BBC - Ronald Reagan's bizarre sex hangups

[murdoch]

When I think of Ronald Reagan, I think of two things - the glee he had in trying to break the migrant farmworkers union for the wealthy orchard owners as governor of California, and also the villagers massacred in El Mozote.

Apparently this type of personality has some strange sexual hang-ups as well. Maybe Wilhelm Reich was right.

Also note that the thing that set him back to "normality" in this somewhat was strange racist beliefs.

From the BBC (a little old, but I just learned of it) -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3128464.stm

Reagan had 'evil sex' angst

A letter written by Ronald Reagan reveals that the former US president had guilty feelings about sex, even within marriage.

His misgivings, which he said he later laid to rest, are contained in letter to a friend written in 1951, before his second marriage.

It came to light with 1,000 others setting out Mr Reagan's personal views on a range of subjects including free speech and the Cold War.

Mr Reagan was offering consolation to an old friend whose husband had died.

"Even in marriage I had a little guilty feeling about sex, as if the whole thing was tinged with evil," he told the friend.

But Mr Reagan said a "fine old gentleman" had pointed him in the right direction by citing the behaviour of primitive Polynesians.

"These peoples, who are truly children of nature and thus of God, accept physical desire as a natural, normal appetite," he said.

[mockmonkey]

1. He would often look down

at little Ronnie and say, "There you go again."

[htuttle]

2. Of course Reich was right

That's why the FDA burned his books. If he'd been wrong, there'd have been no point to doing that.

[baldguy]

3. Who'da thunk it?

[Zensea]

4. Him and almost everyone else in Puritanical America - big deal

especially back in the 50s.
Applying this line of analysis to Reagan as if it means much is just stupid.
Most Americans, hell, most people in civilization have guilty feelings connected to sex & the political party you belong to certainly doesn't make you immune from such things.
You think Democrats are somehow immune from such things and special? That seems to be the implication in bringing up the point and doing so is soap opera mentality.
What a crock.
It's a little bit deeper ingrained than politics of the moment.
Ask Freud.

[murdoch]

5. Not me

I don't really understand. I could see a scenario where I might feel guilty about having sex - if I seduced some 18-year-old girl, especially if I was lying or something to do it, and mistreated her in some way, I could see feeling guilty about that, but that is no different then feeling guilty about mistreating anyone. Why would I feel guilty when I have sex with my girlfriend? I don't, it doesn't make sense to me.

Maybe a lot more people than I know of are buying that James Dobson book - Raising an Obedient Christian child or whatever it's called.

[Pastiche423]

7. Huh?

"...most people in civilization have guilty feelings connected to sex..."

Damn, I sure am glad I've never met "most people".

Where did you find that tidbit?

[Zensea]

12. That "tidbit" is from ...

my reading and my direct experience in the world having been alive for 50 years.
I don't feel any need to cite any "authorities" on the subject (although Wilhelm Reich who was mentioned in the original post would be a good place to start).
Note (I guess this needs to be said, although it should be obvious) that each person has different levels of guilty feelings, it's certainly not all encompassing.
Don't try to argue with me or debate with me about it either, you'd be wasting your time.
If you don't think you've met "most people" I can only think you haven't been paying very close attention to your surroundings or are in denial (as is the other poster who has responded so far).

[Pastiche423]

13. In denial? lol

Oh, hogwash!

You don't want me to argue w/you, because you have nothing to back your statement up with!

Too funny.

Btw, I am older than you and by the tone of your comment, I've had much more experience than you.

[Zensea]

14. It's not a matter of age, despite my saying my age

I was not using my age as comparison but simply as indication of how long I've been around.
You're the one that's using age as comparison. I don't care how old you are.
Comparative experience has nothing to do with age.
I also did not say that I did not want to argue or debate the point, I said it would be a waste of your time.
Bit of difference there.
Let's see, that makes at least two instances of where you have misinterpeted what I wrote.
My tone, eh? About all you can tell from my tone on an internet discussion board is that I have a stubborn streak which doesn't indicate a damn thing about levels of experience.

I have plenty to back my statement up with, although I don't know if there is much point in doing so. One such "back up" would be Freud's analysis in Civilization and Its Discontents which I was actually thinking of in my original post when I used the word civilization.

I can't tell if you are really guilty of this or not from what has been posted, but it is my experience that most of these political discussions on the internets show a lack of insight about psychology and psychological states. Not surprising, since politics tends to be more about externalities than internalities. That is what prompted my original post.

[Pastiche423]

15. What does anything you just typed

have to do w/"most people" feel guilty about sex?

P.S. So sorry you've had such a guilty sex life. That must be a real bummer.

[Zensea]

16. Figure it out

with your vast experience I'm sure you can if you try.

Your p.s. says a lot more about you than it does me. I'm not particularly interested in your fake pity, misinterpretations and oversimplifications despite my having engaged in this discussion as much as I have.

Actually I was wrong, I'm the one wasting my time.

[Infinite Hope]

17. Didn't you get the memo?

Age, number of posts, and length of time on DU determine the credibility of what you say. Especially when one has nothing to back their own position but their opinion and/or feelings.

I agree with your general thesis that many have an issue with sex-guilt. I wouldn't say it's most, but many than some might suspect.

[Zensea]

19. I knew I was forgetting something

:)
Silly me.

[MyNameGoesHere]

24. you want what kind of data?

