Absolute Control of Party

[Ling]

The Party wants "to remove all pleasure from the sexual act" (57). "The Party was trying to kill the sex instinct, or, if it could not be killed, then to distort it and dirty it" (57).
Through Wiston, especially through his affair with Julia, we see that the sexual desire cannot be completely killed. However, in order to exert total control, the Party tries to kill it as it tries to kill all other pleasure people have.
Do you think by trying to kill the sexual instinct, the Party has achieved the opposite- actually encouraging people to break the rules and wanting to rebel against the Party?

I think so. If the Party allowed its members some pleasure, it may be more successful in controlling them. Winston is thoroughly miserable at the beginning of the book. However, when he regularly meets with Julia, his "life had ceased to be intolerable, he had no longer any impulse to make faces at the telescreen or shout curses at the top of his voice" (124). If the Party were to make some pleasures legal, Winston may not have such strong hate towards the Party.

[Hillary]

I completely agree with you, Ling. By denying party members pleasure, the Party only succeeds in making its members more opposed to the Party. The Party, if it wants to be ultimately successful, should aim to give the people at least some of what they want. This way, the Party and its members are satisfied. Winston's hatred toward the Party certainly stems in part from the fact that the Party denies Winston of natural human pleasures. Once Winston and Julia meet, Winston is not as bitter.

[Alon]

I agree that the Party has encouraged people to break the rules and to rebel against it, but I don't think that's the opposite of the Party's intention. Until this point in 1984, we have seen the cunning and meticulousness of the Party, how systematic and thorough it is in its control over and manipulation of Oceania. The possibility that the Party would not foresee that its treatment of the Oceanians as oppressive is too remote, too implausible. If anything, the Party encourages rebellion through its oppression in order to capture those who do rebel.
Consider Winton and Julia. Although they engage in an affair, an infringement on the rule that Party members not have physical attraction toward one another, for an extended period of time in the house of a Thought Police Agent, it is not until they obtain the book of the Brotherhood and swear their allegiance to it does the Thought Police act and arrest them. In oppressing Winston and Julia, the Party compelled them to consider joining the vanguard of the revolution, and thus lured them into a trap from which we have yet to see them escape.

[Rachel]

I think the three of you raise excellent points, but I am going to have to disagree with you, Ling. I think that the Party kills the sexual instinct in order to affirm its solitary position of loyalty to all members of Oceania. By allowing its members some pleasure, the Party will show a lapse in total and absolute control, which would undermine its regime. The only thing, in its mind, that should bring members pleasure is loyalty to the Party, not loyalty to themselves and others. As Winston mentions, when people are internally happy, they have no need for the Party. They are content with their lives as is, and do not need the Party to regulate it.

The second point I would like to make is that most people do not know what they are missing in being denied sexual relations. As most members do not remember a pre-Revolution time, this lifestyle is the only one they know. They do not think to question it, and therefore, are not thinking of alternative lifestyles. Therefore, it has never crossed their minds to break the rules and rebel against the Party, as was mentioned.

[Rachel]

I have to agree with Rachel (no, I'm not agreeing with myself.) The party destroys the sexual instinct because they need to erase any desires people might feel. As Rachel stated, most people "do not know what they are missing in being denied sexual relations." This sums it up perfectly. If the party continues to eliminate all sexual desires, over time, no one will remember the pleasure of what they could have. Also, the party needs to always keep the people of their empire in a state of fear. They do this by creating the Thought Police, placing telescreens in their homes and eliminating any type of pleasure. If they do this correctly, each person will maintain full allegiance to the Party. Once a person begins to engage in risky behavior, such as sexual encounters, they are more likely to feel hatred for the Party as they will realize what they are missing.