Sexual Suppression and Repression I: Definition and Origin
The suppression and repression of our sexuality is one of the biggest problems humankind is currently suffering from. According to my research we’ve been dealing with this problem for many thousands of years now. The root cause of most of the problems — even the seemingly unrelated ones — that we’re dealing with in societies around the world can be traced back to sexual suppression and repression.
The brilliant Dr. Sigmund Freud, a neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, was the first to use the term sexual repression widely and one of the first to recognize that sexual repression is the primary psychological problem humankind is suffering from. Freud correctly observed throughout his research that sexual suppression and repression starting from early childhood were the cause of neurosis (mental illness) that would eventually express itself in adulthood, causing many of the problems we’re dealing with in societies around the world. 1
Freud established the natural sexual drives (or instincts) as the primary motivating forces of human life. He believed that people repressed their strong sexual drives in order to meet the constraints imposed on them by ‘civilized’ life. And note that I put the word ‘civilized’ between quotes, because as you’ll eventually come to understand, we’re very far from civilized and the written and unwritten rules (‘laws’ and ‘culture’) in societies around the world in fact keep us from becoming truly civilized. 2
One of Freud’s best students, the equally as brilliant but far more courageous Dr. Wilhelm Reich, took Freud’s research even further, going where even Freud was too afraid to go. 3 Whereas Freud would eventually argue that culture should take precedence and that human sexuality should be adapted to the wishes of society, Reich took the opposite view. Reich argued that we have to “revamp our whole way of thinking, so we don’t think from the standpoint of the state and the culture, but from the standpoint of what people need and what they suffer from” and “arrange our social institutions accordingly.”
Reich’s view was a saner one — one where nature (or the universal order) took precedence over rules invented by humans. These often arbitrary, contradicting and completely stupid rules (‘laws’) are made up by whatever ruling class is in charge in a given society, and can differ depending on the geographical location and the period of time you happen to be living in. This makes no sense, of course, because like Muammar al Qaddafi remarked in “The Green Book,” “the human being is essentially, physically and emotionally, the same everywhere,” so the same “natural laws are applicable to all.” For example, today a 13 year old person is allowed to consent to having sex in Japan, but if that same person were living in India, that would be ‘illegal’ according to the local artificial ‘laws.’ This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever because physically and mentally the person is the same regardless of their geographical location. That’s why Qaddafi came to the same conclusion as Reich, stating that “any ruling system must be made subservient to natural laws, not the reverse.” 4 Thomas Jefferson, one of America’s founding fathers, also made a similar remark in the past when he said that “a free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.” 5
The fact that we do see all kinds of contradicting and conflicting rules that attempt to regulate human sexuality in societies around the world is a clear indication that these rules don’t exist to benefit the individual, but instead exist in service of a small elite who want to control, manipulate and enslave every individual in society. These rules are a direct attack on the (sexual) freedom of every individual in society. And as I will discuss in more detail later, this has been the purpose of sexual suppression and repression from the very beginning going back to ancient times.
If we’re ever going to create a better and sustainable human society on Earth for the long term, we’re going to have to finally start tackling the root causes of the problems we’re dealing with instead of fighting the symptoms. And based on my research so far, there simply isn’t a bigger root cause that we have to tackle than the suppression and repression of our sexuality; this problem goes to the very foundation and core of everything humanity is suffering from today. Like I wrote before in my post “Everything in Life is about Sex,” liberating our sexuality is going to be the final frontier in our quest towards absolute freedom; it will set us all free and usher in the Golden Age we’ve all been waiting for. It’s therefore no coincidence that this is also going to be the hardest, most complicated, and for many the most terrifying problem that we’re going to have to face and eventually solve.
What is sexual suppression / repression?
Before I go any further it’s very important to first define what I mean by sexual suppression and repression, especially because definitions of various terms seem to vary quite often depending on your audience or environment. First let’s look at the definitions I’ll be using for the words suppression and repression:
Suppression: The conscious inhibition of memories, impulses, or desires.
