State of the Sexual Union 2025

My fifth annual State of the Sexual Union address (2025), delivered live on Active Radio hosted by Hartley Pleshaw on WCAP-AM 980 and now available for your listening pleasure, is a sex-positive, greed-negative, pro-bonobo “rebuttal” to POTUS Donald Trump’s pseudo-strongman State of the Union 2025 and his pro-wrestling circus-style regime’s lurch toward authoritarian repression and recession.

“Where the State of the Sexual Union (SOTSU) is concerned, no one is better qualified to deliver it than America’s leading sexologist, America’s #1 sex therapist and sexpert, Dr. Susan Block,” asserts the far-too-gracious Hartley by way of introduction.

So… What IS the State of the Sexual Union in 2025?

“Precarious,” I reply, somewhat precariously landing on this word for the rather unstable state of our sexual union in the public sphere, as well as the precarity of my own personal love life in 2025. Then SOTSU metamorphoses into “Meet the Press,” with Hartley asking me about various topics within the “meeting ground of sex, politics and culture which,” he opines, “Dr. Suzy covers and handles better than anyone in the present contemporary scene.” Yikes! The pressure…

SOTSU 2025 Topics (more or less in order):

State of Disunion: Even as *We the People* continue to move towards sexual union, opening up to a veritable rainbow of consenting-adult erotic expressions, our leaders (many of whom are billionaires) – in politics, religion, corporations and in media, including social media – tell a different story, driving us toward a state of sexual disunion, dividing us to conquer us, through rising authoritarian repression, blatant hypocrisy and a neo-Puritanical, fascistic, misogynistic, ecocidal emphasis on sex as procreation, not recreation. Though these same leaders tend to indulge in (semi-secret) recreational sex for themselves, they aggressively repress it in others, censoring sex education and the erotic voices of The People, policing us in social media and in our everyday lives with increasingly draconian and autocratic measures.

Max’s Stroke: Revealing the precarious “state” of my personal “sexual union,” I share the melancholy news with my WCAP audience that my beloved sexual partner, husband for over 33 years and friend for 40, as well as publisher, DrSuzy-Tv producer, FDR co-host, my “witness” and constant collaborator, Capt’n Max, aka Prince Maximillian Rudolph Leblovic Lobkowicz di Filangieri, suffered a major ischemic stroke on May 19, shortly after SOTSU 2024. Surfing the waves of emotion, trying not to wipe out mid-sentence, I address the intensely personal – yet sadly universal – challenges that Max and I face due to his sudden and devastating physical and verbal incapacitation. Though I’m no Luigi Mangione – nor Florence Nightengale – my crash course in caretaking Max post-stroke, under constant threat of being triaged into a living death by the American Medical Insurance Megamachine, has given me a deeper understanding of just how it both saves and destroys lives.

Bonobo Caregiving: Hartley opens the next segment with Marvin Gaye’s iconic “Sexual Healing,” moving me to open up about what I’ve learned *hands-on* regarding the importance of erotic touch to Max’s healing and to healing the world. It’s “Caregiving the Bonobo Way,” harnessing the life-giving power of Eros, Greek god of sex, love and the breath of life, and in a way, the opposite of death (Thanatos). Practicing this kind of erotic touch in hospitals and nursing homes where it may be abused is a “touchy” subject. Nevertheless, my experience with Max is teaching me that consenting-adult sensual touch provides more healing than oxycontin.

Dr. Suzy vs. Meta: “Why is Zuck the Cuck after you?” Hartley asks, to which I reply, “That’s what I’d like to ask him… in court.” I am suing Meta for wrongful business practices based on “censorship by bot,” erroneous, anti-sex algorithms abruptly deactivating my 15-year-old Facebook and IG profiles. It’s a fight for Users Rights, and real Free Speech for all – including sex workers, activists and Palestine-supporters, not just Zuck the Cuck and whoever he’s trying to suck up to. Save the Date: June 20, 2025 for my Showdown with Zuck the Cuck in the San Mateo Courthouse... Of course, Zuck is buying his way into UFC – like Elon bought into the White House. Will Zuck buy our judge? He probably already has…

The Billionaire Mind Virus: Meta talk leads us to Fighting the Billionaire Mind Virus: In the Ring with Zuck the Snake & On the Range with Musk the Boring Boer-Loving Wild Boar” (also on Counterpunch), addressing the mega-influence of Zuck, Musk and the other tech billionaires – as well as pseudo billionaires like Trump – on free speech and freedom in general.  The Woke Mind Virus is just Elon Musk’s paranoid fetish, but the Billionaire Mind Virus is real, and it’s killing us.

