Christopher Siters

PHIL 14
Dr Champagne
Michael Warner’s discourse about gay marriage can be boiled down to the question of

whether people want a seat at the table or whether to get rid of “the table” altogether. Citing

Johnathan Rauch,

“If marriage is to work,” he writes, “it cannot be merely a ‘lifestyle

option.’ It must be privileged. That is, it must be understood to be better, on

average, than other ways of living. Not mandatory, not good where everything

else is bad, but better: a general norm, rather than a personal taste,” (p. 110).

Next, citing Gabriel Rotello, saying that,

…gay marriage would be a system of rewards and punishments designed

to steer gay men into monogamy and away from sex with other partners.

“Marriage would provide status to those who married and implicitly penalize

those who did not,” …careful not to make the case for marriage, but simply for

the right to marriage, (p. 110).

The gays wanting to have the same rights as heterosexual couples, thereby conforming to the

heteronormative standards of “normal”; it is “normal” for marriage to be between two people and

because it makes life better than normal.

The problem being that the idea of “normal” is that it is dictated by the cultural majority;

what was “normal” at one point is typically no longer “normal.” The current view is the that of

the white heteronormative patriarchy, that is “normal” and anything other is inherently wrong;

anything other than heterosexuality is wrong, anything other than whiteness is wrong, etc. It

perpetuates the ideology that the heteronormative white patriarchy alone knows what is right and

wrong, what is good and bad, etc., not acknowledging that what is “good” and “right” typically
Christopher Siters
PHIL 14
Dr Champagne
serves the best interest of the patriarchy alone, disregarding anyone who is not a straight white

male.

When wondering who, if anyone, has the right to sex, it is first important to determine

who is eligible for “rights,” as for a large part of history the only people who had the “right” to

vote were free, land-owning white males: the heteronormative patriarchy; they alone had the

right to own property, to hold careers and earn money, to judge the actions of others as “right” or

“wrong.” The only people born with unalienable rights were white men, and logically that would

include the right to sex. The ideology that men are right, men are correct, men are infallible, has

led to the extreme view that men can do anything they want without fear of repercussions

because they are men and men are always right.

As humanity moves towards a central grey area that does not necessarily prohibit or

promote but instead looks/thinks/questions critically, rather than balancing extremes, Srinivasan

poses the idea of not “right” or “wrong” sex, but rather simply “wanted” or “unwanted,”

Sex is no longer morally problematic or unproblematic: it is instead

merely wanted or unwanted. In this sense, the norms of sex are like the norms of

capitalist free exchange. What matters is not what conditions give rise to the

dynamic of supply and demand – why some people need to sell their labour while

others buy it – but only that both buyer and seller have agreed to transfer,”

(Srinivasan, Does anyone have the right to sex?).

This reduction of sex to an economic exchange: buyer and seller agreeing on a “product” and

“price.” In the heteronormative view, would males be the buyer, who simply takes/steals what

they want, regardless of the price? Or would they be sellers forcing their unwanted “products” on
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PHIL 14
Dr Champagne
“customers”? The idea being that women should have equal bargaining power, not only over

their own “product” but also of what products they do and do not want; what is involved during

sex is different than wanting sex at all. The case is made for rape: laws prohibit it as many/most

people do not find pleasure in the act (the victims), however, there are those people who do

receive legitimate pleasure from raping someone and/or being raped. The question then becomes

not is rape “right” or “wrong,” rather is it “wanted” or “unwanted”; however, this brings up an

inherent dichotomy as rape cannot truly be consensual.

Srinivasan also cites Charles Fourier and his, “guaranteed ‘sexual minimum’, akin to a

guaranteed basic income, for every man and woman, regardless of age or infirmity…the social

service would be provided by an ‘amorous nobility’ who, Fourier said, ‘know how to subordinate

love to the dictates of honor.” Paralleling the rape ideology, this “amorous nobility” is the group

of people who want sex, not people who do not want sex; they would be consenting to possibly

non-consensual scenarios since some people desire “taking” sex. Whether the rape fetish would

continue in the presence of a guaranteed sexual minimum is not clear, as “subordinating…to the

dictates of honor” implies that these people would do absolutely anything asked/demanded of

them in favor of social welfare, meaning these could be the targets for rapists. The question truly

becomes: are we, as human beings, entitled to anything at all in the first place? People propose

social programs such as universal healthcare and universal basic income and public education

because people are entitled to a minimum standard of living in modern society, however this was

not the case for most of human history. These things are not “free,” they do cost money, time,

work, etc., and so where are the lines drawn between what people are and are not entitled to:

food? Shelter? Clothing? Medicine? Sex? Cultural over- or undervaluation of a biological

entity/process does not save the culture from the biology, instead leading to misunderstanding,
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Dr Champagne
misuse, mistreatment, etc. Who is entitled to what? Does anyone inherently have the right to

anything? Where is the line drawn of what we inherently do and do not deserve?