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Promiscuity in 1984 and Brave New World

 One of the most prominent themes in Brave New World was encouragement of promiscuity in society. Aldous Huxley clearly saw society headed away from traditional Christian morals. However, George Orwell paints a sharply contrasting future in 1984. In the first six chapters, I am shocked by the way in which the Party stifles sexual desires. There are many taboos in our current society surrounding sexuality and promiscuity, but the amplification of these taboos into organizations such as the Junior Anti-Sex League seem much more dystopic to me than the stigma-less sexual freedom in Brave New World. I also appreciate Orwell's ability to see a more nuanced future than Huxley. Huxley took everything he felt was going wrong with society and amplified it - Orwell was able to identify the more threatening aspects and amplify only those. Orwell's dystopia is also clearly influenced by World War II and the resulting paranoia regarding authoritarian regimes. (Is it just me, or does his description of Big Brother emulate Stalin?).

Going back to my discussion of promiscuity - this is yet another facet of the Party where Winston does not fit in. He is somehow separate from the brainwashing of the Party, and is unable to control his sexual desires in the "appropriate" ways. I find this to be problematic because it plays into broader tropes of men being unable to control their sexual desires, but in this particular context it is an interesting aspect of Winston to monitor. Considering he has already discussed seeking a passionate sexual relationship multiple times, I think we can expect this to be a recurring topic.

My interactive portion of this post is the following discussion question: which depiction of socially accepted sexual expression do you see our society heading towards - the ultra-restriction of Orwell, or extreme freedom of Huxley? Which do you personally feel would be the better direction?

Comments

  1. L. Moffitt8 February 2021 at 07:12

    That is a great question and I need to think about that. I would say in the last few years we (the U.S.) have been moving more toward an Orwellian society. Maybe the trend is even longer than this -- maybe we've been going more toward 1984 since ... well, the actual 1984, or thereabouts.

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  2. Alice Gao8 February 2021 at 07:18

    I think as a whole, the US has been closer to an Orwellian society than we are now. We learned about the whole sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s in Leff's history class, so that might influence my perspective, but I think we will keep moving towards Huxley and yet never reach it. I believe that the diversity of opinion in our country will keep pushing the needle in either direction, but the balance of forces will stay (mostly) at equilibrium--given that nothing drastic happens.

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  3. Ray8 February 2021 at 07:25

    i think we lean more towards Huxley's world today, which i would say is the better direction, as long as the promiscuity isn't forced (which i really don't see happening). however, what makes both of these worlds dystopian in the world of love is how relationships are restricted so that there is no "true love" or relationships beyond sex or child bearing, and i don't think we are heading towards that in our society

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  4. Keshav8 February 2021 at 07:26

    Only in terms of socially accepted sexual expression, I see society heading towards the middle of the two fictional ones (leaning towards Huxley). However, I would say that our ever-increasing technology will continue to change this answer, as from reading BNW, I've learned it may be impossible to predict what the future will look like.

    And yes, Orwell's description of Big Brother does seem to hint at being someone from real life—most likely Stalin.

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  5. Kiran8 February 2021 at 07:29

    I also agree that we seem to be heading more towards BNW's ideas of being very open about sex. sex isn't this completely taboo topic anymore, and basically everyone learns about it in a way completely different from, say, 30-40 years ago. People used to have to have the birds and the bees talk. Now, with the internet, that talk basically never happens. Orwell's depiction is much closer to what we used to have, where sex is an almost completely Taboo topic. I think it always better to be more open about things, rather than hiding it away.

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  6. Sam K.8 February 2021 at 07:30

    Yes, I agree that Big Brother is a representation of Stalin as well as Hitler. I believe that Oceania is a depiction of the world, specifically Germany, during WWII. For example, the Party claims that they invented planes, but Winston remembers a time when there were planes before the Party existed. This was actually something that the German government claimed during the war.

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  7. Anya8 February 2021 at 07:32

    Like most of the other people who have commented, I think we are somewhere in between the two extremes, but probably closer to Huxley's depiction. However, Huxley's depiction is very extreme. Whereas our society is becoming more and more accepting of promiscuity and allowing people to express that, Huxley's society forces people to be promiscuous. Because we are becoming more and more focused on the idea of consent, in addition to freedom of expression, I don't think our society will reach that extreme anytime soon.

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  8. Anonymous8 February 2021 at 07:37

    Like most people said, I think as a society we're definitely leaning towards Huxley's depiction of sex. It's interesting how both Orwell and Huxley focus on sex - they both seem to suggest that controlling reproduction and childcare is vital to an authoritarian regime, maybe because controlling children means you control the future? Or perhaps simply because both societies want to control how much pleasure their inhabitants are allowed to experience.

    And I'm not sure if my profile is going to work :( but this is Henry L.

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