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LEATHER_MENACE
December 23, 2014
February 19, 2015
February 20, 2019
In the Internet Archive, there's a copy of "The Body Politic"
from April 1982, with the Gayle Rubin piece "the leather menace",
where she discusses these conflicts:
"The experience of being a feminist
sadomasochist in 1980 is similar to
that of being a communist homosexual
in 1950. When left ideology condemned
homosexuality as bourgeois decadence,
many homosexuals were forced out of
progressive political organizations.
A few of them founded the Mattachine
Society. Now that large parts of the
feminist movement have similarly
defined S/M as an evil product of
patriarchy, it has become increasingly
difficult for those of us who are
feminists to maintain our membership
in the women's community."
"In 1980, the National Organization of
Women passed a misleadingly labelled
resolution on 'lesbian and gay rights.'"
...
"The resolution denied that these were
issues of sexual or affectional
preference and declared NOW's
intention to disassociate itself from
any gay or lesbian group that did not
accept these definitions of sexual
preference. When there was an attempt
ten years ago to purge NOW of lesbian
members, NOW was not stampeded into
denying the legitimacy of gay
rights. The campaign against the
leather menace has succeeded where the
attack on the lavender menace
failed. It has put NOW on record as
opposing sexual freedom and the civil
rights of erotic minorities."
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