Sexuality and the Law Commons^™

Outing In The Time Of Aids: Legal And Ethical Considerations, John F. Hernandez

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The Civil Rights Act Of 1991: A “Quota Bill,” A Codification Of Griggs, A Partial Return To Wards Cove, Or All Of The Above?, Kingsley R. Browne

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Outing In The Time Of Aids: Legal And Ethical Considerations, John F. Hernandez

St. Thomas Law Review

No abstract provided.

Specter Of A Lesbian Supreme Court Justice: Problems Of Identity In Lesbian Legal Theorizing, Ruthann Robson

St. Thomas Law Review

The specter of a lesbian Supreme Court Justice raises an issue that has troubled lesbian and political theory, the issue of identity politics. Any invocation of identity, political or otherwise, provokes postmodernist apprehension, an apprehension that has been particularly potent in sexual identities. Also as a sexual identity, lesbian identity evokes other postmodernist-influenced issues. Particularly problematic are lesbian identity's unintelligibility until claimed or avowed and lesbian identity's uncertain classification as an identity status or a sexual act. This Article will interrogate the predicaments posed by identity politics, including postmodernist questionings of identity and the identity/ activity dichotomy, concluding with some …

Telling The Victim's Story, Mary I. Coombs

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Death Penalty: A Solution To The Problem Of Intentional Aids Transmission Through Rape, 26 J. Marshall L. Rev. 941 (1993), Stefanie S. Wepner

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

He's Gotta Have It, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

In 1929, James Thurber and E.B. White observed that

[d]uring the past year, two factors in our civilization have been greatly overemphasized. One is aviation. The other is sex.... In the case of aviation, persons interested in the sport saw that the problem was to simplify it and make it seem safe.... With sex, the opposite was true.... The problem in this case was to make sex seem more complex and dangerous. This task was taken up by sociologists, analysts, gynecologists, psychologists, and authors.... They joined forces and made the whole matter of sex complicated beyond [our wildest dreams].... Sex, …

Getting To Know: Honoring Women In Law And In Fact, Lynne Henderson

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Name-Calling And The Clear Error Rule, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

No abstract provided.

Anti-Lesbian And -Gay Right Wing Initiatives: A Strategy For Response, Mary Newcombe, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

The increasing visibility and political activism of the lesbian and gay community in this country has sparked a vicious backlash intended to reinforce restrictive notions of social morality and to stifle expressions of lesbian and gay identity. While this backlash has flourished in mainstream institutions, as in the U.S. Senate's hearings on lifting the military's ban against lesbians and gay men, it has also been incited on a grassroots level across the country by the Christian right wing, which has involved itself intimately in exploiting popular inclinations and reinforcing discrimination at the federal and local levels.

Sex, Reason, And A Taste For The Absurd, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Like much of Richard Posner's best work, Sex and Reason does many things, and for that reason will no doubt attract a large and diverse readership. This heavily footnoted, exhaustively researched, and imminently accessible book is a welcome introduction to the interdisciplinary study of sex. For the lay reader it presents an arresting set of speculations about human sexuality, drawn from the author's evident familiarity with a sizeable library of studies representing at least half a dozen scientific and social scientific disciplines, assembled in a readable and lively way. Of more interest, perhaps, to academicians and social scientists familiar with …

The (Queer) Revolution Will Not Be Liberalized, Sarah E. Chinn, Kris Franklin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Decriminalizing Prostitution: Liberation Or Dehumanization?, Carlin Meyer

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Homosexuality And Public Policy, Gerard V. Bradley

Journal Articles

No need to lament the fate of Mr. Dysart, who does seem to have been a well-intentioned fellow.

The point of relating Dysart's travails is to bring to life, through one illustration, the American legal and constitutional tradition governing sexual immorality, from the founding until the 1960's.

Dysart's lawyers made no constitutional claim. The Supreme Court raised none of its own. The Justices did not even question their prior test for "obscenity." They simply declared that Dysart remained on its safe side, that as a matter of law the notices were not obscene.

I agree with the Supreme Court's conclusion. …

Building Bridges Between Theory And Practice, Activism And Scholarship, Elizabeth M. Schneider

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Does Sexual Harassment Require Proof Of Psychological Injury? An Analysis Of Harris V. Forklift Systems, Barbara J. Fick

Journal Articles

This article previews the Supreme Court case Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 510 U.S. 17 (1993). The author expected the Court to address whether, under Title VII the Civil Rights Act of 1965, a plaintiff is required to prove that he or she suffered psychological injury as a result of sexual harassment in the workplace in order to prove a hostile-environment.

Outing: Justifiable Or Unwarranted Invasion Of Privacy? The Private Facts Tort As A Remedy For Disclosures Of Sexual Orientation, Barbara Moretti

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Sexual Orientation And The Workplace: A Rapidly Developing Field, Arthur S. Leonard

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Legitimating The Illegitimate: A Comment On 'Beyond Rape', Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Professor Dripps's provocative proposal, as I understand it, is that we think of sex as a commodity and rape as the theft of that commodity. Understood as such, the theft of sex accomplished through violence or the threat of violence is a twofold wrong: it violates our "negative" right to refuse to have sex with anyone for any or no reason, and violence or the threat of violence infringes our right to personal, physical security. Therefore, the violent expropriation of sex should be punished as a major felony, as is violent rape, at least in theory.
  
Furthermore, according to Dripps, …

Identity, Speech, And Equality, Nan D. Hunter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

My experience as a litigator tells me that the First Amendment as provided the most reliable path to success of any of the doctrinal claims utilized by lesbian and gay rights lawyers. Certainly no other block of cases can rival the success rate of the cases seeking recognition and even funding of lesbian and gay student organizations, all of which were brought on First Amendment grounds and ultimately won by plaintiffs.

