Gayle rubin
Sex or sexuality may seem to be an unimportant topic as compared to the more critical problms
of poverty, war
disease racism etc. however in present world they acquire immense symbolic
weight .contemporary conflicts over sexuall values and erotic conduct have are as common as
religious conflict. These disputes regarding sexuality have become the vehicles for potraying
social anxiety. The realm of sexuality also has its own internal politics inequalities and modes of
oppression. Like other human IS institutions, sexuality is also a product of human activity. They
consists of conflicts of interest and political manuever. In this sense sex in political. Late 19th
century england and us was one such era . powerful social movements focused on vices of all
sorts. These were educational and political movements to encourage chastity, to eliminate
prostitution, to discourage masturbation , especially among the young morality crusaders
attacked obsecne literature , nude paintings, music halls , abortion , birth control information and
public dancing.
VICTORIAN MORALITY. The consequences of these great 19th century moral outburst of
emotions are still with us .they have left a deep imprint on attitudes about sex ,medical practice
child rearing , parental anxieties, police conduct , sex laws. During that period there was a
common believe that 'premature' interest in sex, sexual excitement, sexual release would impair
the health and maturation of a child. Much of the sexual law on books also dates from the 19*h
century morality crusades like the antiftobscenity law 1873 , comstock law during 1950s. by 1975
prohibition of materials used for contraception, abortion has been ruled unconstitutionally. Most
of the laws mann act ) used to arrest homosexuals and prostitutes come out of victorian
campaigns against white slavery'.
In the second section of the essay, “Sex Thoughts,” Rubin begins to more systemically theorize
common principles underlying this set of historical sex panics. She wants a “radical theory of
sex” that can “identity, describe, explain, and denounce erotic injustice and sexual oppression.”
As a starting point, she turns to theories of “constructivism” that have combatted ideas of
“sexual essentialism.” The idea of sexual essentialism is that sex is natural and independent of
social and historical institutions. In contrast, constructivists show that society creates the
meanings we attach to sex, including what we think is natural and what we think is unnatural.
Looking at how society constructs sex is an important first step in social movements. The civil
rights and feminist movements similarly began by showing that our conceptions of people of
color or women as “inferior” is not natural, but man-made. It then becomes possible to confront,
critique, and transform the system that makes some sex legitimate and some sex illegal.
SEX WARS AND SEX THOUGHTS
During 1950's there was a major shifts in the organisation of sexuality took place. Instead of
focusing on prostitution or masturbation, the focus was around HOMOSEXUAL MENACE and SEX
OFFENDER. The term sex offender came to be applied to rapists, child molesters there were
various laws implemented against these sexual deviants increased powers over homosexuals and
other sexual deviants . congressional investigations, executive investigations, exceutive orders
and sensational exposes in media aimed to root out homosexuals
employed by government . thousands lost their jobs. Police raided bars, patrolled cruising areas
and trumpeted their intention of driving the queers out of san francisco. Moreover queerbashing
(homosexual assault) has become a significant recreational activity for young urban males . they
come into gay neighbourhoods armed with baseball bats and looking for trouble institutions they
believe sex to be something unchanging, social, transhistorical.In recent years there has been
quite many challenges to the study to sexual essentialism.
These new scholarship of sex has created constructivist alternative to sexual essentialism. The
social constructivists pointed out that sexuality is constituted in society and history, and not
biologically ordained. Thse doesnot mean biological capacities are not prerequisites for human
sexuality.it is possible to think with clarity about the politics of race or gender as long as these
are thought of as biological entities
rather than as social constructs. It is only that once sexuality is understood in terms of social
analysis and historical understanding a more realistic politics of sex becomes possible. In
addition to sexual essentialism, thee are atleast five other ideological formations . these are SEX
NEGATIVITY, THE FALLACY OF MISPLACED SCALE, THE HIERARCHICAL VALUATION OF SEX
ACTS, THE DOMINO THEORY OF SEXUAL PERIL, AND THE LACK OF A CONCEPT OF fiENIGN
SEXUAL VARIATION.
