166 Gayle Rubin The Traffic in WOmen 167 The realm of human sex, gender, and procreation has been subjected to, and changed by, relentless social activity for Other names have been proposed for the sex/gender system. The most common alternatives are"mode of repro- and fantasy, concepts of childhood-is itself a social product duction and "patriarchy. 'It may be foolish to quibble We need to understand the relations of its production, and about terms, but both of these can lead to confusion. All forget, for awhile, about food, clothing, automobiles, and three proposals have been made in order to introduce a dis. transistor radios. In most Marxist tradition, and even in tinction between"economic"systems and"sexual"syster Engels' book, the concept of the"second aspect of material and to indicate that sexual systems have a certain autonomy fe"has tended to fade into the background, or to be incor and cannot always be explained in terms of economic forces porated into the usual notions of"material life. Engels'sug Mode of reproduction, " for instance, has been proposed in gestion has never been followed up and subjected to the re- opposition to the more familiar"mode of production. "But finement which it needs. But he does indicate the existence is terminology links the"economy to production, and the and importance of the domain of social life which I want to xual system to"reproduction. It reduces the richness of call the sex/gender system either system, since "productions"and"reproductions"take lace in both. Every mode of production involves reproduc- Among the Banaro, marriage involves several socially sanctioned sexual Lion-of tools, labor, and social relations. We cannot relegate all of the mulLi-faceted aspects of social reproduction to the sex system. Replacement of machinery is a examp reproduction in the economy. On the other hand, we cannot mans partners include his wife, the wife of his sib- friend and the wif limit the sex system to"reproduction""in either the social or f his sib-friendl's son(Thurnwald, 1916). Multiple intercourse is a mor biological sense of the term. A sex/gender system is not ronounced custom ng the Marind Anim. At the tie of e bride has intercourse with all of the members of the groom's clat simply the reproductive moment of a mode of production. The formation of gender identity he groom coming last. Every major festival is accompanied by a prac- y is an example of produc tice known as otiubom bari, in which semen is collected for ritual p tion in the realm of the sexual system. And a sex/gender system involves more than the relations of procreation, emen is collected in coconut-shell buek reproduction in the biological sense tercourse during initiation(Van Baal G The term "patriarchy" was introduced to distinguish the s a year(Kelly, 1974 forces maintaining sexism from other social forces, such as copulation and think that it will kill them if they engage in it without capitalism. But the use of "patriarchy"obscures other dis- (Glasse, 1971: Meggitt, 1970). Usually, such ideas tinctions. Its use is analagous to using capitalism to refer to of feminine pollu tion express the sul on of wonen. But modes of production, whereas the usefulness of the term contain internal contradict whose logical extensions capitalism"lies precisely in that it distinguishes between the o inversions of the pro ons on which a system is base to be feared b 's fcar of sex is so extreme that rape appears different systems by which societies are provisioned and or ganized. Any society will have some system of"political ho flee fro economy. " Such a system may be egalitarian or socialist. It grooms who are reluctant Goodale and Chowning, 1971).Other may be class stratified, in which case the oppressed class may teresting su:xual variations can be found in Almon(1963)and K Gough( 1959). consist of serfs, peasants, or slaves. The oppressed class may consist of wage laborers, in which case the system is properly