Source: https://www.theamericanconservative...-without-pedophilia-gayle-rubin-thinking-sex/
You know how when you point out that they’re teaching Critical Race Theory in schools, but liberals protest that they’re doing no such thing — but this is deception by technicality? The truth is that they are teaching all kinds of things based on CRT, but not the direct thing itself. It’s like teaching an art class how to paint the light as it strikes the surface of a lake, but denying that you’re teaching anything about the sun.
Queer Theory is like that too. Defenders of the groomer status quo — that is, grooming children to embrace genderfluidity and non-standard sexual identities — may protest that they’re not teaching Queer Theory, but this is a dodge. Whenever you teach about, say, the Genderbread Person, you are teaching Queer Theory. This insanity has been quite popular in schools for years, to break down little children:
People like me have received a lot of criticism for using the word “groomer,” on the grounds that we are allegedly saying that teachers who instruct their students in this deranged ideology want to have sex with them. That’s not really what we’re saying (well, some might be saying that, but I don’t). Rather, it’s about grooming them in the same sense that an Islamic terrorist recruiter uses the Internet to groom impressionable young people to join the cult. But after reading the 1984 essay “Thinking Sex: Notes For A Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” by Gayle S. Rubin, any twinge of doubt I felt about the double entendre with “groomer” evaporated.
From the Wikipedia entry on “Thinking Sex”:
Here we go. I think all of us can agree that it’s a good thing that “the more gruesome techniques have been abandoned,” don’t we also believe that it’s a good thing to insulate minors from some forms of sexual knowledge, and certainly from sexual experience? Not Gayle Rubin, one of the founding mothers of Queer Theory. Note in this passage she celebrates that we don’t do bad things to the bodies of children to keep them from being sexual, but laments the persistence of the attitudes that stigmatized child sexuality. Just read on.
Rubin lists various forms of persecutions of homosexuals in the postwar period. It’s hard to disagree with her that these were bad things, and we are all better off without them. But note these lines:
She goes on to lament that
Oh wait, I left off the final word in Rubin’s sentence:
Here Rubin shows pity to pedophiles:
Rubin goes on to say that the time has come for “radical” theorizing about sex. Here’s what she means:
Rubin begins by saying that we must come to understand that all rules repressing sexual desire are socially constructed. That is, there is nothing essential to any of this. To say that certain behavior of “natural” and other behavior “unnatural” is false, and reflects nothing more than a politicized framework around desire.
The most difficult obstacle to overcome, she says, is the “sex negativity” of Western culture. More:
Remember, this was first published in 1984. My, how far we have come. The only figure in Rubin’s list that still faces stigma are the pedophiles. For now, anyway.
Now we’re getting close to the heart of the Marxist analysis on which Queer Theory depends:
The “sexual rabble” must therefore be exalted. Which pretty much describes what has happened in our popular culture over the last thirty years.
More:
Note again: almost 40 years after the publication of Rubin’s essay, the only perversion on that list that does not now have mainstream approval is pederasty.
And yet, we are told that what’s happening in schools, and in society more broadly (via Disney, et al.), is not grooming.
More Rubin:
“Innocence” in quotation marks. Lamenting the fact that we don’t “provide for” underage sex “in a caring and responsible manner.”
Groomers.
Rubin writes at length to criticize anti-porn feminists as traitors. She demands that all sexual nonconformists be affirmed.
If you are a progressive on these matters, but feel that the line should be drawn somewhere, Gayle Rubin wants you to know that you are a sellout.
Rubin concludes thus:
The treatment of small children as sexual beings by schools is part of the process of breaking them down. According to forensic psychiatrist Dr. Michael Welner, sexual grooming of children contains these stages.Excerpt:
More from Dr. Welner:
Last from Dr. Welner:
Did we have to end up here? Does Queer Theory mandate the sexualization of children? I have no doubt at all that most gays and lesbians strongly reject pederasty. I would even suppose that many of them are concerned about the rapid spread of gender ideology in schools, especially in the lower grades (though I suspect they are afraid to say it out loud, for fear of professional and personal consequences). Reading Gayle Rubin’s seminal essay, though, and seeing that most of what she advocated for came to pass in the four decades since she published it, and that there is currently a massive push by activist educators, media allies, and the Democratic Party to sexualize children by introducing this aspect of Queer Theory into schools — I’m wondering exactly how we are supposed to stop the final barrier (that is, the stigmatization of adult-child sex) from falling. Rubin understands the situation as an unjust privileging of certain sexual norms over others, and regards the prohibition of cross-generational sexual activity as wrong. If you accept Rubin’s basic model of how this works — that is, that rules about sexuality express nothing more than a hierarchy of social privilege — and you accept her belief that radical sexual theory ought to “liberate” all forms of consensual sexual expression, then how do you stop the momentum of this freight train at the boundaries of pedophilia?
