MovieChat Forums > A Clockwork Orange (1972) Discussion > Why would they want the Ludovico to prev...

Why would they want the Ludovico to prevent sexual desire?

posted 8 years ago by gloops_new_account
21 replies | jump to latest

I get wanting it to have the criminal get sick when he has violent thoughts or when he wants to rape someone, but the idea of eliminating consensual sex as a punishment is kind of extreme (they might have as well have just made eunuchs out of every prisoner).

Also, when the Doctors realized that Alex liked Beethoven and that he would never be able to listen to the 9th again without getting sick, Brodsky said "it can't be helped, this will be the punishment aspect I suppose. The governor should be happy about it." But wouldn't being unable to engage in any kind of sexual contact with a woman be 1000 times more punishing than not being able to hear a song?

[–] chazzmarra 8 years ago

You obviously don't understand Bheethoven nor the need to keep the vile and reprehensible elements of society from reproducing.

[–] gloops_new_account 8 years ago

Then why not just cut his balls off, stupid?

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Pregnat_asian_woman 8 years ago

Could be chalked up to a misinterpretation of what actually drives rape. It's not about sex per se, it's about power.

[–] TheMan18 (12489) 6 years ago

When people in this connotation use the expression "its about power", do they basically mean "its about someone's vicious desire to hurt and humiliate someone albeit in a sexually violent way"?

And let's say it is just about that, are you implying that removing the male sex organs does NOT eliminate such "power" and where DOES such "power" even come from, the mind?

[–] TheMan18 (12489) 6 years ago

Also, what about guys, and sometimes not only guys, who commit "statutory rape", are they influenced and inspired too by power? How about when a guy stops 4 or 5 seconds later when told no in the middle of the act that both parties have consented to or didn't hear the words when the music was too loud? OK, maybe those aren't common and mostly problematic examples of such deed, although people say they at times do happen too - but is power a motivation in THOSE cases?

[–] TheMan18 (12489) 6 years ago

Why not just say then its about "violence" or "someone wanting to hurt someone" than simply "its about power"?

[–] TheMan18 (12489) 6 years ago

The word "power" in ITSELF doesn't mean "being bad" or "being violent" or being a "bully" and all that, in many cases, the word "power" can be a positive thing such as the power to build houses, fight enemies in self defense, do push ups and whatnot, but yet in context of certain bad deeds and one particularly notorious and much talked about sensitive issue these days, the word "power" means ALWAYS something BAD, and in basic terms just means power as in desire of the strong to hurt and humiliate the weak.

[–] Otter (24464) 6 years ago

In the context of the film, it's not the reality of what motivates male rapists that matters, it's what the male viewers in the audience are most afraid of. Kubrick's best films are about deep or universal fears: The fear of batshit crazy people gaining control of nuclear weapons, the fear of being a small dependent child and having a parent turn against you, the fear of castration or the loss of sexuality.

As for "power" being bad or good, yes, it's a morally neutral term for the most part. But power does corrupt, look at all the shit we've been finding out about Hollywood over the last few weeks! A better example of power corrupting you won't find.

[–] wdement 8 years ago

By eliminating the desire for sex they also eliminated the desire for rape, and since the minister stated that their only goal through this treatment was lowering crime rates and the amount of people in prison they were willing to live with the side effects not allowing sex.

[–] gloops_new_account 8 years ago

Then why would they give a crap about not being to hear a song as "the punishment aspect"? Surely having to go into force celibacy for the rest of your life is punishment enough.

[–] Barbed_Wire_Strawberry 8 years ago

It was a coincidence that Alex's favourite song was used - the song accompanies Alex's imagined crimes, so his wires are crossed as far as being able to think about rape/violence and then act on it. Alex could easily have sex without any thought of malice or violence - the key element of his rape fantasies is violence. The threesome scene is used to indicate Alex's sexuality without any hint of violence - so those insticts are seperate.

The punishment for Alex is feeling sick when he hears Beethoven - and Beethoven is the key to his imagination. It's a very Orwellian 'thought crime' theme in Clockwork.

Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride

[–] cajayson8301 8 years ago

I believe it had to do with some allusions emanating at that time. During the 60s and 70s, if memory serves me right (I was born in the 80s so perhaps I'm off here), society and others feared that casual promiscuity bred immoral conduct, thus potentially seguing the youth into carelessness and thus an ill regard towards social norms, hence could manifest into criminal conduct. Therefore, based off that initial (although of course misguided) fear, they opted to control Alex and other subjects' libidos (on top of what was already pointed out here: to curtail his rapist urges. Without sexual desire it's impossible for him to engage in that felony)

When God made Tom Cruise, he was only joking.

[–] TaRaNRoD (1579) 6 years ago

So why not make the treatment in a way that he couldn't have sexual desires conducted by violence? I mean there's certainly a way to condition his brain in a way that his body would only react badly if he has bad and violent intentions behind it. As much as I loved the movie, this detail always bugged as well. It is unfair to deprive a human being from one of his basic instincts which is to reproduce. He certainly still had a sex drive and if he couldn't practice it in a natural and inoffensive way, he would simply go insane.

Maybe like another poster said, the final scene was there to show us that Alex could still practice sex without any thought of malice or violence. When the topless girl goes on stage to test him, the gesture he was trying to make is more associated with sexual harassment than passionate and consensual sex, so maybe the point wasn't that he was conditioned to get sick by the simple thought of sex because we have to note: he clearly desired the girl before she was in front of him and he tried to touch her breasts. He wasn't sick because of the thought of sex, he got sick when he started trying to make a socially deviant action.

I wouldn't take everything I said for gold, but I think it makes sense. But if my second paragraph is not accurate and he litteraly was unable to have sex in any way, well then I am with the OP, it wouldn't really human

Watching films was a big part of his treatments, so they should have shown movies that would be nuancing between what's a bad way to do it, and what's a good way (for example: a movie that would show rape as an example of a deviant approach and compare it with a married couple having passionate sex as an example of good approach).

[–] bradhbbrd 8 years ago

Totalitarians' have long been very sexually repressed.
It is why they seek to control others.
Alex was a rapist but the Ludoviko treatment was pure rape of the mind.

[–] lubin-freddy 8 years ago

Today there's "chemical castration". Same idea.

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

[–] Druffmaul 7 years ago

Did they explicitly state that consensual sex would trigger the reaction? The only thing I recall was the stage demonstration where the naked woman stood in front of him. He said he wanted to screw her right there on the stage, and she was just standing there not protesting or anything, but I think in his mind it was still basically rape. Not saying you're wrong per se.