Given the US midterms are upon us (Go Vote! Go Vote!) it seems an appropriate time to feature this article by Justin Lehmiller on the differing sexual fantasies of liberals and conservatives. Lehmiller, who is a fellow at the Kinsey institute, surveyed thousands of American adults and discovered that while the frequency of fantasizes is shared, the subject matter isn’t.
Republicans thought a lot about swinging, infidelity, orgies and cuckolding. In contrast Democrats kinked on BDSM, masochism and D/s dynamics, leading Stephen Colbet to have some fun with the survey on his show. Lehmiller attributes these differences to a theory called reactance, where people are drawn to what is forbidden to them. So conservatives, who traditionally support strong social structures and group cohesion, are drawn to activities that would disrupt that. Liberals, who prioritize individual freedom and caring for others, are similarly excited by dynamics that impose control and punishment. I’m not quite sure where that leaves people like myself, who find all of the above exciting. Does that make me a swing voter or just a pervert?
I hadn’t intended to turn this into yet another book themed post, but the discussion of conservative and liberal values reminds me of one of the best books I read this year – The Righteous Mind. This is a total aside, as it’s not related to kink at all, but if you’re at all interested in psychology and how people reason about politics and religion, it’s absolutely worth reading. As someone from the liberal side of the fence it definitely gave me a better understanding and appreciation of the conservative mindset.*
In the spirit of bipartisanship, I’ll leave you with an image that should appeal to all. There’s clearly an orgy and voyeuristic angle here, as well as a BDSM one. It’s by sylverarts.
* I should qualify that when I talk about the conservative mindset, I’m talking about the traditional conservative values, not what Trump and the GOP have morphed them into. Trump is to conservatism as Bernie Madoff is to the financial planning industry.
This list matches up to my anecdotal observations. I’m trying to understand how it squares up to the study I ran across a few years ago claiming conservatives in general reported more satisfaction with their sex lives.
Politically, I’ve always been a small-l libertarian, but it’s interesting that I tend to kink along Democratic lines. I also think it’s funny that conservatives fantasize about “key parties,” something that I tend to associate with old, 1960s style folks (probably because of a youth spent reading old Playboys in the basement).
At first glance I’d say it seems to be orthogonal to the idea of conservatives being more satisfied. This is after all about fantasies, not about the satisfaction people take in their realities. Although maybe conservative fantasies of infidelity are more easily satisfied within conventional social frameworks than masochism or BDSM. Having an affair is a lot more socially acceptable than getting tied up and beaten.
The fantasy about the ‘key party’ may also say something about the average age of the Republican voter :-).
-paltego
I also found that book to be very informative about conservative viewpoints. It certainly made me at least a little more tolerant when people supported politicians I do not
Yes, he did a good job of putting the different perspectives into an understandable context. Glad to hear you also liked it. I particularly appreciated the part where he highlighted how liberals fail to understand or predict conservative opinions, where the reverse is not true.
Of course, as I said in the post, I exempt Trump from this. He’s something entirely different to the traditional liberal/conservative framework.
Thanks for taking the time to comment!
-paltego
I liked the book too. I wish the author had continued this line of work, but sadly he shifted a bit when he changed position and began working at a business school. The survey/info website is still up though. I’m thinking of reading this book soon which looks related: http://www.joshua-greene.net/moral-tribes/
I have to admit I hadn’t kept up with what the author had moved onto. Shame if he’s not writing a continuation of those themes.
Thanks for the pointer to the Moral Tribes book. That looks interesting and another good one to add to my list to read. Appreciate the suggestion.
-paltego
Fascinating. Anecdotally, the reactance theory fits with my experience, especially if one looks deeper into the meaning rather than the form of a particular fetish or act.
As an aside, transgression (of personally held values) and subversion (of societal norms) are (can be) both arousing and get fetishised; I wonder if the right wingers are not more into the former (“sin”) and liberals into the latter (“rebellion”)? Perhaps I have a too old fashioned view of liberals…
Reactance in some ways like the old reverse psychology trick. i.e. Tell someone they can’t have something and they immediately want it. Of course, the interesting thing is what does society tell people they can’t have?
Not sure about the transgression/subversion split. I’d say adultery or cuckolding are subversions of societal norms, so that would seem something right wingers would kink on. As I mentioned in the post, right wingers tend to give a lot more weight to group cohesion. Liberals tend to adopt more of a ‘Do what you want, as long as you don’t harm anyone’ attitude, so would have less reactance to societal norms, but would kink on the transgression of punishing/hurting an individual.
-paltego