Re: Screen popup overload tonight

it had been his first lapse in two
years or thereabouts. Consorting with prostitutes was forbidden, of course,
but it was one of those rules that you could occasionally nerve yourself to
break. It was dangerous, but it was not a life-and-death matter. To be
caught with a prostitute might mean five years in a forced-labour camp: not
more, if you had committed no other offence. And it was easy enough,
provided that you could avoid being caught in the act. The poorer quarters
swarmed with women who were ready to sell themselves. Some could even be
purchased for a bottle of gin, which the proles were not supposed to drink.
Tacitly the Party was even inclined to encourage prostitution, as an outlet
for instincts which could not be altogether suppressed. 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. The unforgivable
crime was promiscuity between Party members. But -- though this was one of
the crimes that the accused in the great purges invariably confessed to --
it was difficult to imagine any such thing actually happening.
The aim of the Party was not merely to prevent men and women from
forming loyalties which it might not be able to control. Its real,
undeclared purpose was to remove all pleasure from the sexual act. Not love
so much as eroticism was the enemy, inside marriage as well as outside it.
All marriages between Party members had to be approved by a committee
appointed for the purpose, and -- though the principle was never clearly
stated -- permission was always refused if the couple concerned gave the
impression of being physically attracted to one another. The only
recognized purpose of marriage was to beget children for the service of the
Party. Sexual intercourse was to be looked on as a slightly disgusting
minor