Akankshya Misra Week 4

Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality Gayle S. Rubin  -- Akankshya Misra

Rubin in his reading talks about how sexuality isn’t given the importance that it deserves. Sexuality is considered as an insignificant issue when compared to issues like wars, nuclear threat, poverty, racism etc. The reading further talks about how sexuality was considered as a dangerous weapon for infants and it was believed that premature interest in sex led to stunted growth of infants. Anti-obscenity laws and anti porn activism arose in late 1900s for the suppression of all sorts of vices. The reading throws light on the oppression faced by homosexuals and how the term “sex offenders” became code for them. This later became the reason for the rise of the LGBTQ+ community and focused on the importance of sexual liberation. Rubin also talks about how sex was always a political issue and never really a private matter and how it is not only a biological but also a social construct. The reading mentions the “erotic pyramid” that constitutes of married heterosexual couples on the top and homosexuals at the bottom. It further tells us how something as basing as touching oneself was also penalized, by giving the example of parents trying their children to the bed so that they don’t touch themselves and young women burning their clitoris with hot irons to restrict any kind of vice.