Book description
The story of the sexual revolution that brought Freud's couch to the
explosion of the 60s, and the left-field pioneer Wilhelm Reich who made
it all happen.
Adventures in the Orgasmatron is the untold story of the dawn of the
sexual revolution in America - an illuminating, startling, at times
bizarre story of sex and science, ecstasy and repression.
In the middle of the 20th century, the United States became an adoptive
home for dozens of expatriated European thinkers, who saw this rich,
young country ripe for sexual liberation. One of the most left-field of
them was the Viennese psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, a disciple of Freud's
who had broken with the master. Reich's own approach was based on his
theories of the orgasm and sexual energy, which he dubbed 'orgone
energy'. Instead of the couch, he made use of a tall, slender
construction of wood, metal, and steel wool, which he called the orgone
box. A highly sexed man himself, Reich thought that a person who sat in
the box could elevate their 'orgastic potential' ridding the body of
repressive forces, improving sexual potency, and enhancing overall health.
After World War Two, Reich's theories caught on among writers and
artists, the early adopters of the counter-culture. Norman Mailer and
Saul Bellow were amongst those for whom the orgone box represented a
yearned-for synthesis of sexual and political liberation, and of
physical science and psychology.
Meanwhile, Reich himself faced one debacle after another. Albert
Einstein heard him out before rebuffing him. The FBI investigated him as
a Communist sympathizer: it turned out that they were hunting the wrong
man. The federal government banned the orgone box and tagged Reich as a
fraud. There were claims of sexual misdeeds, and bouts of Reich's own
mental instability.
This is the story of the blossoming of the 20th century's sexual
revolution, and the unshackling of a repressed society, and sex before
science. Christopher Turner lives in London and writes for The
Guardian, the London Review of Books . He is an editor at Cabinet
magazine. This is his first book.