You will say: Consent! But do you really think that is enough? You cannot possibly think that. And in any case, Rubin posits that all sexual rules are constructed to privilege someone, or some class of people. That there is no intrinsic reason why sex between minors and adults is wrong. In her paper, she renders all those who object to her radical position as far-right loonies and fanatics.
If queer activists in the schools, media, and Democratic Party have their way, why would we not be seeing a movement in the near future to “empower” young people (the existence of whose sexuality as little children we have already established) to “make choices” about their own sexual expression? After all, if it is the state’s role to protect children’s autonomy, why do they not have sexual autonomy? Why is Rubin wrong to include pederasts in her list of sexual outsiders who, after the Revolution, should be accepted and affirmed? She really does believe that “boylovers” are an unjustly persecuted fringe minority. Most people do not believe that now — but after being indoctrinated with these products of Queer Theory from their first days in school, and in the media (via Disney and other purveyors of kids’ programming), what will this coming generation be prepared to accept?
Were they always eventually going to get around to the kids, these activists?
Put another way: can you normalize sexual queerness without eventually normalizing pedophilia? Queer activists and their allies had better figure out an answer to this question, because even though it is forbidden to be asked in public, more and more parents are asking it. Let me repeat: I believe that many, and maybe even most, gays and lesbians find this kind of thing repulsive. What I hope they will recognize is that the trans activists and their allies going after children is bringing their entire project into disrepute. They need to jettison these groomers as soon as they can, and as forcefully as they can.
UPDATE:Groomers:
UPDATE.2:Mary Harrington, writing at Unherd, criticising “The Family Sex Show”, a stage presentation of sexuality for little children, scheduled for Bristol:
You know how when you point out that they’re teaching Critical Race Theory in schools, but liberals protest that they’re doing no such thing — but this is deception by technicality? The truth is that they are teaching all kinds of things based on CRT, but not the direct thing itself. It’s like teaching an art class how to paint the light as it strikes the surface of a lake, but denying that you’re teaching anything about the sun.
Queer Theory is like that too. Defenders of the groomer status quo — that is, grooming children to embrace genderfluidity and non-standard sexual identities — may protest that they’re not teaching Queer Theory, but this is a dodge. Whenever you teach about, say, the Genderbread Person, you are teaching Queer Theory. This insanity has been quite popular in schools for years, to break down little children:
People like me have received a lot of criticism for using the word “groomer,” on the grounds that we are allegedly saying that teachers who instruct their students in this deranged ideology want to have sex with them. That’s not really what we’re saying (well, some might be saying that, but I don’t). Rather, it’s about grooming them in the same sense that an Islamic terrorist recruiter uses the Internet to groom impressionable young people to join the cult. But after reading the 1984 essay “Thinking Sex: Notes For A Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” by Gayle S. Rubin, any twinge of doubt I felt about the double entendre with “groomer” evaporated.
From the Wikipedia entry on “Thinking Sex”:
A founding text. Okay, what does it say? Well, like I did, you can read it here. Excerpts:
Here we go. I think all of us can agree that it’s a good thing that “the more gruesome techniques have been abandoned,” don’t we also believe that it’s a good thing to insulate minors from some forms of sexual knowledge, and certainly from sexual experience? Not Gayle Rubin, one of the founding mothers of Queer Theory. Note in this passage she celebrates that we don’t do bad things to the bodies of children to keep them from being sexual, but laments the persistence of the attitudes that stigmatized child sexuality. Just read on.
Rubin lists various forms of persecutions of homosexuals in the postwar period. It’s hard to disagree with her that these were bad things, and we are all better off without them. But note these lines:
This can be both true and, in context, sinister. I think it is both. Why? Well, Rubin thinks laws against child pornography are too punitive. She complains:
More:
She goes on to lament that
Wow, that’s terrible! A mom’s photo of her naked little boy — they call that child porn? What kind of dirty minds to they have?
Oh wait, I left off the final word in Rubin’s sentence:
That’s right: Rubin takes it as given that her readers will find it outrageous that an art professor mother would face harsh criticism for taking and distributing photos of her seven year old son masturbating.
Here Rubin shows pity to pedophiles:
Rubin goes on to say that the time has come for “radical” theorizing about sex. Here’s what she means:
Rubin begins by saying that we must come to understand that all rules repressing sexual desire are socially constructed. That is, there is nothing essential to any of this. To say that certain behavior of “natural” and other behavior “unnatural” is false, and reflects nothing more than a politicized framework around desire.
