This paper explores how law might conceive of the injury or harm of endocrine disruption as it applies to an aboriginal community experiencing chronic chemical pollution. The effect of the pollution in this case is not only gendered, but gendering: it seems to be causing the ‘production’ of two girl babies for every boy born on the reserve. This presents an opening to interrogate how law is implicated in the constitution of not just gender but sex. The analysis takes an (...) embodied turn, attempting to validate the real and material consequences of synthetic chemicals acting on bodies—but uncovers that finding a harm in a declining sex ratio depends on a static conception of the human form, based on unfounded assumptions of ‘naturalness’ and ‘normalcy’. Elizabeth Grosz’s theory of ‘becoming’ offers a compelling challenge, essentially pointing to the conclusion that we should find harm where we find illness and suffering and not simply where we find difference. At the same time, we cannot discount the political economy of the pollution: the paper concludes by returning the focus to the role of power, colonialism and the state in the perpetuation of the pollution on the landscape. (shrink)

Perhaps no other single moral issue today is as hotly contested, or as divisive, as sexuality. Offering a bold and hopeful vision of how Christians - and all people of goodwill - can view this explosive topic, ethicist Christine Gudorf proposes nothing less than a sweeping challenge to traditional Christian teaching on sexual roles, activities, and relationships. Deftly drawing on Scripture, natural law, historical and contemporary Catholic and Protestant theology, the social sciences, and, significantly, the lived experiences of today's women (...) and men, Gudorf presents a carefully crafted and systematic reconstruction of Christian sexual ethics. Her aim, above all, is to engender appreciation, not rejection and shame, of our bodies and our sexuality. Contending that body, sex, and pleasure are divine gifts revealing God's grace, Gudorf emphasizes the need to understand sexual desire as a positive good, a source of love and commitment. She further explores the relationship between sexuality and reproduction, arguing that "procreationism" - the assumption that the sole aim and ultimate end of sexuality must always be offspring - is unjust and oppressive. Written with insight, clarity, and compassion, Body, Sex, and Pleasure is a provocative and compelling call to all women and men to reject the damaging influence of body/soul dualism - and, ultimately, to do justice to the Incarnation, the central revelations of Scripture, and human dignity. (shrink)

"Morality is a specific human attribute which, however, does not enjoy universal recognition. Its disregard in practice is matched by the disagreement concerning its justification. The repudiation of moral restraints on sexual conduct did not start with the sex revolution of the sixties, but it took the AIDS crisis to slow down the expansion of the culture of promiscuity that became fashionable with the emancipation from traditional values."--Publisher's description.

This article examines how migrant and immigrant sex workers have been rendered invisible before the courts and parliament in the reform of laws regarding sex work in Canada. A discourse analysis of the expansive legal record in the Bedford case and the transcripts of Parliamentary debates and testimony before Standing Committees confirm the lack of nuanced discussion on how criminal law reform could impact migrant and immigrant sex workers. As such, while the case of Bedford and the resulting change in (...) the law made by Parliament have been celebrated as a win for some sex workers as an acknowledgment, recognition and judicial validation of experiences by legal institutions of sex workers, a sub-group of women – migrant and immigrant sex workers – remain in the shadows. This article examines how law excludes migrant and immigrant sex workers; it is a starting point for research on how migrant and immigrant sex workers may participate in future legal reform. (shrink)

The development of highly humanoid sex robots is on the technological horizon. If sex robots are integrated into the legal community as “electronic persons”, the issue of sexual consent arises, which is essential for legally and morally permissible sexual relations between human persons. This paper explores whether it is conceivable, possible, and desirable that humanoid robots should be designed such that they are capable of consenting to sex. We consider reasons for giving both “no” and “yes” answers to these three (...) questions by examining the concept of consent in general, as well as critiques of its adequacy in the domain of sexual ethics; the relationship between consent and free will; and the relationship between consent and consciousness. Additionally we canvass the most influential existing literature on the ethics of sex with robots. (shrink)

This paper argues for the superiority of natural law theory over consent -based approaches to sexual morality. I begin by criticizing the “consenting adults” sexual ethic that is dominant in contemporary Western culture. I then argue that natural law theory provides a better account of sexual morality. In particular, I will defend the “perverted faculty argument”, according to which it is immoral to use one’s bodily faculties contrary to their proper end.

