I agree that would feel pretty artificial, if we understand it the utilitarian way.

But Wilhelm Reich doesn't really follow a utilitarian calculus. I.e., for him pleasure is not the equal yet opposite of unpleasure. Rather, the calculus is one of material tension and release, or intensity, which I think you get at quite well in your example.

And yeah, if Marx, Bataille, and Spinoza are called philosophers, I guess we can call this a philosophical thought as well. Though it certainly reaches beyond the bounds of philosophy into psychoanalysis, biology, and cybernetics.