Sexual geopolitics: the ‘blue balls’ theory of terrorism

This article explores the recent occlusion of economic deprivation by sexual frustration as the hegemonic model for understanding international terrorism. In particular, it focuses on, what it dubs, ‘the blue balls theory of terrorism’, which asserts that terrorism is caused by the sexual frustration of non-western men. The first section traces the emergence of this theory across western media and academic writing and provides a brief critique of the sociobiological underpinnings of the theory. The second section takes a detour through other hydraulic tropes of sexuality in western history to foreground the heteronormative aspects of this discursive tradition. The final section returns to the blue balls theory of terrorism to show how this heteronormative conception of hydraulic sexuality has shaped contemporary theorizing about international terrorism. In doing so, this article hopes to shed light on the ways the sexual has become a privileged site for regulating non-western states.