In the tradition of Simone de Beauvoir and Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray is one of France's most versatile feminist critics. _Sexes and Genealogies, _a collection of lectures delivered throughout Canada and Europe, introduces her writing to a wider American audience. Irigaray's most famous work, _Speculum of the Other Woman, _prompted her expulsion from the Lacanin Ecole Freudienne because of its searing depiction of Platonic and Freudian representations of women. Now _Sexes and Genealogies _analyzes sexual difference according to what she terms (...) the double dimension of gender and ideology. Irigaray covers major issues in religion, the law, psychoanalysis, and literature, such as: the continued neglect by psychoanalysts of the sexual and gender dimensions of therapy, the urgency of female divinity for contemporary feminist movements, and a reconsideration of women's relation to the market economy. _Sexes and Genealogies _also includes Irigaray's dazzling reading of the _Oresteia, "Body Against Body: In Relation to the Mother," _now acknowleged as a feminist classic. (shrink)

In this timely, provocative volume, essayists including Susan Moller Okin, Catherine A. MacKinnon, Cass Sunstein, Martha Minow, William Galston, and Sara McLanahan argue positions on sexuality, on the family, and on the proper role of law in these areas.

Sex, Morality, and the Law combines legal and philosophical arguments to focus on six controversial topics; homosexual sex, prostitution, pornography, abortion, sexual harassment, and rape. Suitable for use in several disciplines at both undergraduate and graduate levels, this anthology includes critical court decisions and essays representing a diversity of conservative, liberal, and feminist positions.

This article considers what the implications of decertification would be for single-sex services such as domestic and sexual violence support. Some reform options attached to decertification could (re)allocate authority away from the state to organisations or individuals to determine gender criteria. What would the consequences of such re-allocation be in determining eligibility to receive or access services or excluding people on the basis of a characteristic protected under equality law? Engaging with this in the context of domestic and sexual violence (...) support service provision raises a number of questions. Firstly, does the existence of gender-based violence and/or of the effects it produces require a stable category in order to address them? What benefits may emerge from providing single-sex spaces that could not be replicated in other settings? And finally, what criteria of exclusion and inclusion are currently used to determine access to spaces beyond legal gender status? (shrink)

Fred S. Berlin, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine --Book Jacket.

In this remarkable study, David A. J. Richards combines an interpretive history of culture and law, political philosophy, and constitutional analysis to explain the background, development, and growing impact of two of the most important and challenging human rights movements of our time, feminism and gay rights. Richards argues that both movements are extensions of rights-based dissent, rooted in antebellum abolitionist feminism that condemned both American racism and sexism. He sees the progressive role of such radical dissent as an emancipated (...) moral voice in the American constitutional tradition. He examines the role of dissident African Americans, Jews, women, and homosexuals in forging alternative visions of rights-based democracy. He also draws special attention to Walt Whitman's visionary poetry, showing how it made space for the silenced and subjugated voices of homosexuals in public and private culture. According to Richards, contemporary feminism rediscovers and elaborates this earlier tradition. And, similarly, the movement for gay rights builds upon an interpretation of abolitionist feminism developed by Whitman in his defense, both in poetry and prose, of love between men. Richards explores Whitman's impact on pro-gay advocates, including John Addington Symonds, Havelock Ellis, Edward Carpenter, Oscar Wilde, and André Gide. He also discusses other diverse writers and reformers such as Margaret Sanger, Franz Boas, Elizabeth Stanton, W. E. B. DuBois, and Adrienne Rich. Richards addresses current controversies such as the exclusion of homosexuals from the military and from the right to marriage and concludes with a powerful defense of the struggle for such constitutional rights in terms of the principles of rights-based feminism. (shrink)

A little more than two years ago, a Texas woman, faced with a knife-wielding intruder demanding sex from her, tried to talk her attacker into wearing a condom to protect herself against the possibility of contracting AIDS. A grand jury refused to indict the man because jurors believed that the woman's act of self-protection implied that she had consented to sex.