You really think there is a valid poll concerning love/guilt and other matters of the heart and soul? You are older than me thank god.

[Pastiche423]

28. I never asked for "data"

My question had nothng to do w/love/guilt, nor the heart and the soul.

My question was that he back up his statement that most people in civilization have guilty feelings connected to sex.

Btw, sex does not = love/soul.

[MyNameGoesHere]

29. Good for you

I am younger and I know sex does not equal love. That take you long?

[Pastiche423]

36. WTF?

Your exact words:

You really think there is a valid poll concerning love/guilt and other matters of the heart and soul?

Where do you mention SEX in your post?

[malaise]

22. Add me to that list

Guilt my ass.

[cool user name]

32. Perhaps, you're not civilized!

And perhaps, I'm not too, and for that, I thank goodness! :D

[rebel with a cause]

31. You are definately right there.

If you were a girl in the fifties/sixties, you were taught that sex was something you endured to keep your husband happy.

My question would be about the letter. Why would he be writing this stuff about sex to a new widow? Reminds me of men who go to funerals and offer themself to the grieving wife/widow. Of course, my mother died with I was young and it was my job following her death (starting the day of the funeral) to handle the calls for all the neighborhood women calling my father for a little get together. And other people don't want to think about their parents having sex. :o

[earlybelle]

6. That's the real basis for the label "conservative." It equates with wierd feelings about sex.

[orleans]

8. oh pleaaase! look who he married. nancy was famous in hollywood for her .....

"Nancy Reagan was a blowjob queen
According to Kitty Kelley's biography, the future first lady "was renowned in Hollywood for performing oral sex." Back when she was Nancy Davis, the actress reportedly went down on many an actor "not only in the evening but in offices. That was one of the reasons that she was very popular on the MGM lot." You have to shift your conception of '80s conservatives around a little to buy this, but it's worth the effort. — Ada Calhoun"

http://www.nerve.com/dispatches/nerveeditors/40celebrityrumors/05/

so i guess she curred ronnie then eh?

maybe that's what attracted him to her in the first place...so he probably got over that "evil" crap pretty quick.

[DU9598]

9. Rumor that I cannot prove ...

but I know of a former Hollywood B-list actor who claims to have had sex with Reagan when he was in Hollywood. The actor was not well known, was new to Hollywood from Broadway, and didn't ever spread the rumor to anyone but close friends and his future partner.

[librechik]

20. That was my first thought--he was uncomfortable about sex with women

and the other kind of sex he really enjoyed (with men) was evil.

another bad hangup of that generation.

[bananarepublican]

21. A... "Don't Act, Don't Tell Policy" if ever I heard one!!! Does J. Edgar's...

... estate include a blue, "Ronny-stained", dress? If so, could Reagan be post-humously impeached?

[librechik]

25. If somebody could prove that, it might dethrone their little matinee idol

Saint Reagan would come down off his pedestal and we could take a rational look at the policies. That could only be a good thing.

[mitchum]

10. Well, he certainly didn't hesitate to fuck the country

[orleans]

11. no shit. n/t

[shance]

18. There was a woman (actress) who stated that Reagan raped her on a date.

I don't have the source, but its been quoted on websites.

Something to the effect she said, "well, today you'd call it date rape, but back then...."

[bleedingheart]

23. This might explain his devotion to Nancy

if she was as "wild" as they say she was...a puritan kind of guy would find all his prayers answered in marriage to her. He would have the kind of partner that wouldn't find him perverse and make him feel bad about his desires.

[Canuckistanian]

33. Nancy? Wild? I'd say so.

http://www.nypost.com/gossip/pagesixmag/02092006/11_05.htm

MAYBE Marlon Brando was as gay as a Hollywood cowboy, but Peter Lawford wasn't. So says his widow, Patricia Lawford Stewart, who is upset by allegations in "Brando Unzipped," the new biography by Darwin Porter. "Peter was not gay," she insists to PAGE SIX. "He loved girls." And Patricia knows Porter is way off on the story he "lifted" from her 1988 book, "The Peter Lawford Story." "Peter Lawford had already spread the word that Nancy Reagan was skilled at fellatio," Porter writes. "He alleged that she had kept not only himself but fellow actor Robert Walker (also Peter's lover) orally entertained a motor trip to Palm Springs." But Patricia insists the trip was to Arizona, for starters, and fumes, "I'm angry that people rip off my book and get the facts wrong."

[Bake]

26. Why was Nancy always on top?

Because Ronnie could only f*ck up.

Bad joke, I know, but SOMEBODY had to do it ...

Bake

[ScreamingMeemie]

27. When I think of Ronald Reagan I think of cruddy movies...

translated into cruddy politics.

[angstlessk]

30. Hey, hey, hey...what's this about angst? Reagan is just an old weirdo

I do believe the 'thought' he fought in WWII, but only cause he stared in so many movies about WWII...talk about weird!

[yurbud]

34. I had some of that guilt until my late twenties or so.

like anxiety about death and a couple of other things, it just seem to wither away.

Oddly, like the reality of death, the damage you could potentially do to someone (with the emotions attached to the act not the act itself) becomes clearer over time but you stop feeling it as much. Or maybe I just act consistently with it without really even being tempted that much to scam girls into one night stands.

[Minnesota_Lib]

35. This may explain his insistence on calling his sex partner "Mommy."

Ugh!