Rubin is a sex-positive feminist. The 1982 Barnard Conference on Sexuality is often credited as the moment that signaled the beginning of the feminist sex wars; Rubin gave a version of her work “Thinking Sex” (see below) as a workshop there. “Thinking Sex” then had its first publication in 1984, in Carole Vance's book "Pleasure and Danger", which was an anthology of papers from that conference. "Thinking Sex" is a sex-positive piece which is widely regarded as a founding text of gay and lesbian studies, sexuality studies, and queer theory.