This work examines the evolution of law and legal method, and challenges the law's claim to neutrality by examining its role in creating and reproducing inequality between the sexes. It considers many of the current debates, and in each, the law is stated with reference to recent developments in statute and judicial decisions in the UK and other jurisdictions. The author illustrates how each issue is shaped by the current political climate and, where relevant, by the European Court. Reference is (...) also made to US and Australian case law. The book should be of interest to students studying women and the law, family law, criminal law and jurisprudcence, as well as those on criminology and sociology courses. It should also be useful to family and criminal practitioners. (shrink)

. Under‐the‐covers undercover investigations: Some reflections on the state's use of sex and deception in law enforcement. Criminal Justice Ethics: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 13-24.

John Millar's Origin of the Distinction of Ranks contains one of the first extensive and systematic discussions of the status of women in different societies. In this paper I attempt to show first that a combi nation of circumstances associated with the teaching of moral philos ophy at Glasgow and with the reform of Scots law undertaken by Lord Kames made the status of women a critical problem for Millar. Second, I attempt to demonstrate that Millar drew heavily upon the (...) resources of associationist psychology to explain how female status changed from hunting to pastoral to agricultural to commercial societies and that in doing so he diverged substantially from the perspectives developed by his mentor, Adam Smith. Finally, in view of Millar's extraordinarily positive reputation throughout Europe prior to the French Revolution and in view of the potential relevance of his analysis to early feminism and to mid-19th-century anthropological discussions of early matri archy, I seek to account for why his work was virtually ignored from around 1802 to 1960. (shrink)

In the tradition of Simone de Beauvoir and Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray is one of France's most versatile feminist critics. _Sexes and Genealogies, _a collection of lectures delivered throughout Canada and Europe, introduces her writing to a wider American audience. Irigaray's most famous work, _Speculum of the Other Woman, _prompted her expulsion from the Lacanin Ecole Freudienne because of its searing depiction of Platonic and Freudian representations of women. Now _Sexes and Genealogies _analyzes sexual difference according to what she terms (...) the double dimension of gender and ideology. Irigaray covers major issues in religion, the law, psychoanalysis, and literature, such as: the continued neglect by psychoanalysts of the sexual and gender dimensions of therapy, the urgency of female divinity for contemporary feminist movements, and a reconsideration of women's relation to the market economy. _Sexes and Genealogies _also includes Irigaray's dazzling reading of the _Oresteia, "Body Against Body: In Relation to the Mother," _now acknowleged as a feminist classic. (shrink)

For a long time, Roman history, taken in its social and legal aspects, was written as a history of males, before Women's Studies and very recently Gender Studies tried to re-established a kind of balance, even if this last field is still little explored by law historians. The hierarchical structure of Roman society—reputed to have been highly macho—was not necessarily based on a simple sex relationship but on a gender relationship in which the individual's biological sex was not enough to (...) fix his or her identity. Actually, many criteria relating to bodily attitudes in the broad sense (body language, clothing, hygiene, morality, personality etc.) were ultimately more important in assessing an individual's sexual identity. In this complex social game, the Romans could consider the existence of a _tertium genus hominum_ between man and woman. In line with a detailed social analysis and the idea that law is an extension of social culture according to many anthropologists, we have to consider that interpretation of legal texts would require the use of a specific reading grid to assess their gendered issue. The conception of this grid is a major part of the work made by the team operating the ANR HLJP gender project initiated in 2022, for which we developed a specific working method for law history in general that is still being tested for law sources presenting a gendered aspect. Through the exegesis of some roman legal texts relating to public and private spheres organization, we will illustrate how a gender-specific reading grid could possibly refine our knowledge of Roman law. (shrink)