The most important is sex negativity. Western cultures generally consider sex to be dangerous,
destrucive, negative force. it was believed that sex is inherently sinful. Sex is something
performed within marriage for procreative purposes and not for pleasurable aspects .according
to this veiw genetali is much lower and less holy than mind, the soul, the heart etc. Next is the
fallacy of misplaced scale . this axiom believes that
homosexual actions as heinous sin that deserves hardest punishment. in certain regions, sodomy
still carries 20 year of prison sentences . it was seen that difference from any kind of normal
sexual behaviour can be punishable .
Most western societies appraise sex acts according to hierarchical system of sexual value.
Marital, reproductive heterosexuals are alone at the top erotic pyramid . below the order are
unmarried monogamous heterosexuals in couples. Masturbation is also seen down in the
heirarchical line. lesbian , gay and other social deviants also share the similar lower space.
The most despised sexual castes currently include transexuals, transvestites,
sadomachochists(S/M).
In "Thinking Sex", Rubin interrogated the value system that social groups whether leftft or
rightftwing, feminist or patriarchal - attribute to sexuality which defines some behaviours as
good/natural and others as bad/unnatural.
The notion of single sexuality cahracterises mosy systems of thoughts about sex for religion, the
ideal notion is procreative marriage for iS psychology it is mature heterosexuality. Although its
content varies, the format of a single sexual standard is continually reconstituted within other
rhetorical frameworks, including feminism and socialism. It is just as objectionable to insist that
everyone should be lesbian, nonftmonogamous, or kinky, as to believe that everyone should be
heterosexual, married, or vanilla - though the latter set of opinions are
backed by considerably more coercive power than the former.
SEXUAL TRANSFORMATION.
Modern sexual arrangements have a distinctive character which sets them apart from
preftexisting systems. n western europe and US industrialisation and urbanisation reshaped the
traditional rural and peasant populations into new urban ndustrial and service workforce. It
generated new forms of
state apparatus recognized family relations, altered gender roles, made possible new forms of
identity, produced new varieties of social inequality, leads to new political and ideological
conflict.
Homosexuality iS the best example of this process of erotic speciation.homosexual behaviour is
always present among humans but in different societies and epochs it may be rewarded or
punished, required or forbidden in 16th century touchet, earl of castlehaven was tried and
executed for sodomy.
As laborers migrated to cities there were increased oppurtunities for voluntary communities to
form. Homosexually inclined women and men who were vulnerable and isolated in most
preftindustrial villages , began to unite in big cities. Such areas acquired bad reputations , which
alerted other interested individuals of their existence and location gay, lesbian territories were
well established in new york, chicago.
Prostitution has undergone similar change. It began to change from a temporary job to a more
permanent job. Prostitutes who had been part of general working class populrion became
increasingly isolated as members of an outcast group. Sex workers and prostitutes are different
from sexual deviants like lesbians etc as the fomer is an occupation and latter prefernce. fiesides
localisation of prostitutes and homosexuals into localised populations, the modernisation of sex
has generated a system of continual ethnogenesis.
SEXUAL STRATIFICATION:
Industrial transformation of Western Europe and North America brought new forms of social
stratification. The fundamental bases of sexual stratification are. human sexual drives in
conjunction with male physical dominance. Variations in the. social organization of violence and
of economic markets determine the resources. available to men and women in the struggle for
control, and condition prevailing.
The system of sexual stratification provides easy victims who lack the power to defend
themselves, and a preexisting apparatus for controlling their movements and curtailing their
freedoms.
