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Why would they want the Ludovico to prevent sexual desire?

posted 9 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?

[–] B-J-C 8 years ago

I was also wondering this. At first I thought that the developers of the technique didn't intend it to stop Alex from consensual sexual behaviour, however the demonstration where Alex is nearly sick when he's about to touch the naked woman in front of the audience suggests otherwise. It's not mentioned in the film, but maybe they wanted to stop people with violent tendencies from reproducing.

I haven't read the book; maybe the book sheds more light on the subject.

[–] movieghoul 8 years ago

Given that men frequently rationalize date rape as consensual, I don't think that they would have introduced any subtlety here. Any physical contact with a woman was made abhorrent to him.

[–] TaRaNRoD (1579) 7 years ago

"It's not mentioned in the film, but maybe they wanted to stop people with violent tendencies from reproducing."

I had this thought, and it would actually make sense because violent tendencies can be transmitted with genes (I don't know if what I personally know about the subject is 100% but I read about how much the DNA transmitted to a child during his conception can play an important role in building an individual's personality). On another hand, this is not an absolute science neither. Maybe they just didn't want to take any chances.

[–] fleischwolf (294) 7 years ago

It was kinda like chemical castrations for sex offenders. Sexual desire is of course a huge drive for crimes like rape.