Coilhouse Magazine have linked to a fascinating documentary about gay Nazi’s – the German subculture of far right homosexual men. The dichotomy between the repressive politics these men subscribe to (and in many cases fetishize) is a fascinating one.

Psychologist George Lakoff writes about how frames, or world views rooted in models of the family [specifically ‘strict father vs ‘nuturant parent’], ordinarily shape whole groups of beliefs – which may themselves seem contradictory (as when a ‘liberal’ opposes the death penalty, but favours abortion rights, or when ‘conservative’ does the opposite). Arguably Lakoff’s insights, with their roots in pseudo-scientific practises like ‘Neurolinguistic Programming’, were responsible for the Obama campaigns successful focus on broad, content-free sloganeering and model building around ambiguous concepts like ‘Change’.

What makes subgroups like the gay Nazi’s so interesting, is that their contrarian positions seem hypocritical only in the light of the defacto social consensus over which sets of opinions should and commonly do fit together. The gay Nazi’s, by representing an obviously contradictory position – supporting policies and movements who would see them exterminated; provide an insight into the artificial nature of supposedly naturally aligned political and moral positions.

Seen from a psychdynamic perspective, the extreme right wing politics of the gay Nazi’s could be construed as a sexualisation of the paternal figure – in Freudian parlance literally an ‘inversion’. A host of defence mechanisms like Displacement, and Reaction Formation, leading to a preternaturally strong preference for ‘strict father’ models, and a seduction into fascism.

Seen from a Lacanian perspective, they represent another kind of inversion, a dark reflection of our own innumerable hypocrisies.

Also, they’re hella freaky.