Sexuality In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Twentieth century dystopian literature tends to either take a hard line on sex and sexuality, or ignore it entirely. The societies in these types of books frequently either have sex in excess with little in the way of social mores regarding sexuality to slow them down, or to disregard sex as something lesser and unnecessary but for procreation. Orwell’s 1984 is a stark contrast to a book like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World which takes the element of procreation out of sex entirely via reproductive technology and normalizes promiscuous sex. Orwell deprives his characters of sexual intimacy and explains, via the protagonist, Winston, how this denial fuels their fervor and their hatred for whichever entity Oceania is supposedly warring with at

The main characters, Winston and Julia, have their own reasons for bucking the rules of their class, but for each of them it is a form of rebellion, even if it remains a secret for much of the novel. For the Proletariat society members, sex can still be fun, to some degree. Winston recalls a dalliance with a Proletariat prostitute, saying that the Party might even encourage such acts. “Mere debauchery did not matter very much, so long as it was furtive and joyless, and only involved the women of a submerged and despised class,” (Orwell, p. 57). However, Winston knows that true bonding via sex was absolutely unforgivable in the eyes of the Party. In the same passage as he is recalling his single attempt with the prostitute, Winston notes that “The aim of the Party was not merely to prevent men and women from forming loyalties […]. Its real, undeclared purpose was to remove all pleasure from the sexual act,” and goes on to explain how sex and procreation are addressed within marriages (Orwell, p. 57). For Party members, sex was a chore to be done for the good of the nation, not a pleasurable act to increase the intimacy between a couple. Winston recalls at one point that his wife referred to sex as “our duty to the Party”, when it needed to be

It is a driving force for her. This is not because she is deprived of intimacy, but because she craves it deeply, unlike many others in this society. “You’re only a rebel from the waist downwards,” Winston tells her, implying that her rebellious actions are spurred by her desire for sex (Orwell, p. 129). Winston speaks with an air of superiority here, he sees himself as a true rebel because the things he does against the Party are, in his mind, because of his hatred for the Party and what it represents. He is not having sex with Julia simply because it feels good (though it does, and he enjoys it), but because the Party would not want him to. Whereas, for Julia, the pleasure of sex is the best she can hope to derive from her rebellious acts because she does not believe that she will ever escape the rule of the Party. Julia, as a character, is important to the narrative because she represents Winston’s changing attitudes and desires. Before he writes in his diary and before he begins his affair with Julia, Winston is a somewhat cold character. In the midst of the affair, he finds new ways of expressing himself, finds that he is more curious about other people, and even learns an old rhyme, something he would have ignored previously. After they are caught and Winston is at the Ministry of Love, the one thing he holds on to is the thought of Julia and how he does not wish to betray her. Even knowing that she has betrayed him, he feels that