horizontal recruitment

[black magick hustla]

what the hell is horizontal recruitment? i know it has something to do with cults and orgies. i've seen it leveled at some trotskyist groups as a slur though. what does it exactly mean and why do some detractors of trotskyism use it as a slur?

[Palingenisis]

what the hell is horizontal recruitment? i know it has something to do with cults and orgies. i've seen it leveled at some trotskyist groups as a slur though. what does it exactly mean and why do some detractors of trotskyism use it as a slur?

Recruitment through shagging mo chara.

Many people speculate that the SWP (ISO over in the states) here is just there for ugly people to get laid. Bit mean but there is a wee grain of truth to it ;) .

[black magick hustla]

That probably happens but what do you expect man? when you have a bunch of twentysomethings put together and with really liberal views about sex that is bound to happen. I don't think it has anything to do with recruitment. I've seen it happen in groups I've been involved in college too.

[Animal Farm Pig]

Hahaha! That's the first time I've heard this term. I love it.

[AK]

This is a troll... right?

[Chambered Word]

Never heard of it before, but it made me laugh. :lol:

[blake 3:17]

It's been around for ages. My first sect had oodles of it.

[RED DAVE]

HISTORICAL FACTS FOLLOW (THE AUTHOR WAS THERE) :D:

The only "grain of truth in it" is that young people in left-wing groups, Trots, Stalinists, Maoists, etc., tend and tended in the past to be horny as hell and couple off, long-term, short-term, overnight, etc. In the 1940s and 1950s, when the Stalinists in the US were into "New Soviet Man" and all that shit, there was a certain amount of frowning on sexual behavior among the CP youth by the Party leadership. And there was an accusation that Trots engaged in "horizontal recruitment."

Truth is, young CPers fucked as much as anyone else on the Left (which was a haven for sex in the 50s and early 60s), but they tended to keep it a little more quiet. And the charge against the Trots was a slander.

RED DAVE

[Martin Blank]

"Horizontal recruitment" is exchanging sex for organizational affiliation. It is an unprincipled, apolitical and cultish means of expanding membership. It's not the same as "horizontal retention", which is keeping members sexually satisfied in order to keep them as members, and is much more common. It's also not the same as intra-organizational relationships, which are very common and not an issue.

There are only a couple organizations I know of that have used horizontal recruitment and horizontal retention: the Spartacists (though I suspect not any more) and the so-called "Revolutionary Workers League". The "RWL" turned horizontal recruitment and horizontal retention into high principles and virtual rites of passage. They're the only things that have kept that cult alive.

I have no problems with members of the same organization having a relationship, sexual or otherwise. But using sex to recruit or retain members is just vile and cheap.

[AK]

So this isn't just an epic troll...?

[Martin Blank]

So this isn't just an epic troll...?

This thread isn't, no. Sadly, this is a reality ... although you could count the presence of these groups in and/or around the left as an epic troll.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

If you're going to be in a cult, you might as well get something out of it.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

when you have a bunch of twentysomethings put together and with really liberal views about sex that is bound to happen.

'Really liberal views about sex?' Many of our leftists are more conservative in issues of sexuality, the family, etc., than some of the most ardent proponents of capitalism I have ever met.

And while there are a fair share of younger people in some of the left groups (especially the ones that do the bulk of their recruiting at college campuses), there are also a large number of elderly folks. Members of a number of leftist "youth organizations" and "youth wings" are older than me.

[RED DAVE]

"recruitment and horizontal retention: the Spartacists (though I suspect not any more) and the so-called "Revolutionary Workers League". The "RWL" turned horizontal recruitment and horizontal retention into high principles and virtual rites of passage. They're the only things that have kept that cult alive.No shit! I never heard about that with regard to the Sparts or the RWL. Pathetic. You sure about this?

RED DAVE

[Martin Blank]

No shit! I never heard about that with regard to the Sparts or the RWL. Pathetic. You sure about this?

Yep. Damn sure.

[bcbm]

that really makes all of my encounters with the sparts even more disturbing.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

that really makes all of my encounters with the sparts even more disturbing.
Because you didn't get any sex out of it? Or because you did?

[bcbm]

Because you didn't get any sex out of it? Or because you did?

last time i saw the sparts they had come up from chicago to hassle the iso at a campus org fair. it was one old dude and four or five college aged women. i was just thinking about how... well... gross, anyway.

[Gecko]

last time i saw the sparts they had come up from chicago to hassle the iso at a campus org fair. it was one old dude and four or five college aged women. i was just thinking about how... well... gross, anyway.

:redstar2000:
the old fart..err...i mean the old spart..was he by any chance wearing a tie-dye t shirt and telling the 5 college aged women that he was groovy?

[bcbm]

no, he was a union electrician or bus driver or something.

best part was college attending white woman spart telling college attending white woman iso'er "what do you know about black struggle?!" i pretty much lost my shit.

[Chambered Word]

Did anything else noteworthy happen? :lol:

[Red Commissar]

It's the first time I've gotten a term for it, but I'm not surprised by its presence, or how it can be used as slander.

In something outside of leftist circles, I do remember reading somewhere that the government of Iran, in its scuffles with the Baha'i religious group, claims that the latter uses the allure of a sexual encounter to convert people.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Yea, it's certainly not limited to leftist cults. Other cults use it to, notably the Raëlians (http://www.rickross.com/reference/raelians/raelians82.html) and The Family International (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flirty_fishing). The Family called it "Flirty Fishing," and later "Escort Servicing." According to their own records, the latter group did it more than 223,000 times.

Emma Goldman planned to prostitute herself to raise money for the propaganda of the deed plot to assassinate Henry Frick, but her first time on a stroll a man gave her $10 and told her she wasn't cut out for the business, prompting her to quit before she really got started.