Bonk for Britain Booooooo

Culture Sex Relationships

I invited Scott Burnett back on the show (here's his first appearance last year when we talked about the manosphere https://soundcloud.com/culturesexrelationships/scott-burnett-masculinities-masturbation-and-no-fap). He co-wrote this excellent paper this year called ‘Breeders for race and nation’: gender, sexuality and fecundity in post-war British fascist discourse. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0031322X.2021.2011088 It's open access and although it's an academic article I think it's pretty accessible (we also explain it in the show). We talked about: Why we're having the conversation at the moment (Italy, and the Bonk for Britain story) https://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2022/oct/10/the-tory-ministers-bonking-for-britain-idea-is-a-vile-vision-lurking-behind-cheeky-carry-on-imagery The general overview of the right and gender How this reproduces whiteness and gender subjectivities (and how it is weaponised against the Other (people of colour, migrants generally, feminism) Where else we see these kinds of discourses around gender and sexuality How some of these themes are taken up in environmentalist discourses around overpopulation. But also seeing this as a spectrum where we might also see (seemingly benevolent) references to 'strong families'. We can also see this in culture generally in (what I tend to call) hegemonic or common sense sexuality education but also how gender and sexuality have been disciplined as part of the capitalist projects of the last 100 years. We talked generally about the failure of left / liberal politics to understand how gender and sexuality are not an 'over there' or 'nice to have' but an essential part of our political bloc. Some other reading / podcasts that you might be interested in that we chatted about. Hegemony Now - by Jeremy Gilbert and Alex Williams. https://www.versobooks.com/books/4015-hegemony-now They did a video summarising it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuYEKWx5q40 Abolish The Family - by Sophie Lewis https://www.versobooks.com/books/4075-abolish-the-family which is really really interesting (the title sounds scary and bombastic but it's really not that kind of book). I haven't listened to it yet but she did a podcast for Novara Media about it which I'm sure will be worth a listen https://novaramedia.com/2022/10/12/choose-your-own-family-adventure/ Here's that article by Sophie K Rosa https://novaramedia.com/2022/10/13/did-cuba-just-abolish-the-family/ about Cuba and the cool thing they've done lately.