Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology Online

Extract

Reference to sexuality in the day-to-day operation of the law is coterminous with the emergence of sexuality as a category in the wider society. However, its explicit appearance in the official texts of law such as constitutions, codes of law, and statutes is relatively recent. For example, some of the most familiar legal terms associated with sexuality (e.g., buggery, sodomy, and indecency), phrases such as age of consent, or other key legal terms (e.g., justice, equity, marriage, spouse, parent, contract, libel, slander, property interest, and the right to privacy) make no explicit reference to sexuality. Sexuality is read into these legal concepts. An example of the emergence of sexuality as a legal term of art is the phrase sexual orientation. This phrase made its first formal appearance in the official texts of law in 1973.One sign of an awareness of the pervasive significance of sexuality in the law is reflected in the move away from a preoccupation with criminal law in particular sexual offenses and the emergence of a more expansive exploration of sexuality across a wide range of areas of law, from property relations to access to fertility treatment, from taxation to hate crime, from domestic violence to international law, from the regulation of kinship to the regulation of business. Long dominated by work focusing on law in anglophone western liberal democratic states the ... log in or subscribe to read full text