I did not intend to say, Joanna, that all Leftist art, etc smacked of drabness and prudishness; however, there is a strain of that on the Left. Your friend's comments about not confusing communism and christianity seem on the mark. I am afraid that some people do just that.
On the one hand there seems to be a Left art-form that draws its strength from sensuality, i.e. Picasso. On the other hand there is this other tendency toward leftist social engineering that denies sensuality and the body, thinks humans are so much silly-puddy, and gives rise to such abominations as socialist realism and has inspired the various epigones of Le Corbusier...dreadful.
As you mention, in terms of sexuality, there is Wilhelm Reich but, on the one hand, you get the extreme prudishness of the Chinese Communist Party that emphasized pre-marital chastity, prudishness to the nth degree. I am less knowledgeable about sexuality in the former Eastern Bloc, though I suspect it never approached the repressiveness of China.
Of course, that just goes to show that "Left" is an almost meaningless word. How could one even dream of putting Wilhelm Reich and the Maoists into the same category?
Speaking of clothing, I know a similar story but with a different ending...a woman who received som nice silk pajamas for her birthday but then did not wear them after being shamed by her boyfriend that such things were too bourgeois. This is the kind of silliness to which I was referring.
-Thomas
===== <<You and me baby ain't nothin' but mammals So let's do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel>>
Bloodhound Gang, "The Bad Touch"
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