I don't know if this qualifies as "historical materialist"--- On a symbolic level, the repressed equals the oppressed. --Sexual energy is the dark force that must be repressed in order, ultimately to maintain the necessary dominion of the intellect. The body, of course, has no intelligence :) --Women/workers/dark skinned people must be oppressed in order to extract the surplus that maintains the existing power structure. --The mind rules the wayward, mindless, animal body; the wise ruling class rules the wayward, mindless, animalistic workers. Because, as is plain to all, without a ruling class we would all relapse into a bestial state :)
This equation goes back at least to Plato's Phaedrus. It is pre-capitalist: witness the stories in the 1001 Nights or Bocaccio. It fills Nazi anti-semitic propaganda about those dirty, sexually perverted jews (Reich "Mass Psychology of Fascism"). It is definitely not just racist: for example, the sexually vital working class white hero of "Lady's Chatterly's Lover." Kelly is right though that the Victorians changed the myth by desexualizing women, who, up to that point were more commonly held to be 'insatiable', identified as 'the sex', and strongly in need of Christian restraint. One reason why De Sade (and here I think I'm going to get in trouble) is worth our interest is that in his work, the myth is inverted: it is the aristocracy that is sexually charged and that deserves to rule not because of self denial but because of the lack thereof.
Note also that hypersexuality has always been associated (in fantasy) with social revolution--which puts an end to oppression and (therefore) repression.
Joanna
P.S. Fact: The penis of the black male is, on average, one tenth of an inch larger than the penis of the white male.