Repression: The action or process of suppressing memories, impulses, or desires so that they remain unconscious.
The very important difference between the above two definitions is that suppression is conscious, while repression is unconscious. The definitions for sexual suppression and sexual repression then become:
Sexual suppression: The conscious inhibition of natural sexual desires.
Sexual repression: The action or process of suppressing natural sexual desires so that they remain unconscious.
Based on the above definitions, when a person is suppressing their sexuality they’re aware of their sexual desires and are aware of the fact that they’re suppressing them. But in the case of sexual repression, the suppression of their sexuality goes even deeper because then they aren’t aware of their sexual desires anymore and don’t even realize that they’re suppressing them!
So sexual repression is a more advanced form of sexual suppression, and also a lot more dangerous for the person suffering from it. Consider that if you aren’t aware that you’re suffering from a problem, it becomes so much more difficult to do something about it.
Anything that blocks or prevents an individual from freely expressing their sexuality causes sexual suppression. And anything that blocks or prevents an individual from freely expressing their sexuality, to such a great degree that they even become unaware of it, causes sexual repression.
Origins of sexual suppression / repression
That humanity is suffering from sexual suppression and repression practically everywhere on Earth is a fact, but where exactly did it come from? In search for an answer to that question, my research took me back many thousands of years ago to humanity’s ancient past. As it turns out there are quite a few sources of information that have been passed on throughout the millennia in different cultures that mention how humanity was “created” and then divided based on their sexuality.
It’s very important to understand that although these stories differ in the small details, there’s a broad narrative that’s basically the same and can be found in all of them. We need to focus on the broad narrative for now, and leave the details to be sorted out eventually as we find more sources of information that can shed more light on what exactly took place back then.
Examining the broad narrative throughout these stories, it becomes clear that many thousands of years ago planet Earth was visited by a technologically advanced race of extraterrestrial beings who came from space (“the heavens”) to Earth. This is what we find if we take a look at the earliest written records that we currently have of human civilization — the ancient Mesopotamian texts written by the Sumerians on clay tablets dating back thousands of years ago. Zecharia Sitchin has done extensive research on this subject which you can find in his book series “The Earth Chronicles.” According to the Sumerians, who were documenting (scientific) knowledge and historic events for their own and future generations, these beings were called the Anunnaki, meaning “those who from the heavens to Earth came.” The Anunnaki came to Earth to mine gold and possibly also other metals.
We can find a similar narrative in South Africa, passed on over the generations among initiated Zulu diviners or sangomas. One of those sangomas, Credo Mutwa, shared the story that was passed on to him in an interview with David Icke a few years ago. In that interview Mutwa mentions that many thousands of years ago beings came out of the sky in large golden orbs; they were called the Chitauri and they came to Earth to mine metals such as silver, copper and gold.
According to both Sitchin and Mutwa these beings would eventually become known to humankind as the ‘gods.’ And I hope that you immediately start to see the link with the gods from all the ‘mythologies’ and religions that we have in societies around the world. This is where it all comes from. There was nothing supernatural about these gods, and they were certainly not all mighty or perfect (far from it, in fact). They were biological beings just like us, but were in possession of very advanced technology. And like one of the most popular adages formulated by author Arthur C. Clarke tells us, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” So it’s easy to understand how humans living back then might attribute the advanced technological capabilities of the gods to supernatural powers.
The Sumerian texts go on to explain that after a while the Anunnaki started having issues with their workers who complained that the labor (working in the mines) was too hard for them. After a mutiny by the Anunnaki workers, the Anunnaki commanders in charge of the mission on Earth then decided that a solution was to create a new being — a slave species — that could “carry the toil of the gods.” 6 They then ‘created’ the human race — by lots of trial and error — via genetic engineering. And note that I put the word created between quotes, because contrary to later claims and misunderstanding, they didn’t create the human race from scratch. When they arrived on Earth humans already existed in some form. Researchers such as Sitchin and Lloyd Pye have speculated that the species of humans existing back then was Homo Erectus.