Jeremy Bentham is becoming increasingly well-known for his defence of consensual male same-sex relationships on the grounds of an ‘all-comprehensive' sexual liberty. The question arises whether his defence of pæderasty, or ‘the love of boys', and hence of adult-child sexual relationships, on the same principle makes his defence of male same-sex relationships problematic. This paper investigates the extent to which, under Bentham's principle, adults would not be legally punished for having consensual sexual relationships with children, or rather with adolescents. It (...) concludes that Bentham’s position in relation to sexual relationships between adult males and under-age females followed the provisions of the English law of his time, while his position in relation to sexual relationships between adult males and under-age males is little different from the provisions of the law of our own time. Bentham was, moreover, concerned about the reputational damage suffered by unmarried mothers, and hence recommended the decriminalizing of infanticide. In the post-Malthusian age, Bentham, like many of his contemporaries, had become concerned about the potential suffering caused by over-population. His aims in this respect would be met by the forms of contraception and abortion available today. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Sex, Drugs, Death and the Law: An Essay on Human Rights and Overcriminalization. By David A. J. Richards. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1982. xii + 316 pp. $26.95.

Decisions of individuals relating to homosexual conduct have been subject to state intervention throughout the history of Western Civilization. Condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeo‐Christian moral and ethical standards˜. Blackstone described ‘the infamous crime against nature’ as an offense of ‘deeper malignity than rape’….

In this paper I consider the role of freedom in the justification of prohibitions on discrimination. As a case study, I focus mainly on U.S. constitutional and employment law and, in particular, restrictions on sex-stereotyping. I present a new argument that freedom can play at least some important role in justifying these restrictions. Not just any freedom, I claim: the Millian freedom to challenge existing stereotypes and contribute to social change. This ‘social change account’, I argue, can be a useful (...) supplement to the existing theories where their explanations run out. It also draws support from familiar liberal justifications for speech and other liberties, and provides an attractive role for the courts. (shrink)

Examines some of the principal arguments and styles of argument which Christians, and particularly the Roman Catholic Church, have advanced in support of Christian standards in sexual ethics. Catholic teaching has sought to present Christian sexual standards and values as reasonabale, as standards which anyone can see to be right if only they think about them in the right way. Arguments have been drawn from both Scripture and from philosophy and experience, the latter being particularly important at a time when (...) the Church can no longer lay down the law, but has to be able to persuade. The author considers whether these arguments are valid or flawed. His study covers such wide-ranging topics as sexual pleasure, the purpose of sex, sexual gestures, marriage, contraception and homosexuality, and in these areeas, and the more specifical sexual issues which he covers, he often finds the Church's case defective. Though the Church has valuable things to say, its supporting arguments can be unconvincing. Better arguments, he claims, are needed, or alternatively the possibility has to be faced that the Church's teaching needs to be modified. But it does need to do more thinking about sex. (shrink)

The passage of the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children in 2000 marked the first global effort to address human trafficking in 50 years. Since the passage of the UN Protocol international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and individual states have devoted significant resources to eliminating human trafficking. This article critically examines the impact of these efforts with reference to the trends, political, and empirical challenges in data collection and the limitations of international law. (...) I argue that current international law disproportionately addresses the criminal prosecution of traffickers at the expense of trafficking victims’ human rights, and has therefore not yet reached its full potential in the fight against human sex trafficking. (shrink)

This article examines what happens when local gender rights activism is taken up by international allies and appropriators, using case studies of activism in Saudi Arabia and India. The relationship between local and transnational activists is shaped by histories of Euro-Americans writing about the gendered organisation of Eastern societies. In an economic system where nongovernmental activist groups compete for donor support, political causes are commodities with value, and value is generated through representations (e.g. of patriarchal oppression). These representations of the (...) sexuality and gender organisation of other societies are fetishes in the Marxian sense, essential to the commodity-cause that generates value in circulation. These representations gain value through the accretion of cultural images and texts that adhere to the cause, e.g. the stereotype of the violent brown man and oppressed woman. Such images in the cultural repository allow transnational consumers to make sense of issues they are called to support. But such images also reify stereotypes that activists seek to undermine, even at the same time that these representations generate an international audience. We analyse this process and identify strategies for how transnational allies can show solidarity without overshadowing or devaluing the voices of local activists, with primary focus on the case of activism against male guardianship laws in Saudi Arabia. (shrink)

