Gayle Rubin

Published: 2003Updated:

GAYLE RUBIN

"Youth Liberation has argued for some time that young people should have the right to have sex as well as not to have it, and with whom they choose. The statutory structure of the sex laws has been identified as oppressive and insulting to young people. A range of sexual activities are legally defined as molestation, regardless of the quality of the relationship or the amount of consent involved. ...
The recent career of boy-love in the public mind should serve as an alert that the self-interests of the feminist and gay movements are linked to simple justice for stigmatized sexual minorities. ... We must not reject all sexual contact between adults and young people as inherently oppressive."

~ Gayle Rubin, lesbian feminist, in Leaping Lesbian, February, 1978.

See Gayle Rubin's brilliant article, "Sexual Politics, the New Right, and the Sexual Fringe" in The Age Taboo, Alyson, 1981, pp. 108-115. This originally appeared in Leaping Lesbian, 2/2 (February, 1978), P. O. Box 7715, Ann Arbor, MI 48107.

Also, see Rubin, Gayle, "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality" in Abelove, Barale, Halperin, et al, (Eds.), The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. (1992).

Tsang centers this collection of essays on man/boy love around the issues of gay male sexuality, power and consent. He has labored to include disparate voices in the discussion, with pieces from feminists Kate Millet and Pat Califia as well as the editors of Lesbians Rising. Gay and lesbian teenagers, some themselves in cross-generation relationships, are also represented, and the subjects of childhood, racism and ideology are explored.
The work captures both an historical moment at the end of the 70s, when most of the pieces were written, and continuing questions that divide the gay and lesbian community to this day. (Alyson Publications, 178 pp)