Elisa Glick: Sex Positive-Feminsm, Queer Theory and the Politics of Transgression

"Ultimately, both pro-sex and radical feminists reproduce the ideology of personal emancipation within contemporary capitalist society by making the liberation of sex a fundamental feminist goal."-(P.22)

Emancipation - The fact or process of being set free from legal, social or political restrictions.

"Despite the similarities between the political effects of both camps' theory and activism, pro-sex's tendency toward libertarians invests this movement with an unique relationship to questions of sexual freedom."-(P.22)

"Butler's claim that there are forms of repetition which do not consolidate but instead displace and reconfigure 'heterosexual and phallic cultural conventions' relies upon her specific readings of sexual styles that transgress the matrix of power."-(P.23)

"Butch and femme sexualities in lesbian culture do not replace heterosexual constructs but in face 'denaturalise' them."-(P.23)

"In both its feminist and queer incarnations, pro-sex theorists and practitioners contradict their own logic by idealising the subversive potential of transgressive practises that dislocate and displace the dominant."-(P.24)

"Rubin's essay applauds pro-sex feminists for their rejection of the reactionary sexual puritanism of radical feminism and for their strong affiliation with sexual nonconformity and oppositional desires, practices, and fantasies:"

• "The women's movement may have produced some of the most retrogressive sexual thinking this side of the Vatican. But it has also produced an exciting, innovative, and articulate defence of sexual pleasure and erotic justice. This 'pro-sex' feminism has been spearheaded by lesbians whose sexuality does not conform to movement standards of purity (primarily lesbian sadomasochists and butch/femme dykes), by unapologetic heterosexuals, and by women who adhere to classic radical feminism rather than the revisionist celebrations of femininity which have become so common."-(Rubin, 1992) (P.25)