The Sexual Welfare State
In the eighteenth century, interests had often been counterposed to the passions, as cooler, more rational, less violent motives.37 But most nineteenth-century writers, including Fourier, considered the pursuit of profit a passion as well as an interest.
Fourier outdistanced all his contemporaries in his eagerness to treat greed and lust in parallel terms:This theory of agricultural association, which is going to change the fortunes of the human race, appeals to the passions common to everybody, and seduces them with the allurements of profit and sensual pleasure; this guarantees its success among barbarians and savages as well as among civilized people, since the passions are the same everywhere.38
He also went further in challenging conventional sexual mores, although most of his specific proposals remained buried in manuscripts that might otherwise have landed him and his followers in jail. The New Amorous World differed from Owen's The New Moral World exactly as its title suggested it would, celebrating sexual desire whether or not accompanied by sincere affections. He portrayed lust, like greed, as a human energy source that could be managed, channeled, and harnessed, but not repressed.
With characteristic attention to detail, he catalogued the Gamut of the Misfortunes of the Conjugal State, enumerating all imaginable forms and methods of cuckoldry, which he believed should simply be accepted. Monogamy was out of date. Like work, sex could be improved by variation. Such improvements should not be left to chance. Experienced experts, predominantly older women, would provide advice and guidance in determining and satisfying libidinal needs, according to Fourier’s typology of passions and theory of omnigamy. Grandmotherly care and oversight would be combined with individual choice. The end result would be an increase in sexual satisfaction that a modern commentator has described as a ‘‘state of permanent orgasm.’’39
The parallels between the productive and the sensual dimensions of Fourier’s utopia became explicit in the concept of the ‘‘sexual minimum’’, a safety net analogous to the minimum wage.40 Individuals should not be denied satisfaction simply because they were unattractive, old, or cranky.
Their needs would be met by altruists who, aspiring to sexual sainthood, were following a prescribed path that included seven stages or tests and payment of an amorous tribute to their elders. The ceremonial aspects of this process parodied Catholic ritual with serious intent. Just as no one would be forced to accept a job because it was his or her only alternative, no one would be forced to accept a partner because he or she was their only means of obtaining sexual services. Fourier’s own disappointments in this arena were transparent.Fourier’s celebration of the passions has been compared to that of de Sade.41 The comparison, however, is misplaced. Fourier condemned as a perversion any element of coercion or violence in sexual relationships. Sexual pleasure, in his view, was weakened rather than strengthened by possession and control. The phalanstery was designed not merely to pre-empt family responsibilities but also to extend them. Fourier described a ‘‘ralliement de famillisme’’ in which adult Harmonians would virtually adopt the children who worked alongside them on various tasks. The word passion, for Fourier, encompassed parental and familial feelings, as well as sexual desire. Malthus embraced self-love as the mainspring of human society. Fourier embraced sexual love. No longer a ‘‘recreation which detracts from work,” love was to be the ‘‘soul and vehicle, the mainspring of all works and of the whole of universal attraction.”42
Such productive, optimistic hedonism violated Christian precepts. Dismissing the Malthusian assertion that contraception was immoral, Fourier veered to the opposite extreme, describing it as virtuous, obvious, and easy. He also expressed great interest in what he called a ‘‘third sex”. He may himself have been bisexual, but he reserved his greatest enthusiasm for lesbianism, noting in his manuscripts that ‘‘sapphism = perfection.” He believed that same-sex relationships would not only help women obtain their sexual minimum and free them to pursue other goals, but would also stimulate men to better behavior.43 In order to compete with women for lovers men would be forced to adopt more gentle and attentive ways.
Such arguments were easily parodied at the time. Yet Fourier's basic economic vision of centralized, rationalized management was hardly radical. It did not depend on the reconfiguration of self-interest or the success of democratic governance. It did not demand perfect equality. Its exuberant promises of prosperity and plenty held more appeal than the vows of poverty associated with Christian communism. After his death in 1837 Fourier's fans winnowed the sexuality and fantasy from his approach, hoping to improve its harvest.