Brave New Sex – Aldous Huxley und die „Sexual Politics“ der Dystopie

Abstract

The dystopian novel Brave New World (1932) by British writer Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) depicts a future society, in which every form of individualism is nothing but a ‚system error‘. Although the biological sex as well as sexuality (as a form of reproduction) itself have basically become irrelevant, the totalitarian system abides by a patriarchal ideology in order to suppress and control its inhabitants. This may, at a first glance, both affect male and female – but actually, using the examples of family, gender and sexuality, affects inherently more women than men in their everyday life or their social roles. Thus, 20th century novels such as Huxley’s Brave New World stand for a paradigmatic shift: While almost all ‚classical‘ utopias establish a patriarchal structure as a ‚stable‘ foundation for their society, it is in contrast maintained in the later (post–)‌modern dystopian novels mainly as a negative example in order to illustrate systemic injustices and sexist power structures.