Feminism’s Conservative Turn
One of the ironies of “Thinking Sex” is how some movements intending to be progressive end up being sucked into moral panics that pervert their cause. Rubin discusses as an example the anti-porn feminists, who think that pornography encourages the subordination of women because it objectifies and disempowers them for the pleasure of men. But Rubin worries about the political allegiances that result from this view:
Finally, this so-called feminist discourse recreates a very conservative sexual morality. For over a century, battles have been waged over just how much shame, distress, and punishment should be incurred by sexual activity. The conservative tradition has promoted opposition to pornography, prostitution, homosexuality, all erotic variation, sex education, sex research, abortion, and contraception. (166)
In other words, feminism, which was about the liberation of women, ends up siding with conservative and even patriarchal organizations, like the anti-porn camps of religious groups. They lose sight of the larger goal of liberating women and focus on this specific issue of pornography, which aligns them with anti-feminist politics. It is an unfortunate change of events.
Irony of Incremental Progress
Another irony Rubin observes in “Thinking Sex” is how sexual minorities can reproduce hierarchies within their ranks. For instance, gay people are marginalized by a sexual hierarchy that approves of heterosexuality and disapproves of homosexuality. But within the gay community, some gays might re-create a hierarchy by valuing some kinds of sex, such as monogamous and "vanilla" sex, over others, such as promiscuous or sadomasochistic sex. Thus, sexual minorities also “draw a line” between good and bad sex within their own communities:
As a result of the sex conflicts of the last decade, some behavior near the border is inching across it. Unmarried couples living together, masturbation, and some forms of homosexuality are moving in the direction of respectability. Most homosexuality is still on the bad side of the line. But if it is coupled and monogamous, society is beginning to recognize that it includes the full range of human interaction. Promiscuous homosexuality, sadomasochism, fetishism, transsexuality, and cross-generational encounters are still viewed as unmodulated horrors incapable of involving affection, love, free choice, kindness, or transcendence. (152-3)
The ironic consequence is that hierarchy is reaffirmed instead of overthrown. People cling to whatever privilege is offered them, and sometimes that means policing other people’s sexuality in order to shore up the “goodness” of one’s own.
