Gayle Rubin Thinking Sex Summary
In 1984, cultural anthropologist and theorist Gayle Rubin wrote the essay “Thinking Sex”, concentrating on the relationship between sexuality and gender and interrogating what defines or what can be referred to as a good sexuality. Rubin expresses how sex is used as a political agent as a means of executing restraint and integrating dominance in today’s society. She dissects our culture’s point of view on sexuality, revealing the bigotry and subjugation that picks on anyone of a different orientation or sexual preference or appetite. In this specific article, she focuses on homosexuals, pedophiles, women and children.
Occasionally, the idea of sexuality may feel like an unimportant subject, or a distraction from the more important issues such …show more content…
In today’s culture, the attitude insisting that “masturbation is unhealthy for minors may still persist, resulting in social and legal structures designed to insulate minors from sexual knowledge and experience” (307). After World War II, the public recognized sex offenders as rapists, child molesters, and homosexuals; homosexuals were acknowledged as “sexual deviants” (308). In American and European history, engaging in (consensual) anal sex could result in execution, and in some states, sodomy can still result in a twenty-year prison sentence. Homosexuals were greatly oppressed, and there was a phase from the 1940s to the 1960s (that still trickles into current day) where gay and lesbian people lost their jobs, had the government employed them. In 1979, Congress introduced the Family Protection Act, which was “an attack on feminism, homosexuals, non-traditional families, and teenage sexual privacy” (312). Although it has not yet passed, conservative members of congress are encouraging it to pursue the Family Protection Act.
Another idea that Gayle introduced in her timeless essay is the idea of sexual essentialism. Sexual essentialism is the idea that sex is a natural force based on our biology. Fields such as medicine, psychology and psychiatry acknowledge sex as a
Occasionally, the idea of sexuality may feel like an unimportant subject, or a distraction from the more important issues such …show more content…
In today’s culture, the attitude insisting that “masturbation is unhealthy for minors may still persist, resulting in social and legal structures designed to insulate minors from sexual knowledge and experience” (307). After World War II, the public recognized sex offenders as rapists, child molesters, and homosexuals; homosexuals were acknowledged as “sexual deviants” (308). In American and European history, engaging in (consensual) anal sex could result in execution, and in some states, sodomy can still result in a twenty-year prison sentence. Homosexuals were greatly oppressed, and there was a phase from the 1940s to the 1960s (that still trickles into current day) where gay and lesbian people lost their jobs, had the government employed them. In 1979, Congress introduced the Family Protection Act, which was “an attack on feminism, homosexuals, non-traditional families, and teenage sexual privacy” (312). Although it has not yet passed, conservative members of congress are encouraging it to pursue the Family Protection Act.
Another idea that Gayle introduced in her timeless essay is the idea of sexual essentialism. Sexual essentialism is the idea that sex is a natural force based on our biology. Fields such as medicine, psychology and psychiatry acknowledge sex as a