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Full-Text Articles in Law

Why Sexual Privacy Matters For Trust, Danielle K. Citron Nov 2019

Why Sexual Privacy Matters For Trust, Danielle K. Citron

Faculty Scholarship

Every generation’s intimates have their preferred modes of self-disclosure. Not long ago, intimate partners exchanged love letters and mixed tapes. They spent hours on the phone. Today, they text their innermost thoughts, beliefs, and wishes, sometimes with nude photos attached. They engage in sexually-explicit activity via FaceTime and SnapChat.

Now, as then, the success and integrity of intimate relationships depends upon sexual privacy. Intimate relationships develop as partners grow to trust one another to treat their nakedness, deepest secrets, and sexual desires as they hope rather than as they fear. Handling partners’ personal information with discretion lays the foundation for …


When Law Frees Us To Speak, Danielle K. Citron, Jonathon Penney May 2019

When Law Frees Us To Speak, Danielle K. Citron, Jonathon Penney

Faculty Scholarship

A central aim of online abuse is to silence victims. That effort is as regrettable as it is successful. In the face of cyber harassment and sexual privacy invasions, women and marginalized groups retreat from online engagement. These documented chilling effects, however, are not inevitable. Beyond its deterrent function, law has an equally important expressive role. In this article, we highlight law’s capacity to shape social norms and behavior through education. We focus on a neglected dimension of law’s expressive role—its capacity to empower victims to express their truths and engage with others. Our argument is theoretical and empirical. We …


Sexual Privacy, Danielle K. Citron May 2019

Sexual Privacy, Danielle K. Citron

Faculty Scholarship

Those who wish to control, expose, and damage the identities of individuals routinely do so by invading their privacy. People are secretly recorded in bedrooms and public bathrooms and “up their skirts.” Such images are used to coerce people into sharing nude photographs and filming sex acts under the threat of public disclosure. People’s nude images are posted online without permission. Machine-learning technology is used to create digitally manipulated “deep fake” sex videos that swap people’s faces into pornography.

Each of these abuses is an invasion of sexual privacy—the behaviors, expectations, and choices that manage access to and information about …


When Law Frees Us To Speak, Danielle Citron, Jonathon Penney Jan 2019

When Law Frees Us To Speak, Danielle Citron, Jonathon Penney

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

A central aim of online abuse is to silence victims. That effort is as regrettable as it is successful. In the face of cyber harassment and sexual privacy invasions, women and marginalized groups retreat from online engagement. These documented chilling effects, however, are not inevitable. Beyond its deterrent function, law has an equally important expressive role. In this article, we highlight law’s capacity to shape social norms and behavior through education. We focus on a neglected dimension of law’s expressive role—its capacity to empower victims to express their truths and engage with others. Our argument is theoretical and empirical. We …