Sex law is the most adamantine instrument of sexual stratification and erotic persecution. The
state routinely intervenes in sexual behaviour at a level that would not be tolerated in other areas
of social life. discussion of sex law does not apply to laws against sexual coercion, sexual
assault, or rape
Sex is a vector of oppression. The system of sexual oppression cuts across other modes of social
inequality, sorting out individuals and groups according to its own intrinsic dynamics. It is not
reducible to, or understandable in terms of, class, race, ethnicity, or gender. Wealth, white skin,
male gender, and ethnic privileges can mitigate the effects of sexual stratification. A rich, white
male pervert will generally be less affected than a poor, black, female pervert. But even the most
privileged are not immune to sexual oppression
Sexual conflict
The sexual system is not monolithic , omnipotent structure there is a constant battle over the
definitions, evaluations , arrangements of sexual behaviour. Recurrent battles take place between
the primary producers of sexual ideology the churches , the family , the shrinks , and the media -
the groups whose experience they name, distort and endanger. The legal struggle iS against
sexual conduct is another battleground. Legal
struggle over sex law will continue untill basic freedoms of sexual action ans expression are
guaranteed.
Sexual migration creates concentrated pools of potentialpartners friends and associates.
According to mainstream media and popular prejudice, the marginal sexual worlds are bleak and
dangerous . they are potrayed as impoverished , ugly and inhabited by pschypaths and criminals.
New migrants must be sufficiently motivated to resist the impact of such discouraging images.
Information on how to find, occupy, and
live in the marginal sexual worlds is also suppressed navigational guides are scarce and
inaccurate . it was during 1960s and 1970s better information became available .However
migration is expensive . it was difficult to find new shelter,job and hence young are unable to
move once L in cities, erotic populations tend to nucleate and to occupy some regular , visible
territory . churches and other antift vice forces constantly put pressure on local authorities to
contain such areas, reduce their visibilty or to drive their inhaitants out of town. For mot of this
century, the sexual underworlds have been marginal and impoverished, their residents subjected
to stress and exploitation.
Unlike being isolated and invisible in rural settings, city gays are now numerous and obvious
targets
for urban frustations. The most important kind of sex conflict is 'moral panic' they are political
moment of sex, in which diffuse attitudes are channeled into political action and from there into
social change . anti homosexual campaigns of 1950s, the child pronography panic were all 'moral
panic'. Every moral panic has
consequences on two levels. The target population suffers most but everyone is affected by the
social change.
The Limits of Feminism:
continues some of Rubin’s discussion of the relation between feminism and sexual liberation. She
begins by observing two trends in feminist thought. The first is sexual liberation, and it sees the
liberation of sex as a means to the liberation of women, whose sexuality is often policed. The
second, which is associated with an anti-pornography movement in feminism, thinks sex is a
means through which women are oppressed. According to this view, sexual liberation usually
means sexual liberation for men: more access for men to women’s bodies. In this view, sex
should indeed be policed, if it is sex that perpetuates male domination. This is the view that
objects to sadomasochism, for instance. But the primary target of this view was pornography,
which feminists saw as objectifying women in order to provide pleasure for men.
CONCLUSION
Rubin concludes by arguing that the end of sexual oppression cannot be brought about by
feminism alone. Remember from the previous sections that sex, in Rubin’s thinking, is a vector of
oppression independent of other vectors of oppression, including gender. Feminism has learned
how to theorize gender oppression. But that does not mean it knows how to think about the
oppression of sex. Rubin argues for separating sexuality and gender analytically. That means
developing a theory of sexuality separate from a theory of gender, in order to provide a more
holistic sense of the ways in which sex and sexuality are regulated in our society.
Like gender, sexuality is political .it is organised into systems of power whih reward and
encourage some individuals and activities, while punishing others like, capitalist organisation of
labour modern sexual system has been the object of political struggle there were many political
legislations, rights ,laws made related to homosexuality, prostitution etc. in west there is
systematic ill treatment of individuals and communities on
the basis of erotic tastes or behaviours.
The sexuality of young is denied ,graphic representation of sex was banned. It is upto us thus to
prevent more barbarism, oppression and to encourage erotic creativity. it is time to update
sexual education
and acquaint themselves with existence and operation of sexual heirarchy. It is time to recognize
the political dimensions of erotic life
Thus sex and sexuality both are social.