The Anunnaki took this already existing human species on Earth and modified it to create Homo Sapiens and much later Homo Sapiens Sapiens (which would explain the “sudden appearance” of Homo Sapiens on Earth that scientists can’t explain based on theories of evolution alone). 7 What the Anunnaki probably did, according to Sitchin in his book “Genesis Revisited,” is mix their own DNA with that of Homo Erectus in order to give it a boost in evolution so that it could understand orders and use tools to do the mining work. As Sitchin further explains based on the Sumerian writings, the first few versions of humans that the Anunnaki ‘created’ couldn’t reproduce; reproduction was something that they added much later.
Mutwa also mentions something similar in his version of the story where he says that when the Chitauri arrived on Earth, humans were androgynous beings (having both sexes in one). They were later deceived by the Chitauri and were split into two sexes — male and female — which caused a lot of trouble and made them unhappy because they became incomplete and couldn’t experience love anymore. This is of course exactly what the Chitauri wanted, because now they could more easily conquer and enslave the frustrated and weakened humans. They told the humans after the split, “If you serve us you wretched human beings, we are going to make you into gods.” When the humans complained that they were too unhappy, they were taught how to make love (have sex) by the Chitauri, but this never truly solved anything (and how could it, because they remained divided, incomplete and thus imperfect, even though the Chitauri deceptively told them after the split into two sexes that “now they were perfect”). In addition, humans were allowed to have sex only in so far that it didn’t have any impact on their work in the mines and on the production of metals. When production declined because humans were too busy having sex, new measures were introduced by the Chitauri promoting sexual suppression.
Interestingly there’s a similar narrative in Plato’s work “The Symposium” where he has Aristophanes present a story about soul mates. According to that story, there were first 3 genders of humans: male, female and androgynous. Because they rebelled and posed too great a threat to the gods, instead of the gods destroying them (because the gods didn’t want to deprive themselves of their worship and sacrifices and needed them as slaves), humans were split by the god Zeus into two bodies, thus making them incomplete, weakening them and putting them in utter misery in search for their other half. When Zeus later saw that they became too unhappy (to the point of being destroyed) because of the ancient longing to return to their original nature, he came up with a plan to enable them to have sex and procreate. Note that this still kept the humans in a weakened state; it only allowed them to feel complete for a very brief period during the sex, and not permanently as was the case in the beginning before they were divided. It’s said that when the two halves find each other they “are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy,” they would melt into one another, feel unified and would know no greater joy than that. This is probably because they would feel complete and whole again — especially spiritually — and consequently would be able to experience inner peace and love. This would be the “very expression of their ancient need.”
We find a similar narrative in yet another ancient story known as “The Prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor” told by elders and shamans from the native people living in the Americas and Amazon (such as the Incas). Basically it is said that thousands of years ago, the human race was divided into two groups: a masculine group represented by the Eagle, and a feminine group represented by the Condor. This division would be the cause of many problems within the human race and around the world. However, it was foretold that a time would come when the Eagle and the Condor would get the opportunity to get back together again and fly together in the sky as equals bringing balance and peace. It would be a time of spiritual reunion, when the sacred masculine and the sacred feminine would be connected again, and the human race would connect back with nature. It’s interesting to note that the very influential Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung had also predicted that in the future “man will be ‘divinized’” when the great majority of human beings attain an inner harmonization between the masculine and the feminine facets of the psyche. 8
And finally, a similar narrative can be found again in the bible — the book upon which the Judeo-Christian religions are based. 9 In the first chapter of the book of Genesis we find the creation story — the 6 days of creation where the heavens, the Earth, plants, animals and finally humans are created by the gods. 10 In Genesis 1:27 we read that when the gods created the humans, they were created both male and female; “He created them male and female.” Note that it doesn’t explicitly mention that humans were created male and female individually or separately. So there’s a good chance that humans were originally created as androgynous beings, having both male and female sexes in one, similar to Mutwa’s story mentioned above. Also note that humans weren’t told by these gods to serve or worship them; they were simply told in Genesis 1:28 to have dominion over the Earth.
