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Assignment 5

In Rubin’s work, she discussed six distinct thoughts of sex that were perceived by western culture. One of the most significant assumptions was the concept of sexual essentialism. The idea behind this concept was that sex was believed to be unchanging, primarily biological in a sense that it was just a natural urge. It denounces the belief that sexual behavior can be influenced by outside forces, such as social influences, other than sex being used to procreate. This led to the rise of sexual negativity, which viewed sex as a harmful and sinful behavior if done outside of marriage or done for the pleasure of it. Another significant assumption that Rubin presented was the idea of a hierarchical system of sexual values. This system ranked sexual acts based on the normalcy of the act in society’s standards. At the highest of the system, being labeled as the most normal kind of sexual act, is the monogamous heterosexual couple. Other sexual behaviors, such as masturbation and monogamous gay/lesbian relationships were at the lower part of the system. At the bottom of this hierarchy, behaviors deemed as out of the norm and were looked down upon were transsexuals, prostitutes, fetishists, etc.

The various assumptions in this work represented how closeminded society is in regards to the topic of sex. Any type of sexual behavior, besides from being in a monogamous heterosexual relationship, is deemed as sinful and therefore creates a stigma for any behaviors other than the “normal” kind. This becomes more of an issue when the stigma is then turned into acts of hate and violence within society, which had been afflicted toward the gay community during the mid-1900s, in which they were attacked and arrested for their sexual behavior. The lack of understanding for the different sexual behaviors creates an imagined fear within society that people feel that they need to “correct” simply because they do not understand.