Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is John Herschauer, Associate Editor of City Journal.

Joining me on the show today is James Panero, the executive editor of the New

Criterion. He writes on art and culture, including as the New Criterion's gallery critic.

His work has appeared in several other publications, including the Wall Street Journal,

New York Magazine, the Spectator World Edition, and the New York Times Book Review.

Today, James is here to discuss his feature story in our summer issue, Marks of the Libido, about Wilhelm Reich, a remarkable and bizarre figure who was one of the founders and instigators of the sexual revolution. James, thank you for joining the show. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. So can you give us some background on Wilhelm Reich, you know, who he is and his role in the history of psychiatry and the sexual revolution?

Well, sure. Let me start off by saying, you know, when we talk about a revolution, usually we

have, you know, some knowledge of its history, it's instigators, battles, its outcomes. But

what about the sexual revolution?

Well, we have some sense that a revolution, a sexual revolution, took place over the past hundred years, but then who started this revolution?

And why, after all, the human race seemed to have a workable understanding of sex

before this revolutionary moment?

Yes, the answer is there was an instigator who

started this war named Wilhelm Reich. He was the Karl Marx of the libido who coined the term

sexual revolution, which he saw as the ultimate extension of the communist revolution. So what did

sexual revolution mean to Reich?

And how did he come to it?

He was born in Austria-Hungary.

In 1897, he studied in Vienna and became a star pupil of Sigmund Freud.

His Reich's focus was childhood sexuality.

Reich believed that children possessed what he described as a pure innate

sexual drive, one that must be protected through political means from society's suppression.

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