“Psychoanalysis is the mother and sociology[i.e., Marxism] the father of
sex-economy.Butachild is more than the sum total of his parents.”⁷The child
in question turned out to be Sex-Pol, officiallycalled Deutscher Reichsverband
für proletarische Sexualpolitik(GermanFederalAssociation for Proletarian Sex-
ual Politics).Founded inBerlin in 1930,the association soon renamed itself the
Einheitsverbandfür proletarische Sexualreform und Mutterschutz(Confederate
Association for Proletarian Sex Reform and the Protection of Mothers) to signal
its activecontribution to the broader fight for reproductive rights.⁸The associa-
tion provided working-classmenand womenwith sex-positive information, ed-
ucation, and counseling. Incorporating what Marxist theorists used to call the
subjective factor into an objective analysis of class society undercapitalism,
Sex-Pol’sultimategoal wasto“turn individual sexual education intoamass ac-
tion.”⁹This includedacritical examination of the historical role of church and
familyinusing sexual repression as an instrument of social control. What distin-
guishedSex-Pol from other leftist groups was its explicit rejection of the repres-
sive moralityofthe cultureofshameand hypocrisy thatkept Social Democracy
beholden to petty-bourgeois values.
During theWeimaryears, the sex reform movement functionedasaninte-
gral part of the proletarian lifeworld, opening public clinics that provided free
contraceptivesand marriagecounselingand supporting public campaigns
against Clause218, the paragraph banning abortion, and Clause175, the para-
graph criminalizinghomosexuality.Part of largerinternational developments,
sexological research playedakey role in the fight for women’srights and sexual
freedom, whether in relation to birth control (Helene Stöcker,Margaret Sanger),
homosexual rights (MagnusHirschfeld, HavelockEllis), or the calls for free love
(ClaraZetkin, AlexandraKollontai) thatproclaimed the full compatibility of com-
munism and feminism. HistoriansAtina Grossmann and Dagmar Herzoghave
rightlyemphasized the contribution of sex reform to the demands for reproduc-
tive rights andgender equalityand the initiativesfor adecriminalization of ho-
mosexuality and prostitution. They have also drawnattentionto the contradic-
Wilhelm Reich, Introduction,TheMass PsychologyofFascism,trans. TheodoreP. Wolfe (New
York: Orgone InstitutePress, 1946), xxiii.
On the Einheitsverband, see MarcRackelmann,“Wi lhelm Reich und der Einheitsverband für
proletarische Sexualreform und Mutterschutz.Waswar die Sexpol?”Emotion. Beiträge zumWerk
von WilhelmReich11 (1994): 56–93.
Wilhelm Reich,Die Massenpsychologie desFaschismus. Zur Sexualökonomie der politischenRe-
aktion und zur proletarischen Sexualpolitik,sec. ed.(Copenhagen: Verlag für Sexualpolitik, 1934),
- Because of extensive revisions in the English translations published by Orgone Institute
Press, all Germanworks by Reich will be translated from the original unless notedotherwise.
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