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ideology of socialist collectivism, the structure of the work unit system and the
socialist sovereign ownership of the body - account for sexual repression in the
Maoist period in China. Rather than being an ahistorical, essential component of
Maoist socialism, sexual repression (psychic and social) was a historically specific
and complex phenomenon. The transformation of sexual repression at a historical
moment took the form of an assemblage of the return of love discourse and an
emergent desire-centered subjectivity in the great transformation from Maoist
socialism to the post-Mao reform period.
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