Sexual emancipation functioned as a repressive form of desublimation, not genuine liberation.

Evidence

His satisfaction over the fact that sexual emancipation had turned out to be merely a repressive form of desublimation was, however, limited. Sexuality’s extensive dependence on society, the detail of its expression, and the social standardization and conventionalization of the forms of sexual behaviour, undoubtedly do not represent the heights of the personality that mark the relationship of each person to his own instincts in the manner of an impulse, an inner task. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 613

Categorization

• DEFINE: ‘Repressive desublimation’ is Marcuse’s key term for liberation that reinforces repression — worth flagging for definitional precision.
• XREF: Directly names Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man concept of repressive desublimation. — connects to: Reich’s failure to distinguish repression types led to simplistic sexual liberation advocacy — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 368; Sexual liberation has produced de-sexualized sex reduced to physiological function — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 180; Repressive power operates by forcing expression, not by silencing it. — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New…, 190 (+2 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Reich’s failure to distinguish repression types led to simplistic sexual liberation advocacy — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 368; Sexual liberation has produced de-sexualized sex reduced to physiological function — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 180; Repressive power operates by forcing expression, not by silencing it. — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New…, 190 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• The last twenty-five years ran on controlled desublimation rather than open repression #corroborates (0.95) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 983
• Sexual liberalization in consumer society can function repressively, not liberatory #corroborates (0.93) — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited, 159