Gayle Rubin is best known as an activist and influential theorist of sex and gender politics. She has written on a range of subjects including sadomasochism, prostitution, pornography and lesbian literature as well as anthropological studies and histories of sexual subcultures. Flogging demonstration at Folsom Street Fair 2004. ... Prostitution is the sale of sexual services. ... Pornographic movies Pornography (from Greek πορνη prostitute and γραφία written material) (also informally referred to as porn, or porno) is the representation of the human body or human sexual behaviour with the goal of sexual arousal, similar to, but distinct from, erotica, though the two terms are often used interchangeably. ... Lesbian literature includes works by lesbian authors, as well as lesbian-themed works by heterosexual authors. ...

Rubin first rose to prominence through her 1975 essay "The Traffic in Women: Notes on the 'Political Economy' of Sex", in which she coined the phrase "sex/gender system". Here, the Oedipal complex is realized as the explanation for gender differences. Genes and hormones are irrelevant. Kinship is a form of integration based on gift exchange with the exchange of women being the most symbolic. In return for the women the man gives her the phallus. The daughter in Rubin’s account also desires the mother, but her desire ends when she realizes she does not possess the phallus. Similarly the son’s fear of castration by the father for giving his mother his phallus breaks the sexual tie with the mother. The incest taboo, as Rubin calls it, is also an insurance that integration occurs between families. 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ...

In 1978 Rubin moved to San Francisco to begin studies of the gay leatherman culture. On June 13 of that year, Rubin, together with Pat Califia and 16 others founded the first known lesbian SM group, Samois. The group disbanded in May 1983, and Rubin was involved in founding a new organisation, "the Outcasts", the following year. 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... Leatherman multi-tool Leatherman and belt holster Leatherman is a trademark for a line of multi-function hand tools produced by the Leatherman Tool Group. ... Patrick Califia (born 1954 near Corpus Christi, Texas) is a writer about womens sexuality and of erotic fiction. ... Flogging demonstration at Folsom Street Fair 2004. ... SAMOIS was a lesbian-feminist BDSM organization based in San Francisco and founded in 1978, taking its name from the estate of Anne-Marie, a lesbian dominatrix in Story of O who pierces and brands O. Samois-sur-Seine is a village found south of Paris, near Fontainebleau. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Califia and Rubin became prominent "pro-sex activists" in the feminist sex wars of the 1980s, famously giving a paper at the volatile 1982 conference at Barnard College in New York City. The 1980s decade refers to the years from 1980 to 1989, inclusive. ... 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In her 1984 essay "Thinking Sex", Rubin interrogated the value system that social groups attribute to sex and gender — whether left- or right-wing, feminist or patriarchal — which defines some behaviours as good/natural and others as bad/unnatural. 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

She served on the Board of Directors of the Leather Archives and Museum from 1992 to 2000.

In 1994, Rubin completed her PhD in anthropology at the University of Michigan, with a dissertation titled The Valley of the Kings: Leathermen in San Francisco, 1960 - 1990. She is currently an Assistant Professor of comparative literature at the university. 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... Anthropology (from the Greek word άνθρωπος, human or person) consists of the study of humanity (see genus Homo). ... This article is about the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. ... Comparative literature, colloquially abbreviated comp. ...

Awards

• 2000 Leather Archives and Museum "Centurion"
• 2000 National Leather Association Lifetime Achievement Award
• 1992 Pantheon of Leather Forebearer Award
• 1988 National Leather Association Leather Woman of the Year Award

Publications

• Deviations: Essays in Sex, Gender, and Politics, forthcoming.

• "Samois", in Marc Stein, ed., Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in America, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003). PDF download
• "Studying Sexual Subcultures: the Ethnography of Gay Communities in Urban North America", in Ellen Lewin and William Leap, eds., Out in Theory: The Emergence of Lesbian and Gay Anthropology. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002)
• "Sites, Settlements, and Urban Sex: Archaeology And The Study of Gay Leathermen in San Francisco 1955-1995", in Robert Schmidt and Barbara Voss, eds., Archaeologies of Sexuality, (London: Routledge, 2000)
• "The Miracle Mile: South of Market and Gay Male Leather in San Francisco 1962- 1996", in James Brook, Chris Carlsson, and Nancy Peters, eds., Reclaiming San Francisco: History, Politics, Culture, (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1998)
• "From the Past: The Outcasts" from the newsletter of Leather Archives & Museum No. 4, April 1998
• "Music from a Bygone Era", in Cuir Underground, Issue 3.4 - May 1997. online text
• "Elegy for the Valley of the Kings: AIDS and the Leather Community in San Francisco, 1981-1996", in Martin P. Levine, Peter M. Nardi, and John H. Gagnon, eds. In Changing Times: Gay Men and Lesbians Encounter HIV/AIDS (University of Chicago Press, 1997)
• "Of catamites and kings: Reflections on butch, gender, and boundaries", in Joan Nestle (Ed). The Persistent Desire. A Femme-Butch-Reader. Boston: Alyson. 466 (1992)
• "The Catacombs: A temple of the butthole", in Mark Thompson, ed., Leatherfolk — Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice, (Boston: Alyson Publications, 1991).
• Misguided, Dangerous and Wrong: An Analysis of Anti-Pornography Politics.
• "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality, in Carole Vance, ed., Pleasure and Danger, (Routledge & Kegan, Paul, 1984)
• "The Leather Menace", Body Politic, 82(34). (1982)
• "Sexual Politics, the New Right, and the Sexual Fringe" in The Age Taboo, Alyson, 1981, pp. 108-115.
• "The Traffic in Women: Notes on the 'Political Economy' of Sex", in Rayna Reiter, ed., Toward an Anthropology of Women, New York, Monthly Review (1975); anthologized in Second Wave: A Feminist Reader.
• "Thinking Sex" is anthologized in Abelove, H.; Barale, M. A.; Halperin, D. M.(eds), The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader(New York: Routledge, 1994).