PostscriptI finished writing "Thinking Sex" in the early Spring of 1984. For this reprint, I have corrected typographical errors, made some very minor editorial changes, and added several footnotes. While the essay remains largely the same, going over it again has sharpened my awareness of the extent to which the social, political, and intellectual contexts of sexuality have changed in the eight years since it was written. Moreover, the rate of such change seems to be accelerating madly and exponentially. Only four months ago I prepared a lengthy after-word to accompany another reprint of "Thinking Sex"
In that after-word I detailed a few of the ways in which sex-politics and thought have shifted since the essay was published. I need not re-iterate them here. Nevertheless, since I mailed off the after-word in mid-February there have been several developments that illustrate what is at stake in conflicts over sex and the increasingly giddy pace at which they occur. Three areas of critical activity are
[1]Late in February, the Canadian Supreme Court upheld Canada's obscenity law in a decision (Butler v. Her Majesty the Queen) which redefined obscenity along the lines pursued by anti-pornography feminists since the late seventies. [**1]
The Canadian court adopted language similar to the definitions in the MacKinnon/Dworkin so-called "civil rights anti-pornography" ordinances. In Canada, the legal definition of obscenity is now based, in part, on depictions of sexual behavior considered to be "degrading and de-humanizing." This approach was rejected by the US Supreme Court as a violation of the First Amendment. Canada has nothing comparable to the Bill of Rights, and has fewer legal protections for speech and political expression. Although the Canadian legal situation is different from that of the United States, the increasingly right-wing US Supreme Court may be influenced by the Canadian decision when it next considers similar legal wording. The logic of Senate Bill 1521 (the Pornography Victims Compensation Act) is based on the same flawed assumptions as the Butler decision. This bill was just passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee late in June and now heads to the Senate floor. In addition, it appears that the Butler decision was facilitated by the slow accumulation of legal precedent in lesser cases. In the US, anti-porn activists and attorneys are attempting to build a similar body of precedent in cases which might initially appear tangential to obscenity law. Anti-censorship feminist and civil rights lawyers should be alert to language that treats pornography as inherently "harmful" or "anti-woman" in, for example, sexual harassment cases
Many gay activists in Canada warned that the new obscenity definitions would be used differentially against gay and lesbian media. Glad Day Books, the gay and lesbian bookstore in Toronto, has already suffered through a decade of police harassment, and customs confiscations have already made many gay and lesbian publications unobtainable in Canada. Emboldened by the Butler definitions, police raided Glad Day on April 30 and charged the store manager with violating obscenity law for selling Bad Attitude, a US lesbian sex magazine which contained depictions of bondage and penetration. On May 4, the owner and corporation were also charged with obscenity. [**2]
[2]The new criteria for obscenity effectively make S/M erotica completely illegal in Canada, since such materials most closely resemble the category of "degrading and de-humanizing" pornography. [**3]
Moreover, gay male S/M materials appear to have played a key role in persuading the Court to adopt the new obscenity standards. One news article praising the Canadian decision contains a disturbing claim by one of the victorious attorneys. She is quoted as attributing the success of their litigation to showing the justices
If this report is accurate, feminist lawyers sold their analysis by using gay male S/M movies to elicit the predictably defensive responses and homophobic repugnance such films were likely to produce among heterosexual men. For many years, feminist anti-porn activists have exploited ignorance and bigotry toward sadomasochism to substitute for their lack of evidence; in exploiting ignorance and bigotry toward male homosexuality they have sunk to new depths of political irresponsibility and opportunism. This is particularly distressing in the wake of a recent court decision in England, and in the context of significant gay-baiting in the 1992 US elections. In England in 1990, fifteen men were convicted on various charges arising from consensual homosexual sadomasochistic activities. Many were given prison sentences, some up to four and a half years. None of the participants complained or brought charges; the men were arrested after police confiscated home-made sex videos which documented their activities. [**5] The case was appealed. In late February, the Court of Appeal upheld the convictions, ruling that "the question of consent was immaterial," and effectively confirming that S/M sexual activity is illegal in England. [**6] While the decision is based on earlier rulings, such prosecutions had been extremely rare. The fact that so many gay men were given lengthy prison sentences for private consensual adult sexual activities is ominous. [3]In the United States, homophobia has become a major political tactic in this year's elections. In February the presidential primary season was just heating up. As the elections have progressed, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), representations of homosexuality, and homosexuality itself have all become hot buttons and hot targets. Funding for PBS has been attacked, and the former chair of the NEA has been sacked (for believing in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights). From Patrick Buchanan's neo-Nazi ranting to Dan Quayle's euphemistic emphasis on "family values," both overt and covert attacks on homosexuality have been prominent tactics in the 1992 election campaigns. [**7] In Oregon, the right-wing Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA) is attempting to pass two initiatives which would amend the state constitution to define homosexuality, sadomasochism, pedophilia, bestiality, and necrophilia as "abnormal, wrong, unnatural, and perverse" by law. If passed, these initiatives would prevent such groups from using public facilities, would prohibit any civil rights legislation to protect sexual minorities, and would forbid teaching positive views of such behaviors in any state funded school, college, or university. While the OCA claims its initiative would not change the criminal law or increase criminal penalties for these behaviors, the initiative is reminiscent of several aspects of National Socialist legislation. The OCA initiatives would, if passed,
I am now preparing to mail this postscript in early July. Four months remain until the 1992 elections.
By now they should all know better. Tune in next year for another exciting episode. Gayle Rubin San Francisco, July 4, 1992 |
