Womens Studies, 42:214219, 2013

Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 0049-7878 print / 1547-7045 online
DOI: 10.1080/00497878.2013.747386

BOOK REVIEW
Gayle S. Rubin. Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader . Durham and
London: Duke UP, 2011.
BY TARA BELL
women BEing, Carbondale

What should gender studies and queer theory, as academic

disciplines, do with a pro-pornography, pro-S/M, pro-prostitution,
pedophilia-apologist anthropologist? Why, we must canonize her,
of course. When that anthropologists work is as groundbreaking,
as smart, and as solid as Gayle Rubins collection of essays and
other work as presented in Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader , we
have no choice. Since 1975, Rubins work has drawn in students
of womens studies, queer theory, and anthropology with her thorough research and analysis, her style, and her shock effect. Rubins
brilliance lies in her ability to present an examination of the
shocking in such a manner that the reader is not shocked, but
rather, drawn in to her very human critiques of such subjects ranging from sex trafficking and Freud to leather and fisting. Rubin
humanizes the taboo, presenting an anthropological study of the
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) culture that strips the
deviance from these deviations.
Particular to this collection are Rubins afterword essays. Her
insight into her own work revitalizes this historical collection. This
is important for those encountering Rubin for the first time, as
it provides a particular insight into the foundations, history, climate, and changes within the feminist movements and the LGBT
culture over these 37 years of her development. In order to study
those movements, one must first understand Rubins own involvement and influence with the LGBT community, in feminism and
womens studies, and in the anthropological field as a whole.
An Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Comparative
Literature at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Gayle S.
Rubin contributed a solid layer of brick to the foundation of
womens studies as a graduate student at that same university in
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1975 when she rewrote her senior thesis for publication in the
book Toward an Anthropology of Women. She finished her PhD in
1994. As an activist as well as an academic, Rubin has been equally
influential in not only the development of queer theory, but also
in the development of the LGBT community, publishing in the
non-academic Cuir Underground and in a multitude of scholarly
journals and books.
Deviations presents the reader with the opportunity to tour
Rubins work in its progression through her academic career and
the LGBT community. Beginning with The Traffic in Women:
Notes on the Political Economy of Sex, the tone of the text
is established with a close feminist read of Freud, Levi-Strauss,
and Lacan, applying psychoanalytic theory to political economy.
A rhetorical criticism is drawn through an Engels/Marxist lens,
establishing the socialized construct of gender that posits the
female as commodity, her sexuality available for trade or gift
between men. She writes of woman that She only becomes a
domestic, a wife, a chattel, a playboy bunny, a prostitute, or a
human Dictophone in certain relations (34).
There is no denying that Rubins research and argumentation here are flawless. When we consider that this essay was
penned in 1975, the perspective fresh and new, the context
groundbreaking, we dig in with a renewed interest, reminiscent
of our own new beginnings as students in this field. This essay
best serves the beginners of an exploration into womens studies and/or queer studies, providing a solid anthropological base.
Rubins afterthought, freshly penned for this publication, energizes the essay for the old scholar and contextualizes it for the new
student.
Breaking from the anthropological, the reader next has the
opportunity to meet Rubin the literary scholar in her introduction to Renee Viviens novel A Woman Appeared to Me (1976). This
is where Rubins color develops as she provides us with a rich,
personable account of Viviens biographical history and sets the
stage for the novels story to unfold. Here we see a shift from
Rubin the anthropological scholar to Rubin the person, with her
appreciation of womens relationships thick and beautiful in her
words.
We next meet Rubin the activist in The Leather Menace:
Comments on Politics and S/M (Coming to Power: Writing and

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Graphics on Lesbian S/M , 1981). The first ten pages or so of this

essay deliver the anthropological study wherein the anthropologist
disappears, providing exposition, detail and description of the gay
S/M community in the 70s and 80s from a nonbiased perspective. As this expository develops, Rubin begins to transition into
creating the argument surrounding the persecution of homosexuals based on the nature of these sexual practices. She provides
examples of unjustified raids, negative media coverage, and the
attempt to legislate sexuality through moral code. One supporting example describes a reporters coverage of a woman living
with her lover and child in a rural S/M community. She writes that
because the child might be damaged by exposure to its mothers
sexual orientation. [The reporter] called for the . . . authorities to
come in and take the kid away from its mother (119). Rubin goes
on to discuss her own sexuality, experiences, and activism in this
essay, humanizing these deviations in sexuality and gender. That
term deviance is tackled in chapter 13.
Yet Rubins controversial positions are more fully developed
in chapters five through twelve, particularly in Thinking Sex:
Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality (1982) and
its postscripts and afterwords. This essay continues to dissect the
criminalization of sexuality, beginning with the Victorian moral
objection to masturbation. From this moral base, Rubin explores
anti-sodomy laws, the legislation of pornography, prostitution, and
the development and effects of the Mann Act in the United States.
She takes a look at anti-porn feminists MacKinnon, Dworkin, and
Leidhold, discussing their contributions to the sexual discourse.
Most notably, it is in this essay that Rubin begins to develop her
position on pedophilia.
The very use of the term elicits an emotional response.
To consider Rubin either pro-pedophilia or a pedophilia apologist is missing the mark on her argument. Rubin writes that no
tactic for stirring up erotic hysteria has been as reliable as the
appeal to protect children. The current wave of erotic terror has
reached deepest into those areas bordered in some way . . . by the
sexuality of the young (141). Rubin examines consent laws, child
sexual behavior, and child pornography to make the case that
pedophilia has become the excuse to demonize and convict adult
homosexuals. Rubin also takes into account the slippery slope of
these laws. She notes that:

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child pornography laws define as obscene any depiction of minors who are
nude or engaged in sexual activity. This means that photographs of naked
children in anthropology textbooks and many of the ethnographic movies
shown in college classes are technically illegal in several states. (142)

Her afterword and postscript to Thinking Sex, written in 1993,

look at feminist perspectives of these sexual politics, continuing
the discussion with reference to MacKinnon and Dworkin. A focus
on S/M and feminist porn politics is taken up again in chapter 8,
Blood Under the Bridge: Reflections on Thinking Sex (2010).
That most recent word on Thinking Sex also revisits Rubins
arguments on the pedophilia scare, continuing to develop the
argument that the legislation is based on fear and is used to persecute adult homosexuals. As a mother, these arguments are hard
pills to swallow; after reading and rereading Rubins positions,
it became increasingly clear that her intent was not to support
pedophilia in the sense of molestation of children, but rather, to
draw connections between sexuality, consent, what is considered
taboo or pornographic in our society, and the moral legislation of
human sexuality. At this juncture in the discourse, I would like to
call Rubin up and ask for her opinions on those laws that monitor
and criminalize cyber and electronic forms of child pornography, such as the sixteen or seventeen year old in possession of
naked pictures of herself stored on her cell phone. Whether we
see pedophilia laws as a demonization of adult homosexuals or as
necessary legislation to protect children, the arguments regarding
the policing of sexuality based on moral code remain relevant and
ever changing.
If the reader is not fully entrenched in Rubins controversial,
radical perspectives after coming away from this discussion of S/M
and pedophilia, chapter 9, The Catacombs (1991) will do that
job just fine. Here we get another anthropological tour through
the gay community of the 70s and 80s, one that describes and
humanizes this subculture and Rubins involvement in it through
direct, unabashed narrative and description. The setting, scene,
environment, music, and people are detailed openly and honestly.
Yet Rubin manages to engage in this material without it reading as gratuitously pornographic or purposely shocking. Instead,
she draws the reader into this essay so effectively that lines such
as Many of the serious sadomasochists thought of Crisco as

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something that ruined leather (234) are no more scandalous

than if we had read I drove my car to work today. Her main idea
in this essay is that, yet again, the culture came under the attack
of the moral sex police, which resulted in not only the unjust
persecution of adult homosexuals, but also a failure to properly
research and educate the community about safe sex practices as
the AIDS epidemic took hold during the 80s and 90s.
Rubin tears down the perceived deviance of the community
and humanizes it with The Leather Menace and Catacombs,
and she further dismantles that concept of deviance from the
academic perspective in Studying Sexual Subcultures: Excavating
the Ethnography of Gay Communities in Urban North America
(2002) presented in chapter 13. Her genius lies in the section entitled Dismantling Deviance (319). She addresses the
work of John Gallaher, Gagnon and Simon, Evelyn Hooker, and
Nancy Achilles, among others, to give the reader a definition
of deviance and demonstrate the deviations in heterosexuality as an unnatural standard upon which to naturalize sexuality.
Homosexuality is studied through this academic lens to establish
the socialized context through which it is viewed as a deviation. Foucault is thrown into this blend of academia on sexuality
as Rubin completes her task in repositioning the concept of
deviation. She writes that The arguments between social constructionism and essentialism vis--vis sexuality are conceptually
similar to those in economic anthropology between substantivism
and formalism (334). This chapter is Rubins best work in this
collection, combining academic research, rhetorical criticism and
argument while touching on her activism, and continuing to
humanize the LGBT community with her honest, descriptive style
and language.
Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader also includes an interview of
Rubin by Judith Butler and lectures delivered by Rubin over the
course of her career. This collection of Rubins work demonstrates
her ability to tackle academia, construct smart, sound argumentation, provide solid research, and to present shocking subject
matter and radical perspectives in such a way that the reader
is drawn in to her world. Deviations manages to deconstruct the
deviance of human sexuality and reorder it within the perceived
norm of human sexuality as a whole. It is no wonder that Rubin
is lauded as groundbreaking in the disciplines of womens and

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queer studies. Her influence in the LGBT community, her influence in the development of feminism and activism, and her
influence in the field of anthropology are chronicled and presented in this collection, a new must-have classic for both the
student and the scholar in any of these fields.

Work Cited
Rubin, Gayle S. Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader . Durham and London: Duke UP,
2011.