Sex and Ideology (1983) by Guillaume Faye

This pamphlet, "Sexe et Ideologie" (Sex and Ideology) by Guillaume Faye (published in 1983), examines the relationship between sexuality and ideology in Western society. Faye argues that sexual behavior and attitudes have undergone significant transformations from traditional societies through to modern times, particularly during two key periods: the late 18th century and 1950-1970. He contends that while traditional societies had a more polyvalent and communal approach to sexuality, modern society has increasingly individualized and rationalized sexual relationships. He critiques both Christian sexual morality and contemporary sexual liberation movements, arguing that they both represent forms of sexual repression and rationalization. Faye advocates for a return to what he calls a "pagan" understanding of sexuality that embraces multiple forms of sexual expression within structured social frameworks. The book particularly focuses on how changes in sexual ideology have impacted marriage, divorce rates, and gender relations, while arguing that modern sexual "liberation" often masks new forms of control and normalization. The text includes extensive analysis of how sexual attitudes relate to broader social and political ideologies, particularly regarding individualism and egalitarianism. The ideas in this pamphlet would later be expanded upon into a full text titled “Sex and Deviance.”

Translated by Alexander Raynor

Around 8000 words

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Table of Contents

• Sex and Ideology: Intimate Relationships

• Traditional Sexuality

• The Sentimental Revolution

• From Bourgeois Marriage to the Unstable Couple

• The Molecular Couple and the Wave of ‘Romanticism’

• The Sexual Revolution, an Ambiguous Phenomenon

• A New Puritanism

• Pagan Principles of Sexuality

Sex and Ideology: Intimate Relationships

If making love does not necessarily lead to making a revolution, as was proclaimed not so long ago by the popularizers of Wilhelm Reich and Freudo-Marxism, making a revolution—especially a cultural one—can indeed lead to making love differently.

In fact, the motivations and forms of lovemaking vary according to the prevailing goals, values, and dominant social ideologies. Sexual behavior, in its morphology and psychology, is not solely determined by biology. Sex, too, is cultural. This is the contribution of contemporary sociology of sexuality, which highlights this central fact: sexuality, even in its seemingly fixed aspects (from orgasm to passionate love), undergoes significant variations depending on the ideologies in force.¹

One of the most significant and well-documented of these variations concerns the profound changes in sexual and psychosexual behaviors that have occurred in several stages from the late 18th century to the present day. This change is both the result of an ideological and cultural revolution and its cause, insofar as sexual morality—namely, the encouragement to behave sexually in specific ways and for particular motivations—has significant social and political implications.

On this latter point, the thesis we will defend is as follows: sexual ideology has played as significant a role as political ideology in the normalization of Western societies undertaken by egalitarianism. Influencing sexual behaviors and sexual ethics means, as both the Church and later egalitarian democracy have understood, embedding a social order within individual behaviors and intimate habits.

Traditional Sexuality

In traditional, pre-industrial, organic, and communal societies that persisted until the late 18th century, individual eroticism, in the modern sense, held only a limited role. It was socially confined to certain groups, and for others, it took place outside the bounds of marriage, particularly within festive and communal activities. Broadly speaking, our ancestors engaged in sexual activity less frequently than people today but invested less in sexuality and experienced it with greater freedom.

Sexual eroticism and conjugality were not fused within the same sentiment or institution. Traditional sexuality was characterized by its polyvalence: lovemaking held multiple meanings—procreative, marital, playful, religious, and so on. Most notably, marriage did not monopolize physical love. Additionally, orgasm was not the sole purpose of sexuality (as in maraîchinage, where mutual masturbation among adolescents without seeking orgasm had festive and initiatory significance). Moreover, the sexual "grammar" of different social groups was, unlike today, highly varied.

In traditional societies, sex was not central to social life. Its values did not dominate, whether as repression (Christian attitudes) or as obsession (modern attitudes). As just another social activity, sexuality was at once polyvalent, plural, and regulated. Everything was permitted, but within a specific communal framework.

As a result, eroticism played a far less distracting and daily role in the lives of most people than it does today. Life, centered on the pursuit of subsistence, left little room for frantic quests for sexual fulfillment or for repressive neuroses of any kind.

The great paradox of traditional sexuality, which lasted in rural populations until the Industrial Revolution, was that it was not significantly influenced by the sexual ideology of the Church. Sexuality, like other collective behaviors in ancient European societies, was not deeply shaped by Judeo-Christianity until the 17th and 18th centuries, when these values secularized and ceased to be tied to religious rites. As in politics, and in parallel fashion, Judeo-Christian values only emerged in transposed and derivative forms.

It was from the 19th century onward that Christian sexual morality triumphed, coinciding with the rise of egalitarian and individualist social morality—derived from secularized Christianity—for similar reasons. Contrary to common historical prejudices, it is important to note that the grip of repressive Christian sexual morality became particularly strong at the very moment when the 'sexual revolution' and 'sexual liberation' began. Christian puritanism and the sexual revolution are two complementary facets of the same social phenomenon, both opposing traditional sexuality. Freud and the anti-masturbation spiritual fathers are, in a sense, kindred spirits.

The defining characteristic of this sexual revolution is twofold: first, it conflates marital, erotic, and emotional bonds into the same psychological framework or institutions. Second, it individualizes sexuality, incorporating it into the realm of happiness and its pursuit, and rationalizes its purposes in a one-dimensional way (even though these purposes vary according to different doctrines).

Everything began with what is commonly referred to as the sentimental revolution.