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| NOT wrong about everything. |
by Andy Nowicki
For me, an essential part of growing up was realizing and accepting that I wasn’t, and could never be, my father.
Such a discovery is perhaps, in a sense, a universal characteristic of every young man’s experience. If Freud proved to be off the mark, and more than a bit pervy, in his promulgation of the notion that sons secretly seek to boff their moms, he is not nearly so wrong about the less-commented upon aspect of his “Oedipal complex” theory: that is, it is assuredly true that one must metaphorically “kill” one’s father in order to find one’s own way. To successfully complete his transition into manhood, a boy eventually finds it in his interests to eradicate his childhood-formed dad-veneration in order to fare forward as a man with a truly independent heart and a mind cleansed of undesirable colonization by outside elements.
As my father was—as I understood the circumstances then, a “winner” (I put the word in quotes, not because he didn’t indeed “win,” but because, as previously stated, worldly winning neither signifies nor nullifies the everlasting success of being loosed from the yoke of one’s enslavement to mammon, and mammon’s handmaiden, status). The sooner I realized this about my dad-- and realized that things were radically otherwise with me—the quicker I was able to begin my life as one possessed of a free and unfettered consciousness.
Still, while the discovery of my status as a self-identified “loser” and my formation as an antisexualist were complementary in a sense (i.e., “losers” don’t get laid); they actually occupied parallel paradigms in my mind; they did not in fact intersect in any crucial way.
One can be a self-identified loser who embraces his loserhood, yet not an adherent to antisexualism; such a one relinquishes his impulse to be something other than he is, but he does not thereby come to the conclusion that what he cannot get is something best done without. In fact, if such a one turns against sex, it may well indeed be said that his is a mere case of the “sour grapes” of proverb, whereby he is simply bitter about the delights he is being denied. His opposition is thus tainted.
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Such would be the case for me, were it not for the fact that I wound up marrying and having children.
Thus I ceased to be antisexual in any sense other than the theoretical, and I became yet another of the world’s many “sexuals.” Again, it may be said that I do not preach what I practice, nor practice what I preach, but even so, my “success” on this front was due to a miracle (or perhaps a God-allowed fluke, which amounts to being a miracle by omission); therefore, it needn’t be dilated upon too much here, except to note that my sense of sexuality being a symptom of human besmirchment didn’t originate from a “sour grapes” outlook.
Just the same, when I actually have found myself obtaining some measure of success with the opposite sex (“success” being defined as apparent attention, attraction, and interest), that was precisely the time I felt most keenly possessed by the conviction that I was wading into corruption, that I was “losing” myself and becoming something decidedly less pure than I’d been before.
Therefore, though I did generally come to conceive of myself as a low-status loser, and even to define myself thusly and so “own” the brand with which I’d been branded, it also must be pointed out that my self-professed loserhood and conception of sexualization as a corrupting force were not in fact mutually reinforcing strains of my consciousness; rather, they existed in a kind of tension, insofar as the prospect of sexual success tended to cause me mortal terror due to an awareness of an encroaching soul-sliming.
This fact should put to rest the notion that for me, antisexualism was motivated by ressentiment. In fact, I found a sort of comfort in being a “loser,” since I felt that my loserhood shielded me, to some degree, from being thrust into perdition. Though I desired sexual fulfillment, I also dreaded the spiritual turpitude that I felt was the necessary and unavoidable byproduct of sexual success.
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But, it may be asked, why was I ever possessed of such a notion in the first place?
If my intimations were the result of some irrelevant and rather pathetic neurosis, they could easily be dismissed. And surely the near-entirety of those occupying “respectable” opinions—on the right, on the left, and in the center—would doubtless write this notion off as dishonorable, since every “correct-thinking” person “knows” that sex is a positive good.
The problem, of course, is that most people who pride themselves on being enlightened and eschewing prudery nevertheless feel in their bones that there are limits to such enlightenment. Most, for example, still feel that children ought to be prevented from viewing sexually explicit material.
Concomitant with this quite instinctive conviction—if asked, they would only be able to label it as “self-evident,” rather than being able to ground it in any a priori assumptions, is the equally instinctive awareness that children are innocent creatures, and sexualization signifies the erasure of innocence.
Now are these impressions concerning childhood, innocence, and sexualization based on an apprehension of psychic truth, or are they merely expressions of bogus sentimentalism, with no grounding in reality?
Few would seriously argue the latter, though some do (you can read about this grisly lot in my book Meta-#Pizzagate). To the great majority, however, the idea of bringing children in on matters pertaining to sex clashes baldly with their sense of propriety, to say the very least. This is not merely limited to refraining from sexual contact of children-- which is still overwhelmingly conceived of as the worst possible crime, even by those generally claiming to be liberal in their views on sexuality—but also extends to avoiding rakish and ribald conversations, jokes and innuendos when “little ones” are within earshot.
Why do people tend to feel this way? Again, there can be only one explanation: it is because they recognize instinctually that children are innocent, and sexuality signifies the obliteration of innocence; thus, it is imperative to protect children from exposure to “inappropriate” situations or subjects.
A sexualized child is indeed a severely warped and pitiful specimen, horrific to witness. Such a one betrays having been abused through the showcasing of lascivious or lewd behavior, actions that plainly ill-suit his age and signify the tragically premature erasure of his innocence.
Andy Nowicki, assistant editor of Alternative Right, is the author of several books, including Under the Nihil, The Columbine Pilgrim, Considering Suicide, and Beauty and the Least. Visit his Soundcloud and YouTube pages. His author page is Alt Right Novelist.com
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