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Full-Text Articles in Law
Sexual Agreements, Susan Frelich Appleton, Albertina Antognini
Sexual Agreements, Susan Frelich Appleton, Albertina Antognini
Scholarship@WashULaw
Few would find it surprising that an agreement for sex falls outside the bounds of contract law. Prostitution—defined as an exchange of sex for money—has long been a crime, a point that courts often make in declining to enforce agreements between unmarried partners. In fact, courts routinely invalidate contracts when sex forms the basis of a couple’s bargain, whether married or not, and whether the sex is explicit or inferred from the relationship itself. A closer look at the legal treatment of sexual agreements, however, tells a more complicated story. Although courts reject sex as consideration for being “meretricious” or …
Regulating Sex Work: Assimilationism, Erotic Exceptionalism And The Challenge Of Intimate Labor, Adrienne D. Davis
Regulating Sex Work: Assimilationism, Erotic Exceptionalism And The Challenge Of Intimate Labor, Adrienne D. Davis
Scholarship@WashULaw
Most commentators on sex markets focus on the debate between abolitionists and those who defend and support professional sex work. This paper, instead, looks at debates within the pro-sex work camp, uncovering some unattended tensions and contradictions. It shows that, within this camp, some stress the labor aspect, urging that sex markets perpetuate a “vulnerable population” of workers, similar to others who perform highly risky and/or exploited labor, and should be regulated accordingly. In this view, sex work would be assimilated into other labor. Others, though, take a more anti-regulatory stance. They exceptionalize this form of labor, arguing that because …
Erotic Entitlements Part I: A Reply To Sex Therapy In The Age Of Viagra: “Money Can’T Buy Melove”, Adrienne D. Davis
Erotic Entitlements Part I: A Reply To Sex Therapy In The Age Of Viagra: “Money Can’T Buy Melove”, Adrienne D. Davis
Scholarship@WashULaw
This is the first of three inquiries into what might be thought of as erotic entitlement. It explores the role of the erotic in regulatory and distributive regimes. Conceived as a reply to Susan Stiritz and Susan Appleton‘s provocative and rich essay Sex Therapy in the Age of Viagra, it starts by summarizing the innovations of their argument. It next uses their paper to pose some questions. First, in this time of contentious feminist, constitutional, and human rights sexual discourse, how is the erotic defined? How is the erotic related to and distinct from desire, the sexual, and even the …
Slavery And The Roots Of Sexual Harassment, Adrienne D. Davis
Slavery And The Roots Of Sexual Harassment, Adrienne D. Davis
Scholarship@WashULaw
In recent years, feminist scholars and activists have demonstrated the ways that U.S. slavery functioned as a system of gender supremacy. It entailed the dominance of men over women as well as whites over blacks. Adding the gender lens has shed immense light on the ways that sex, law, and power operated in the racially supremacist enslaving South. In recent years, this literature has emphasized the ways that slavery's sexual and racial subordination converged around the bodies of enslaved black women. One project within this literature characterizes slavery as a "sexual political economy" to make explicit the connections between its …