Gore Vidal, in the essay "Sex is Politics," from his book The Second American Revolution, argues that sex ultimately boils down to politics. While it is certainly true that much of sex is politics, there are some forms of sex and sexuality that are not political at all. Vidal fails to recognize this.
When Vidal argues that "sex is politics," he means that politicians use sexual issues and sexual "hot buttons" (153) as a means to control the behavior of the people. Vidal is arguing that the order of the society and the functioning and growth of the economy depend on a certain set of behaviors from the people. That behavior is based on a patriarchal, heterosexual, child-bearing, family-based system which produces obedient hard-working citizens who will be less likely to act in a way which will threaten the society or the economy or their own family life.
Therefore, Vidal is arguing that politicians see sex as politics, and the sex lives of the people are affected by politicians who seek to push those hot button issue for political, economic and social purposes. For example, continued prejudice against women in the workplace can be seen as a political expression of the belief that "A woman who can support herself and her child is a threat to marriage, and marriage is the central institution whereby the owners of the world control those who do the work." The same holds for the politics of homosexuality, says Vidal, for "homosexuality also threatens that ancient domination, because men who don't have wives or children to worry about are not as easily dominated as those men who do" (151).
However, despite Vidal's reasonable arguments in these specific areas, the fact remains that not all sex is politics. Even if we accept the context established by Vidal (that sex is seen by politicians to be a collection of political "hot button" issues to be used to manipulate and control the people), the fact also remains that not all sex, eit...