Fromm argued unrestricted sexual gratification would actually ease manipulation rather than liberate

Evidence

The second level of Fromm’s rebuttal was more fundamental. Here he tried to restore the unavoidable conflict between sexual gratification and civilization, which Freud himself had so frequently stressed. … It was nonsense, Fromm suggested, to think that certain sexual perversions included in Marcuse’s advocacy of “polymorphous perversity” could be reconciled with any real civilization. … The goal of complete and immediate gratification that Marcuse sought would make the individual into a system of easily manipulated desires and stimulations, as in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 377

Categorization

• XREF: Reverses the assumption that sexual liberation is inherently left-liberating—the same logic Foucault later pushed with the repressive hypothesis. — connects to: Fromm’s early social psychology critiqued Freud’s purely libidinal account of authority — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 417; Freedom of pleasures independent of sexual development stripped sexuality’s explanatory power. — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain…, 4203

Broader Connections

• Fromm’s early social psychology critiqued Freud’s purely libidinal account of authority #expands (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 417
• Freedom of pleasures independent of sexual development stripped sexuality’s explanatory power. #corroborates (0.80) — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded, 4203