This article considers the transgressive and transformative possibilities in the sexual silences of the U.K.’s Civil Partnership Act 2004. The absence of a consummation requirement and adultery as a specific ground of dissolution do open up some possibilities but are not unproblematic. These issues are explored in the context of the England and Wales Law Commission’s apparent ‘return’ to a conjugal model in its forthcoming consultation on cohabitation. It is concluded that though the Act may open up possibilities for expanding (...) the legal recognition of relationships beyond those that are sexual, this raises concerns about the further privatisation of care as well as increased state intervention in relationships. Instead, I argue that the purpose and function of relationship recognition should be deconstructed and separated from ideology and romantic mythology about what families and relationships are and should be. If it does wed itself so closely to the conjugal marriage model in the consultation document, the Law Commission will miss a valuable opportunity to ask important questions about the purpose and function of relationship recognition. (shrink)

In public health and the social sciences, there is growing recognition of the role that social context plays in determining health. Frequently, social relations of inequality are among the most important features of social context identified in this work, and emphasis is placed on identifying and addressing these inequalities in order to improve health. Within the field of HIV/AIDS prevention as well, researchers have begun to look beyond individuals for an understanding of the structural causes of HIV-related risk. This research (...) demands that greater attention be paid to the social mechanisms and contextual factors that lead to HIV risk. Among these factors are law and social policy, which form a part of the context in which risk-taking occurs and which can promote both HIV transmission and prevention. On the one hand, laws limiting access to sterile injection equipment have contributed to HIV-related risk behavioxs among injection drug users. (shrink)

This book is an interdisciplinary work that weaves literary interpretation, legal theory, and philosophical doctrine about sex and love into a coherent mosaic in the context of two of Shakespeare’s plays: The Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure. In the process, the work advances literary interpretations of the plays including character studies of some of the main protagonists. The aim is partly theoretical but mostly practical: to demonstrate what we can learn about living a robustly meaningful and significant human (...) life by taking Shakespeare’s work seriously from contemporary philosophical and legal vantage points. Shakespeare does not reveal a tightly defined moral system that he is trying to urge upon his audience. Instead, Shakespeare challenges his audience to struggle with moral complexity as they confront conflicting elements surrounding legal and moral issues presented in his work and within the souls of his characters. His issues and their conflicts are also ours. Much of Shakespeare’s work consists of raising weighty questions inextricably connected to the human condition and inviting his audience to ponder possible answers. The philosophical lessons about living our lives meaningfully and significantly that we can derive from Shakespeare are simple yet powerful. (shrink)

Popular representations of third-world sex workers as sex slaves and vectors of HIV have spawned abolitionist legal reforms that are harmful and ineffective, and public health initiatives that provide only marginal protection of sex workers' rights. In this book, Prabha Kotiswaran asks how we might understand sex workers' demands that they be treated as workers. She contemplates questions of redistribution through law within the sex industry by examining the political economies and legal ethnographies of two archetypical urban sex markets in (...) India.Kotiswaran conducted in-depth fieldwork among sex workers in Sonagachi, Kolkata's largest red-light area, and Tirupati, a temple town in southern India. Providing new insights into the lives of these women--many of whom are demanding the respect and legal protection that other workers get--Kotiswaran builds a persuasive theoretical case for recognizing these women's sexual labor. Moving beyond standard feminist discourse on prostitution, she draws on a critical genealogy of materialist feminism for its sophisticated vocabulary of female reproductive and sexual labor, and uses a legal realist approach to show why criminalization cannot succeed amid the informal social networks and economic structures of sex markets. Based on this, Kotiswaran assesses the law's redistributive potential by analyzing the possible economic consequences of partial decriminalization, complete decriminalization, and legalization. She concludes with a theory of sex work from a postcolonial materialist feminist perspective. (shrink)

