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Law, Feminism and Sexuality: From Essence to Ethics?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

Carol Smart
Carol Smart
Affiliation:
Department of Social Policy, University of Leeds, U.K.
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Abstract

This paper explores current thinking on the meanings of sex, gender and sexuality and on the relationship between each of these concepts. It suggests that whilst feminist theory has adopted a social constructionist view of gender and, to a lesser extent, sexuality, it has left sex to the conceptual domain of biology. It has also prioritised gender over sexuality conceptually. These issues are explored in the specific area of sexuality and law where it is argued that recent theoretical developments on sex and sexuality within poststructuralist thought have, as yet, failed to influence the dominant understanding of heterosexual relations. Arguably in the field of law and sexuality, feminism has remained wedded to a notion of binary sex and identity politics. The paper then works through two specific instances, namely rape and S/M sexual practice, to identify some of the problems associated with the latter approach. Ultimately it raises questions about whether a poststructuralist politics imbued with feminist ethics might provide us with less essentialist models of masculine/male and feminine/female sexuality without either abandoning feminist political action or falling into a new sexual conservatism.

Résumé

Cet article étudie les divers sens attribués aux concepts de sexe, de genre et de sexualité dans la pensée contemporaine ainsi que la relation qu'ils y entretiennent entre eux. L'auteure suggère que si la théorie féministe a adopté une vue constructionniste sociale du concept de genre et, dans une moindre mesure, de celui de la sexualité, elle a toutefois abandonné la notion de sexe au domaine conceptuel de la biologic Elle a également accordé priorité au concept de genre par rapport à celui de sexualité. Ces questions sont ici analysées dans le domaine spécifique de la sexualité et du droit. L'auteur prétend que les développements théoriques récents en matière de sexe et de sexualité au sein de la pensée poststructuraliste n'ont pas, à ce jour, réussi à jouer d'influence sur la perception qui prévaut quant aux relations hétérosexuelles. L'auteure soutient que dans le domaine du droit et de la sexualité, le féminisme est demeuré lié à une notion binaire du sexe et aux politiques d'identité. Elle étudie ensuite deux cas spécifiques, soit le viol et les pratiques sexuelles sado-masochistes, afin d'identifier certains des problèmes associés à cette dernière approche. Enfin, l'auteure se demande si une politique poststructuraliste imprégnée d'éthique féministe peut fournir des modèles moins essentialistes de la sexualité masculine/mâle et féminine/femelle sans pour autant abandonner l'action politique féministe et tomber dans un nouveau conservatisme sexuel.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 9 , Issue 01: Law, Feminism and Sexuality/Droit, féminisme et sexualité , Spring/printemps 1994 , pp. 15 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 1994

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References

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24. By “reasonable” I mean here an argument which fits with legal reasoning—which may not be reasonable at all by any other standards!

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39. R. v. Brown and others (1992), 94 Cr. App. R. 302 (C.A.); R. v. Brown and other appeals, [1993] 2 All E. R. 75 (H.L.). The original criminal trial was held in December 1990 at the Central Criminal Court and was unreported.

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41. Supra note 39.

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46. Heterosexual S/M has rarely been a matter for the courts and even where it has been an obvious component of commercial sex in the form of torture instruments or descriptions of services offered, such elements have tended to produce mirth rather than specific criminal proceedings on assault.

47. Ferguson, supra note 21 at 163.

48. Ibid. at 166.