A Defense Of Prostitutes' Self-Organization, Drucilla Cornell

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article advocates for the decriminalization of prostitution as a necessary step toward empowering sex workers to self-organize and improve their working conditions. Drawing on personal experiences as a union organizer in the 1970s, the author highlights the shared struggles of women workers, including prostitutes, under exploitative capitalist systems. The article emphasizes the importance of recognizing prostitutes as workers deserving of labor rights and union representation, rather than viewing them solely as victims. It critiques the exclusion of sex workers from traditional labor organizing and argues that decriminalization would enable them to collectively address their exploitation and deconstruct oppressive conditions.

A Unified Approach To Causation In Disparate Treatment Cases: Using Sexual Harassment By Supervisors As The Causal Nexus For The Discriminatory Motivating Factor In Mixed Motive Cases, Margaret E. Johnson

All Faculty Scholarship

This Comment examines a unified approach for disparate treatment mixed motives claims paired with sexual harassment claims under Title VII. The Author argues that because of the policy for nondiscriminatory and desegregated work environments embodied in Title VII, and because of the documented harm resulting from sexual harassment, courts should allow the burden of proof to shift to the defendant if the plaintiff demonstrates that her supervisor sexually harassed her, or condoned the harassment, and that the harassing supervisor made an employment decision that was adverse to her.

A Date With Justice: Prostitution And The Decriminalization Debate, Margaret A. Baldwin

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article critiques the decriminalization of prostitution, arguing that it fails to address the systemic exploitation and violence faced by women in prostitution. The author contends that decriminalization would empower pimps, johns, and legal systems to further exploit women, as it legitimizes their power dynamics. The analysis emphasizes the need to prioritize the survival and empowerment of prostituted women over legal reforms that benefit their exploiters.

Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death: Political Asylum And The Global Persecution Of Lesbians And Gay Men, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

In a time marked by dramatic global change, women and men persecuted because they are lesbian or gay form part of the growing pool of international refugees. Their persecution takes the form of police harassment an assault, involuntary institutionalization and electroshock and drug "treatments," punishment under laws that impose extreme penalties including death for consensual lesbian or gay sexual relations, murder by paramilitary death squads, and government inaction in response to criminal assaults against lesbians and gay men. The survival of these women and men, like the survival of all refugees, depends on obtaining asylum outside the home country. Yet, …

Catharine's Wheel: Mackinnon's Pornography Analysis As A Return To Traditional Christian Sexual Theory, Jeanne L. Schroeder

Articles

The article argues that Catharine MacKinnon's analysis of pornography and sexuality, while presented as radical feminist theory, ultimately incorporates traditional elements from Christian sexual theory and modern liberalism. MacKinnon's critique of pornography as a mechanism of gender subordination aligns with Augustine's view of sexuality as a loss of subjectivity, where involuntary sexual desire symbolizes the Fall's consequences. Despite her sociopolitical analysis, MacKinnon's failure to recognize these influences and her lack of a positive vision for female subjectivity limit her critique's transformative potential.

Cunning Stunts: From Hegemony To Desire A Review Of Madonna's Sex, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

What is sex? Is it an accidental or contingent property that every person can be said to have? I am brunette and female, but the Pope is bald and male. Or, is sex more constitutive, that is, an essential part of who we are? In this respect, the claim is often made that women experience the world ditfierently than men. Or, is sex something we do?

If we consider sex as an adjective, can we or should we be able to manipulate it like a new hair style? Or does the notion of sexual malleability trivialize the significance …

Rumpelstiltskin (Review Essay), Katharine T. Bartlett

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Bartlett's article is one of five commentaries continuing the debate concerning human sexuality and its regulation begun by Judge Richard Posner's in his book, Sex and Reason (1992). Bartlett's essay responds generally to the book and specifically to his application of economic principles to sexuality.

The Eclipse Of Reason: A Rhetorical Reading Of Bowers V. Hardwick, Kendall Thomas

Faculty Scholarship

In a careful and compelling reading of the text of the Supreme Court's opinion in Bowers v. Hardwick, Janet Halley provides a meticulous map of the misprisions by which the Hardwick Court "exploit[s] confusion about what sodomy is in ways that create opportunities for the [judicial] exercise of homophobic power." According to Professor Halley, the duplicitous mechanisms the Hardwick Court marshals in reasoning about sodomy entail a mobilization of two "incommensurable articulations": the idea of the sodomitical act, on the one hand, and that of personal identity, on the other.

Professor Halley rightly insists that an anti-homophobic critique …

You've Built The Bridge, Why Don't You Cross It? A Call For State Labor Laws Prohibiting Private Employment Discrimination On The Basis Of Sexual Orientation, David E. Morrison

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The call for legal reform to prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation has been prevalent since at least the 1970s. Part I of this Note examines sexual orientation as a protected status at the federal and state level. Tracing the development of case law interpreting Title VII, it is evident that current federal laws have been of little use to gay men and lesbians. As a result, employment discrimination against homosexuals has been widespread. Part II of this Note discusses how the foundation for reform already has been created at the state level. This foundation began with state …

Sex Selection: Regulating Technology Enabling The Predetermination Of A Child's Gender, Owen D. Jones

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The debate over the prohibition of sex (or gender) selection (also known as "preselection" or "predetermination"), has focused almost exclusively on the context of aborting a "wrong-sex" fetus after a fetal gender-identification procedure. Despite the fact that sex selection abortions represent only a small subset of sex selection procedures, attitudes toward the former are driving general policy approaches to the latter. However, the issues are analytically distinct, and only during the former infancy of the pre-conceptive (and non-abortive post-conceptive) technology for sex selection were members on both sides of the debate afforded the economy of using one logic to support …