Trump Speech Isn’t Free: “I brought back Free Speech in America,” declared POTUS 47 to kick off his SOTU. “It’s back.”  Cue the eye roll. Trump’s “Free Speech” is about as free as a seat next to him at Mar A Lago Easter Sunday brunch. And slap a tariff on that!

State of Palestine: Don and Bibi’s gaudy graven image of a Gaza Riviera – now offering hot deals on beachfront property (with offshore gas shares) – showcases Trump’s Zionist alliances as disingenuous, profit-driven, cruel and bloody.  I’m not sure if my sex education advocacy gets me censored more than my support for Palestine, but Jews like me speaking out against the Zionist genocide are increasingly silenced by social media moguls in bed with political powerbrokers.

Jews with Opposing Views: Another WCAP host, Jim Schanker, *texts in* to Active Radio to criticize my support of Palestine, asserting that “Israel is at war with Hamas” (not Palestine), the standard Zionist hasbara. I’m a “Jew for Palestine,” I explain, very much against all killing, whether of hostages or people that are being bombed… and a lot more Palestinians are being bombed (though the hostages are also victims of Israel’s bombs). Basic pro-peace stances are increasingly censored on social media, not to mention college campuses. Well, not on WCAP. Before I finish, Jim invites me on his show, L’Chaim (“To Life”).  Tune in May 2, 2025 for a dialogue between Jews with opposing views on Palestine, and probably a few other things.

Liu, Hedges, De Sade: In the final segment, that rascal Hartley catches me off guard, playing a clip featuring fellow Yale alumnus and culture critic Catherine Liu describing the Marquis de Sade as a philosophical forefather of sexual liberation, with podcast host Chris Hedges’ full support. I’d rather criticize fascists, but with a heavy sigh, I firmly reject Liu’s framing. He may have been a literary genius, but to represent sexual freedom as the Marquis de Sade is disgusting.” He was a selfish aristocrat in and out of bed, not a man of the people. Though the fetish of “sadism” was named after him, it’s not like De Sade was a kink-aware practitioner of BDSM; his activities were mostly non-consensual. The “Make Love Not War” movement pioneered consent’s importance to kink, female empowerment, and peace through authentic pleasure, not aristocratic “sadism” masquerading as freedom. Well, this is what happens when anti-sex “feminists” get paid by Rightwing thinktanks and corporations to cleverly critique the sex-positive Left.

A Bonoboësque Vision for a Make-Love-Not-War Future: Having long exemplified “greed is good,” Meta Mark Zuckerberg is now pushing the meme that “aggression is good” in the ring, in the public square, everywhere.  Contrast Zuck the Cuck’s worshipful elevation of violent aggression – buttressed by Meta’s twisted, algorithmic, dehumanizing control of the People’s Voices – with the Bonobo Way of peace through pleasure, female empowerment, male nurturance, sharing and, not just caring, but caregiving, embracing lust over greed, like the bonobos do, and acknowledging that eros is not just for procreation, but also recreation, good relations and relationships.

Indeed, we’re at a precarious point, a point of fight or flight – or join the fascist circus. So, I’m fighting for my love, for Max, and for an eros-positive, greed-negative, antiwar, ecologically sustainable and – always – pro-bonobo State of the Sexual Union. And you?

Listen to My 2025 State of the Sexual Union (SOTSU) address
Listen to SOTSU 2025 on YouTube.
Listen to 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 SOTSU addresses.

 

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This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Susan Block.