The most difficult obstacle to overcome, she says, is the “sex negativity” of Western culture. More:
Remember, this was first published in 1984. My, how far we have come. The only figure in Rubin’s list that still faces stigma are the pedophiles. For now, anyway.
Now we’re getting close to the heart of the Marxist analysis on which Queer Theory depends:
The “sexual rabble” must therefore be exalted. Which pretty much describes what has happened in our popular culture over the last thirty years.
More:
Note again: almost 40 years after the publication of Rubin’s essay, the only perversion on that list that does not now have mainstream approval is pederasty.
And yet, we are told that what’s happening in schools, and in society more broadly (via Disney, et al.), is not grooming.
More Rubin:
“Innocence” in quotation marks. Lamenting the fact that we don’t “provide for” underage sex “in a caring and responsible manner.”
Groomers.
Rubin writes at length to criticize anti-porn feminists as traitors. She demands that all sexual nonconformists be affirmed.
If you are a progressive on these matters, but feel that the line should be drawn somewhere, Gayle Rubin wants you to know that you are a sellout.
Rubin concludes thus:
Reading her paper — as you can here — is like opening a time capsule. I was in high school when it was published. The world she describes in it seems as far away as the days of powdered wigs. Gayle Rubin and her vision have prevailed. The only thing this founding mother of Queer Theory has not won is legitimation for pedophilia.
The treatment of small children as sexual beings by schools is part of the process of breaking them down. According to forensic psychiatrist Dr. Michael Welner, sexual grooming of children contains these stages.Excerpt:
More from Dr. Welner:
Last from Dr. Welner:
Ask yourself: in the current atmosphere these activists and their media allies have created, how likely is it that a kid who feels weird and uncomfortable with all this will speak out? The fear of losing the relationship with their teachers, and with their friends who have all bought into the ideology, could well bind them to it.
Did we have to end up here? Does Queer Theory mandate the sexualization of children? I have no doubt at all that most gays and lesbians strongly reject pederasty. I would even suppose that many of them are concerned about the rapid spread of gender ideology in schools, especially in the lower grades (though I suspect they are afraid to say it out loud, for fear of professional and personal consequences). Reading Gayle Rubin’s seminal essay, though, and seeing that most of what she advocated for came to pass in the four decades since she published it, and that there is currently a massive push by activist educators, media allies, and the Democratic Party to sexualize children by introducing this aspect of Queer Theory into schools — I’m wondering exactly how we are supposed to stop the final barrier (that is, the stigmatization of adult-child sex) from falling. Rubin understands the situation as an unjust privileging of certain sexual norms over others, and regards the prohibition of cross-generational sexual activity as wrong. If you accept Rubin’s basic model of how this works — that is, that rules about sexuality express nothing more than a hierarchy of social privilege — and you accept her belief that radical sexual theory ought to “liberate” all forms of consensual sexual expression, then how do you stop the momentum of this freight train at the boundaries of pedophilia?
You will say: Consent! But do you really think that is enough? You cannot possibly think that. And in any case, Rubin posits that all sexual rules are constructed to privilege someone, or some class of people. That there is no intrinsic reason why sex between minors and adults is wrong. In her paper, she renders all those who object to her radical position as far-right loonies and fanatics.
If queer activists in the schools, media, and Democratic Party have their way, why would we not be seeing a movement in the near future to “empower” young people (the existence of whose sexuality as little children we have already established) to “make choices” about their own sexual expression? After all, if it is the state’s role to protect children’s autonomy, why do they not have sexual autonomy? Why is Rubin wrong to include pederasts in her list of sexual outsiders who, after the Revolution, should be accepted and affirmed? She really does believe that “boylovers” are an unjustly persecuted fringe minority. Most people do not believe that now — but after being indoctrinated with these products of Queer Theory from their first days in school, and in the media (via Disney and other purveyors of kids’ programming), what will this coming generation be prepared to accept?
Were they always eventually going to get around to the kids, these activists?
Put another way: can you normalize sexual queerness without eventually normalizing pedophilia? Queer activists and their allies had better figure out an answer to this question, because even though it is forbidden to be asked in public, more and more parents are asking it. Let me repeat: I believe that many, and maybe even most, gays and lesbians find this kind of thing repulsive. What I hope they will recognize is that the trans activists and their allies going after children is bringing their entire project into disrepute. They need to jettison these groomers as soon as they can, and as forcefully as they can.
UPDATE:Groomers:
Bullshit. Unadulterated bullshit. Come on, parents, don’t you see what they’re doing?
UPDATE.2:Mary Harrington, writing at Unherd, criticising “The Family Sex Show”, a stage presentation of sexuality for little children, scheduled for Bristol:
