The Spinster and Her Enemies - Feminish

PREFACE TO 1997 EDITION
mid-1980s supported FACT because their study of history made
them recognise the dangers of the ordinance (Duggan, 1995).
Sexuality in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
was suddenly the centre of attention and the subject of furious
discussion.
Some sexual libertarians chose as their heroes from the earlier
period, not women, but the male sexologists whose work had
been so influential in undermining feminist anti-violence ideas.
That was a surprise. The American proponent of sadomasochism,
Gayle Rubin, a Samois member, is a good example. Rubin
took issue with my approach to the sexologists of this period
such as Henry Havelock Ellis whom I portray as consolidating
a male supremacist view of women and the idea that sex was
inevitably about male dominance and female submission. Not
surprisingly, since she is pro-sadomasochism, Rubin sees her
life’s work as being in the tradition of Ellis’ sexology, which
she calls the pro-sex tradition. She labels the position of feminist
anti-sexual violence campaigners of this earlier period as antisex
and puts me solidly in the conservative tradition.
The conservative tradition has promoted opposition to
pornography, prostitution, homosexuality, all erotic
variation… The opposing, pro-sex tradition has included
individuals like Havelock Ellis, Magnus Hirschfeld, Alfred
Kinsey, and Victoria Woodhull… Surely they are closer to
the spirit of modern feminism than are moral crusaders, the
social purity movement, and anti-vice organisations… The
current feminist demonology generally elevates the anti-vice
crusaders to positions of ancestral honour, while condemning
the more liberatory tradition as anti-feminist. In an essay
that exemplifies some of these trends, Sheila Jeffreys blames
Havelock Ellis (Rubin, 1984, p.302).
Rubin’s piece, Thinking Sex’, has been very influential in the
intervening period, being reprinted in 1993 as the leading article
in the first anthology on lesbian and gay studies (Rubin, 1993).
The difference in position between those of Rubin’s persuasion
and radical feminist anti-violence activists like myself is not a
trivial one but goes to the heart of the feminist project. Rubin
argues that sexuality can be separated from ‘gender’. She suggests
that sexuality is a separate system of oppression in which the
sexual minorities, including sadomasochists and paedophiles
are constrained. Her relabelling of sexual abuse of children as
‘intergenerational sex’ was a significant development. There
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