The first creation story ends in chapter 1 of the book of Genesis, and in the beginning of chapter 2 we are again told that the first creation has completed. But now something strange happens: right after the first creation story has ended, another creation story begins in Genesis 2:4. And whereas in the first creation story the original Hebrew text speaks of the ‘elohim’ (‘gods’) who created humans, this second creation story speaks of other gods named ‘yhwh’ in Hebrew, often referred to as Yahweh or Jehovah, which is usually translated as “the LORD.” If ‘yhwh’ were also the gods responsible for creation in Genesis 1, then it would have made sense to also include the name there. But this is not the case, so it’s clear that those were different gods. The sequence in which the plants, animals and humans are created by ‘yhwh’ in this second creation story is also different. And whereas the first creation story tells us that humans were created male and female simultaneously and at once, we find a different situation in the second creation story where humans were first created, and then separated into females much later. And note that if the females were created out of a ‘rib’ taken out of the humans who were first created, then this could mean that those humans must have had the female genes and functionality in them from the beginning, probably making them androgynous.
We’re also told in chapter 2 of the book of Genesis that when ‘yhwh’ created humans, they did so because “there was no man [adam; אָדָם] to work the ground” (Genesis 2:5). And in Genesis 2:15 we read that “the Lord [yhwh; יהוה] God [elohim; אֱלֹהִים] took the man [adam; אָדָם] and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it.” So we see that humans were created by these gods specifically to work for them and serve them as slaves on their land.
Then we’re told that the reason why humans were eventually split into females later is because ‘yhwh’ wanted to make a ‘helper’ for the man; in Genesis 2:18 it says, “I will make a helper [ezer; עֵזֶר] as his complement [neged; נֶגֶד].” Now pay special attention to the Hebrew word ‘neged;’ it’s translated as ‘complement’ but it actually means ‘against’ or ‘opposite’ or ‘contrary to.’ So it’s clear that the female was not created to be equal to the man, but as a helper and his opposite, thus being inferior to the man and pitted against him. The purpose of this split in sexuality becomes clear: to create polarization and tension between men and women, so that it would be difficult for them to connect and get intimate with one another. This would allow for sexual energy to build up in their bodies without an easy way for it to be released, providing a constant source of sexual tension and energy to tap into. This can be compared to creating an electric dipole which is needed to create an energy charge between two points which can then be harnessed to do work in a controlled discharge.
By dividing the humans and creating this constant sexual polarization and tension between men and women that couldn’t easily be released, the gods were able to manipulate them to do the work for them. This was especially needed to motivate the humans who would otherwise be very difficult to tame and control. 11 So when it comes to the word ‘helper’ [ezer; עֵזֶר], it’s important to understand that women were not created to help men with doing their work; women were created to help motivate the men to do the work that they would otherwise refuse to do. The gods understood that men and women would naturally want to get back together after the split, so they created a situation whereby men would have to do work for them in order to make that happen. Sigmund Freud referred to the diversion and harnessing of sexual energy for different purposes as sublimation and was acutely aware of the fact that ‘civilization,’ as we’ve known it for thousands of years, is founded on the basis of sexual repression.
Note that after the split of the sexes, humans were still allowed to walk around naked; according to Genesis 2:25 “both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.” So they still had a substantial amount of sexual freedom.
But even the above mentioned division and inequality based on their sexuality would later prove not to be enough to keep the humans obedient. It appears from the text in Genesis 3 that humans, even though they were told to stay away from knowledge so that they would remain docile slaves, were gaining too much knowledge (eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil) with the help of the ‘serpent’ 12 and were disobeying ‘yhwh.’ If they continued to gain knowledge the humans would soon be as wise as the gods and wouldn’t allow themselves to be enslaved anymore. So ‘yhwh’ stepped up the sexual suppression a couple of notches by increasing the polarization and tension between men and women even more. From then on, according to Genesis 3:16, women wouldn’t just be helpers anymore, but men would rule over women while women would paradoxically desire those same men who were commanding them around and treating them as mere property.
