In all of the varied critical opinion, much has been said about the purposes of Dr. Strangelove, but a dominant theme that pervades the film from beginning to end has been ignored…. Dr. Strangelove is a sex allegory: from foreplay to explosion in the mechanized world….

Like Jonathan Swift, who employed Master Bates in Gulliver's Travels, the creators of Dr. Strangelove … gave special significance to names that represent various aspects of sex. General Jack D. Ripper …, commander of Burpelson Air Force Base, initiates the attack on the Soviet Union. General Ripper, a sex fiend in his own way, is obsessed by the idea of "bodily fluids" and what is happening to them; he is certain that fluoridation is a Commie plot to destroy the strength of America by undermining her bodily fluids. Ripper's description of the act of love has been described by one woman I know as...