Inspired by our President, and a conservative influencer, I set out to explore whether bullying is sexy

A psychosexual analysis of America’s authoritarian moment

Was it Samantha Jones or Hunter S. Thompson who claimed the populace prefers to vote for someone fuckable? I always liked the sentiment. That we’d follow those we’d share a beer, or a bed, with over a more logical choice. It was an uncomfortable truth that our gut, our heart, our sex organs, would drive our decisions. I like exploring uncomfortable truths. So when we ended up with a repulsive fella in charge, and I remembered how fucked up some of us are sexually, I set out to investigate the psychosexual dynamic of authoritarianism in my own home. I wanted to understand how so many found bullying sexy.

Do you remember that influencer who scolded women of all ages into being better homemakers? It started with her. Kylie Perkins was my muse. She’s a self-made disciplinarian for tradwives, whose non-aesthetic videos oscillate between aggro-motivational speech and domestic bullying. I’d told my British husband about her over lunch one day, and by the evening, the conservative character was inspiration for our evening role-play.

I’m not precious about experimentation. My husband and I have done our share of sexual charades: space-disco fuck-doll, a Bianca Censori does Clockwork Orange does Allen Jones erotic furniture bit, and, sure, a maid or two. It’s the intermittent novelty that spices up the lovey-dovey shags that two people who’ve known and wiped shit off each other for eight years typically have. We’ll try almost anything once. But standing before my husband in my regular-ass mom clothing, with my iPhone’s front-facing camera between us, I froze and stared at my reflection. How could I feign the role of an online bully when it all felt too topical to be a sexy taboo? Too trauma-adjacent to be erotic.

This year, political strongmen and arrogant podcast bros have waxed poetic about boot-licking and boot-being. Militias in neck gaiters inflicted violence on my neighbors. A cable news anchor honestly referred to the President as “Daddy.” Multiple times. Our leaders have abuse allegations against them, and worse. Conservatives everywhere seem to be acting out a very public domination fantasy. And given the wholly nonconsensual horror of it all, the USA’s authoritarian power performance reeks of deep-seated daddy issues. Jung called it a father complex. It’s when early experiences of authority cause adults to oscillate between craving control and surrendering to it. Those with this complex believe love is conditional, approval must be earned, and safety depends on obedience.

When I first heard Kylie’s voice through my iPhone, it sounded like this sort of parent. Not my parent (we’ll get to that), but that punitive parental voice so ubiquitous that its traumatized offspring ripple through popular culture: Tom Buchanan, or his aughts-era teenage counterpart, Chuck Bass, or his mystical counterpart, Draco Malfoy, or the one who haunts my dreams, Biff from Back to the Future, and his alternate-reality lookalike, our President. This archetype is a cliché in the United States, because it’s in our DNA. Our states were literally created by fathers who battled their father country, then upheld their own toxic paternalism upon the peoples who shared space with them. Two and a half centuries later, we have a capital-B bully with a well-documented father complex as President. It may confound me personally, but culturally, it’s destined. We may not be comfortable with this truth, but we do tend to want to fuck our parents.

an Oedipus-ish moment in Back to the Future

I’m not the first to connect this authoritarian bullying to sex. In The Mass Psychology of Fascism, William Reich traced how punitive homes created adults trained to suppress desire, distrust their bodies, and seek belonging through submission to external authority. It’s a fascist cycle. The tradition and structure of authoritarianism erode sex education, shut down natural curiosity, fostering the shame and repression required to brew the aggression that feeds the cycle. With the repeal of Roe v. Wade, the removal of funding for sex education programs, and the moral hypocrisy in heteronormative values and family values, the USA stoked this psychological basis for fascism.

In my household, it was an act. “What if you were like that conservative chick, but for your sex motif?” my husband suggested. “I could catch you filming yourself admonishing WAGs for being bad lovers?” After a nervous laugh, I opened my phone and looked into my front-facing camera. My mind went blank. Then I took a big breath. And I channeled an archetype. “You should feel ashamed of yourself,” I said. “For such a pathetic attempt at pleasing your partner.” My eye twitched. “Don’t you care about genuine intimacy? Or is being a wife all just a performance to you?” My husband grew hard. I continued, “What are you hiding? What are you afraid of? Don’t you want real pleasure, too? Or are you afraid of discovering you’re living a fucking lie, and hurting people along the way?” I put my phone down and pulled down my husband’s pants.

Fantasies about dominance and submission are commonplace. Sex researcher Justin Lehmiller found, in a survey of over 4,000 Americans for his book about desire, Tell Me What You Want, that my fellow left-leaners are more likely to want to get tied up and relinquish control as a break from the whole equity bit we’re so fixated on. Meanwhile, conservatives fantasize about cuckolding and group sex – violations of their traditional family values. People just want to explore the parts of themselves they don’t reveal in public, with a companion who wants the same. Except for those with unprocessed shame; What is repressed finds an outlet – shoutout to Bryon Noem.

It’s evident in our country’s storied history and problematic present what happens when repression, transformed into aggression toward the repressed self, goes unprocessed. German socialist Klaus Theweleit, after observing proto-fascist men obsessed with hardness in post-WWI Germany, wrote in Male Fantasies how their “soldierly male ego” was armor against their fear of softness and their own desires. Tactical gear, like what Jake Lang wore while vandalizing anti-ICE ice carvings, represents a fear of himself and his inability to do the one thing he really needs to do to protect this country – look inward. And channel that insight into consensual sex.

My bully role didn’t get me hot and bothered, necessarily, but something about my spontaneous polemic felt good. It reminded me of a time when I was driven more by fear and cultural expectations than by being true to myself. It also reminded me of middle school, when I was bullied for being tall, being shy, and wearing the wrong style of multi-layer tank tops. These once-sore memories didn’t flood back in a coital haze. I’d already processed them and incorporated my Midwestern suburban embarrassment into a personal humble lore and a grounded sense of self. Being that Perkins-inspired character, and turning my husband on in the process, allowed me to explore a side of myself that I was happy to leave behind after we came, which we both did. It wasn’t the bully that was sexy; it was the exploration of ourselves. Our boundaries. Our comforts. And our uncomfortable truths.

It’s not my place to analyze what makes someone elect a super unfuckable authoritarian with daddy issues. Nor what makes a user on TikTok thank a North Carolinian mom for berating her into putting her laundry away. I’m sure decision fatigue and economic exhaustion are a factor. But if I were them, I’d probe deeper. Let sex be individuation.

Reich wrote about one thing that could collapse authoritarian ideology. It was sexually free women. I think if more people played with power in the safety of their bedrooms, we’d all be better off. Even Kylie Perkins is doing it.

P.S. Please make a plan to vote tomorrow if you haven’t already. Choose a time. Confirm the place. And then go get off :)

I like to consider Happy Endings a method of infusing more love in the world by being a sexually free woman, publicly.

I post a cultural provocation or peep into my marriage every Monday, and a love practice every other Thursday. Most Monday posts are free, but the real sex stories from my marriage (here’s the latest) and the practices (here’s the latest) are for paid subscribers. Upgrade to get even more Happy Endings.

I’m often inspired by mass culture — dating shows, influencers, scientific studies, trends, revivals, and porn data — but I’ll always come back to writing about my own experience in my own marriage, as a parent, and a sextech leader. If there’s a topic you’d like me to address, I’d love to hear about it.