evolutionary cycle, as
beads on a piece of string, that revolutionary processes are woven together.
By this I mean authentic revolutionary processes, full of consequences.
It is these that have been preceded by long evolutionary prologues.
The other revolutions, those that have not been based on firm historical
preparation, those revolutions which have emerged spontaneously, without
the long process of fermentation, have been violent episodes with no
further historical import.
And so some norms for application to
the sexual sphere become apparent. Any pretended sexual revolution is
a myth if by this it is understood as a violent revolutionary change
in collective sexuality. Revolutions and the sexual revolution in particular,
should not be something theatrical and ostentatious, an apotheosis of
revolutionary decrees imposing free love. It should be a revolution
made off-stage, which is where the constructive and historical part
of the revolution takes place.
The sexual revolution, the supreme liberation
of collective sexuality, should be the humble silent task of a phalanx
of tenacious fighters, who by means of the book, the word, the conference
and personal example, create and forge that sexual culture which is
the key to liberation.
That is the real Revolution, what Reclus
called "revolutionary evolution," in which the historical
process advancing towards sexual freedom takes place without interruption.
It is a process of evolution whereby the revolution filters through
to all aspects of public life; it is present in all instants and in
everything, like a day to day advancement towards the Ideal.
In this profound revolution, much more
profound than passing episodes of violence, violent revolutions will
only come when there is an insuperable obstacle placed in the way of
Humanity's route towards progress. Then the river spontaneously becomes
a torrent, sweeps away the obstacle, and returns to its path once more.
Revolution and evolution are thus reconciled. But this tactic, which
eliminates as far as possible the use of violence, which is the weapon
of the weak, demands a high awareness of the duties and responsibilities
of the sexual freedom that we advocate. It is important to realize that
if we are proposing to destroy a form of morality and substitute for
it another, the first thing to do is to show how honourable our attitude
towards love and our moral stance towards sexuality both are.
We have in our hands the soft clay of new generations, with which we need to mould the figures of new people, to blow into that clay the breath of freedom and the understanding of the duties it brings with it. It is only in this way that we shall lift love out of the mire which surrounds it today, so that it can raise itself up in elegant flight towards the bright light of freedom. (Translation by Richard M. Cleminson)