Yevgeny Zamyatin — We [97]

And so what to the ancients was the source of innumerable stupid tragedies has been reduced to a harmonious, pleasant, and useful function of the organism, a function like sleep, physical labor, the consumption of food, defecation, and so on. — Yevgeny Zamyatin, We, 97

Note

The reduction of sex to a bodily function is clinched by slipping it into an otherwise mundane list, weaponizing bathos to define totalitarian utility.