Socialized sex and de-erotized environment are complementary, not opposed.
Evidence
This socialization is not contradictory but complementary to the de-erotization of the environment. Sex is integrated into work and public relations and is thus made more susceptible to (controlled) satisfaction. Technical progress and more comfortable living permit the systematic inclusion of libidinal components into the realm of commodity production and exchange. But no matter how controlled the mobilization of instinctual energy may be (it sometimes amounts to a scientific management of libido), no matter how much it may serve as a prop for the status quo—it is also gratifying to the managed individuals, just as racing the outboard motor, pushing the power lawn mower, and speeding the automobile are fun. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 332
Categorization
- XREF: ‘Scientific management of libido’ — presages surveillance/quantified self and the gamification of desire; connects to the attention economy’s engineered dopamine loops. — connects to: Sexual attraction arises from socially conditioned images, not raw nature; Sexual liberalization in consumer society can function repressively, not liberatory — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited: The Sixties and the…, 159