In Genesis 3:16 ‘yhwh’ minced no words in telling women that they would intensify women’s pain and anguish during procreation. And this is, in fact, exactly what we see throughout history where women have consistently been the primary target of sexual suppression and repression, and as a result have suffered the consequences far more than men. 13 Although men also suffered the consequences of sexual suppression and repression directly and indirectly, they were somewhat spared in order for them to be able to do the work and function as slaves. The women were used against the men to motivate and manipulate them to do the work required of them, and this still goes on today as I will discuss in more detail later.
The fact that the gods had intensified the sexual suppression among the humans is also evident from Genesis 3:21, “The Lord [yhwh; יהוה] God [elohim; אֱלֹהִים] made clothing out of skins for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them.” The purpose of clothes in this case was to promote and increase sexual inhibition, thus reducing sexual freedom and creating even more sexual tension between men and women. This would later be taken to extreme levels, requiring especially women to completely cover themselves with their clothes in public, as we can still see today for example in Islamic cultures.
Whereas the gods in Genesis 1 had told humans to take dominion over the Earth and to “be fruitful, multiply” and “fill the earth,” the gods in Genesis 3 had promoted human sexuality to the ultimate sin — from then on to be known as mankind’s “original sin.” As Carl Jung observed, “The arch-sin the Catholic Church is ever after is sexuality, and the ideal par excellence virginity, which puts a definite stop to life.” 14 Virginity is the “ideal par excellence” because it means maximum sexual suppression.
With human sexuality and lust having been demonized, life was about to get very difficult for humans, and the world would eventually become a very dangerous place to live in.
Summary
In case you haven’t quite been able to follow the broad narrative throughout all of the sources I discussed above, let me summarize it for you again briefly.
Many thousands of years ago a technologically advanced race of extraterrestrial beings came to planet Earth to mine metals — primarily gold, which is where our obsession with gold comes from. Because the work was too hard for them, they eventually “created” humankind to serve them and work for them as their slaves. Humans were told to obey them as gods or else suffer the (often severe) consequences. When humankind refused to do the work and posed too great a threat to them, the gods implemented “divide and conquer” strategies at various levels, starting at the most fundamental level of the sexes. Later they would introduce additional measures to keep further dividing and weakening the humans. 15 However, as all of the sources show, human sexuality was their fundamental and primary attack vector. You have to understand that when it comes to “divide and conquer” strategies, nothing can divide the human race more than when you do it at the level of the sexes; it divides the human race at the very core of its existence, creating disharmony, pitting one half of humans against the other in a constant internal struggle, preventing them from easily connecting and satisfying their most fundamental biological drives, further preventing them from finding inner peace and strength, consequently weakening the human race at the very foundation. This made it much easier for the gods to control, manipulate and enslave the humans.
At this point it’s not yet decisively clear to me if the human species that existed before the arrival of the gods were androgynous or if they were already split up into two sexes. Certainly some of the sources discussed above claim that they were androgynous before the gods manipulated them, and if that was the case, it would make a lot of sense. 16 However, for the purposes of this article series it’s not of much significance whether (1) an androgynous human species was physically divided into two sexes, or (2) if two already existing sexes living back then in harmony were divided using artificial social constructs (i.e. via ‘culture’ and ‘civilization’), or (3) possibly both of the above options. What’s important to take away for now is that the human race was fundamentally attacked and divided, mentally and physically, via their sexuality.
Over time the gods’ policies of sexual suppression and repression would be enforced through ‘commandments’ and ‘laws’ that they would hand down to humans — first directly, and later indirectly through their appointed kings, prophets and religious leaders. 17 Thus sexual suppression and repression became the foundation on which ‘culture’ and ‘civilization’ as we know them today were built, seeping into every aspect of human life.
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