tions within sexologyasamodern science promotingeugenics in the name of
socialhygiene and public health–the kind of biopolitics soon to be perfected
in the Naziracial state.¹⁰
From Reich’sperspective,the project of sex reform offered little more than
temporary relief from the psychosexual deformations causedbycapitalism
and ultimatelyfailed torealize theradical natureofMarxist and psychoanalytic
thought. His controversial defense of healthygenitality as the sign ofafullyde-
velopedadolescent personality led to sharp disagreements with the socialist
physician Max Hodann (1894–1946) who headed the public healthdepartment
in Berlin-Reinickendorf. Counselingworking-classyouth had convincedReich
that“classconsciousness and active,responsible political engagement invaria-
blychangethe attitudetoward sexuality–for they offer solutionsto sexual dif-
ficultiesandtheoverstimulationofsexualimpulsesbyusingupsexualenergy
and, at the same time, facilitatingasatisfying sex life.”¹¹Concerned about pos-
sible misunderstandings, Hodann at one point warned his colleague:“The naive
reader might interpret this to mean [...]get rid of sexual inhibitions, let people
have as much sex as they want,and then they willautomaticallyjoin the
class struggle.”¹²Reich, in fact,encouraged such interpretations as he boldlyas-
serted that,“the will ofyouthtoward the joy of life will be the most powerful
forceofthe revolution”¹³and eventuallyturnyoungworkers intoasexual and
political vanguard. Hodann continued to insist thatanew proletarian morality
in line with the principles of Sex-Pol would be the opposite of the sexual deprav-
ity so widespread in bourgeois society,for“it is beneath usto let ourselvesbe
defined by our drivesalone.”As he explained,“sexual drivescharacterize the
beginning of friendship and love. But we can onlyapproveofthese impulses,
justify them to ourselves, once they have withstood the critical forceofour
own reasoning.”¹⁴
On the sex reform movement,see Atina Grossmann,Reforming Sex:The GermanMovement
for Birth Control andAbortionReform, 1920– 1950 (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1995). On the
continuities of sex reform in the ThirdReich, also see Dagmar Herzog,Sex afterFascism: Mem-
oryand Morality inTwentieth-CenturyGermany(Princeton:Princeton University Press,2005).
Wilhelm Reich,Der sexuelleKampf der Jugend(Berlin:Verlag für Sexualpolitik, 1932), 51.
Hodann, quoted inWilfriedWolff,MaxHodann (1894–1946). Sozialist und Sexualreformer
(Hamburg: v on Bockel, 1993), 136.
Reich,DieMassenpsychologie desFaschismus,11.
Max Hodann,Bubund Mädel. Gespräche unterKameraden über die Geschlechterfrage(Rudol-
stadt: Greifenverlag, 1928), 22–23.Because of the controversial nature of sex education, Ho-
dann’sSexualelend und Sexualberatung.Briefe aus der Praxis(1928)andGeschlecht und Liebe
in biologischer undgesellschaftlicher Beziehung(1932) werebanned by theWeimar censors.
WilhelmReich and the Politics of Proletarian Sexuality 293