This article aims to analyse a possible manner of approaching the birth of intersexual children. We start out by summing up what intersexuality is and how it is faced in the dominant clinical practice. We then argue against this paradigm, in favour of a postponement of genital surgery. In the second part of this paper, we take into consideration the general question of whether only two existing sexes are to be recognized, arguing in favour of an expansion of sex categories. (...) In the third part, we illustrate the reasons supporting provisional sex attribution: the child’s best interest and respect for their developing moral autonomy. This position aims to increase the child’s well-being and self-determination, limiting parents’ freedom to take decisions on behalf of others, in particular, those decisions concerning basic aspects of their children’s personal identity. (shrink)

Research in which participants report potentially dangerous health-related behaviors raises ethical and professional questions about what to do with that information. Policies and laws regarding reportable behaviors vary across states and Institutional Review Boards (IRB). In alcohol research, IRBs often require researchers to respond to participants who report dangerous drinking practices. Researchers have little guidance regarding how best to respond in such cases. Personalized feedback or general nonpersonalized information may prove differentially effective as a function of gender and/or level of (...) self-determination. This study evaluated response strategies for reducing peak blood alcohol concentration (BAC) among participants reporting dangerous BACs (≥ .35%) in the context of a two-year longitudinal intervention trial with 818 heavy drinking college students. After each assessment, participants who reported drinking to estimated BACs at or greater than .35% were sent either a personalized letter expressing concern and indicating their reported BAC or a nonpersonalized pamphlet that included general information about alcohol and other substances, referral information, and a BAC handout. Hierarchical linear modeling results revealed that both strategies were associated with reduced peak BAC when controlling for previous BAC. The personalized letter was more effective for women and for students who tend to regulate their behavior based on others' expectations and contingencies in the environment. This research provides some guidance for researchers considering appropriate responses to participants who report dangerous health behavior in the context of a research trial. (shrink)

Argues that natural law theory provides no credible basis for objecting to the legal recognition of same-sex marriage and offers a two-fold defense of marriage equality: natural-law arguments against marriage equality are unsuccessful; and, even if they are; proponents of new classical natural law theory should still see legally recognizing same-sex marriages as reasonable.

A woman walks into a room and sits down beside a man. They talk and as they talk he puts his arm around her. After a few moments they kiss. He becomes excited and starts to fondle her. She does not resist. A few moments later, she gets up and leaves.A man and a woman drive into a parking lot. It is dark, the lot is empty. He stops the car, turns out the lights and puts his arm around her. (...) They kiss, then make love. After 30 minutes they drive off. (shrink)

The way a society speaks about its different groups and sub-groups determines its general behavior toward them. Discriminated minorities oftentimes suffer from humiliating descriptions, and part of their project to change societal attitudes will evolve around the attempt to redescribe themselves in terms more acceptable to them. ;Advancing from these considerations, I examine the rhetoric of the emerging discourse of homosexuality between 1880 and 1920. During this time period the homosexual was invented as a new personality type, a being almost (...) totally determined in all of his expressions by his sexual desire. Different professions like law, medicine, sociology, psychiatry, literature, and philosophy attempted to define this novel species. And they all converged in one aspect, namely in their rhetorical attitude. The writings of people like Nietzsche, Krafft-Ebing, Proust, Symonds, Gide, and Mann share the common feature of diagnosing a vital and important difference between the homosexual person and her heterosexual fellow citizen. This rhetoric of emphasizing the dividing features between desires I call maximalism. The invention of the homosexual as a person occurred under the reign of maximalizing ways of writing. It was, however, widely disputed where exactly the relevant difference between homosexuals and heterosexuals was to be located, whether in anatomico-biological variations, in an overabundance or lack of masculine determinants, in psychological dispositions, or an exceeding portion of courage, intelligence, and creativity. Equally problematic was the valuation of this difference. But one thing was easily agreed upon: the description of the homosexual had to follow a maximalizing pattern. ;I trace this pattern from its first precursory appearance in the Marquis de Sade to its breakdown in the psychoanalytic texts by Sigmund Freud. The shattering of this mode of thinking, though, has not been final, since in some of the rhetoric of "Queer Studies" it has reemerged. Family resemblances often appear most striking when one looks back past the parents. Our contemporaries bear their grandparents' smile. (shrink)