A Very American Story

Christopher Turner, author of Adventures in the Orgasmatron: Wilhelm Reich and the Invention of Sex (London: Fourth Estate), describes here how J. D. Salinger, Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer were all devotees of the orgone energy accumulator, whose inventor, Wilhelm Reich, claimed that better orgasms could cure society's ills.  Over the years some libertarians have been interested in Reich, not least because he was a victim of FBI and FDA repression.