I realize this is becoming something of a theme with me, but...
WTF, seriously. I can't even read a webcomic by a guy who writes harmless little stories about time-travellers in Ancient Crete and the like, without coming across this kind of bullshit:
I'm not translating that. Sorry. I just don't have it in me right now.
But you know what this tells me? That this kind of idiocy has become a commonplace, something so banal and obvious that it deserves to be put in the same line-up as "What if Franz Ferdinand had cancelled his trip to Sarajevo?" (which is, indeed, among other things, in the strip this is drawn from, which can be viewed here).
And the trouble is, on one level, I think the author of this webcomic is an idiot for buying into this kind of nonsense - the implications of which maelicia has already gone into in depth in several different places and which I therefore won't explore profoundly here - the real problem is not him, who is after all, not a specialist in the period and seems to appreciate history largely for the amusing anecdotes factor, but rather the process of the creation of the commonplace that he's using here.
The conjunction of the ideas that a) Robespierre never had sex and b) that not having sex is evil and unnatural, was never a coincidence. Its cristalization into something that the culture takes for granted isn't a coincidence either. Needless to say - at least here - those responsible deliberately created this representation to discredit Robespierre, the Revolution, and the ideals of both. This webcomic, much as it annoys me, is just one of the pathetic results. I suppose what depresses me most about it, and why I wanted to bring it up, is indeed the success of this representation and the skill with which it employs the sex culture to do its dirty work for it. (In fact, come to think of it, though they delight in spelling out the implications for their audience, all the authors of this representation really need to do is assert Robespierre's virginity and the sex culture does the rest)..
Also needless to say, the point here is not actually whether the idea that Robespierre never had sex is true or not - as if anyone now living could have any way of knowing that - but the cultural implications of virginity/chastity. My Robespierre figment would like to officially protest that it's none of anyone's business, and don't people have anything better to worry about? Like the state of the Republic, for example...
And something else which should be needless to say: I'm not actually against sex. When consensual and removed as much as possible from the degradation that sex has become inextricably entwined with in the culture, it can be great. However, everything does not revolve around it. And if I see the "frustrated virgin" trope (especially in connection with Robespierre) one more time, I'm going to smash something. Seriously, cut it out. And while you're at it, cut out this nonsense about the evils of incorruptibility. You would think, living day-to-day with all the ghastly consequences of it, that people would be a little less enamoured of corruption...