Description
Book SynopsisPresents an approach to regulating intimacy that promises to defuse the tensions that have sparked conflict among legislators, jurists, activists, and scholars. Can law stay out of the bedroom without shielding oppression and abuse? This book present a defense of privacy, based on the idea that norms and rights are legally constructed.
Trade Review"Cohen challenges each reader to defend his or her own normative account of liberty and equality... By proposing a role for reflexive law outside the realm of technocracy, Cohen offers the possibility that our collective efforts to solve our practical problems can aid in articulating the rights that define the kinds of persons we are."--Michael C. Dorf, Columbia Law Review "Although Jean L. Cohen focuses on sexual relations, reproductive rights, and sexual discrimination, her reflexive paradigm of law applies to any sort of legal regulations... [F]or those scholars interested in a theoretically grounded approach to understanding the Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas, as well as any type of legal regulation ... Cohen's book is worth the effort."--Daniel Mangis, Rhetoric and Public Affairs
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Overview 5 CHAPTER ONE: Constitutional Privacy in the Domain of Intimacy: The Battle over Reproductive Rights 22 The Feminist Egalitarian Critique of Privacy Analysis 28 The Communitarian Critique 42 Privacy as Decisional Autonomy: The Isolated, Disembedded Self? 44 Privacy and Identity 49 A Constructivist Justification of the New Privacy Rights 52 The Scope of Privacy: Bringing the Body Back In 57 Excursus: On Property, Privacy, and Legal Paradigms 64 Conclusion 74 CHAPTER TWO: Is There a Duty of Privacy? Law, Sexual Orientation, and the Dilemmas of Difference 77 The Neo-Republican Revival of Privacy Discourse 78 The "New Military Policy": Privacy Protection for Gays and Lesbians? 84 The Right to Privacy and the "Epistemology of the Closet" 86 The Construction of a Stigmatized Identity: Bowers v. Hardwick 94 The Personhood Justification: Normative Paradoxes 97 The Libertarian Solution: Morally Indifferent Sex and the Harm Principle 101 Conclusion 116 CHAPTER THREE: Sexual Harassment Law: Equality vs. Expressive Freedom and Personal Privacy? 125 The Development of Sexual Harassment Law 127 The Hegemonic Feminist Sex-Desire/Subordination Model 129 Liberal Objections 132 Liberal Feminist Alternatives: Redefining the Harm 134 Postmodern Feminist Reframings: Criticizing Legal Normalization 136 Postmodern Feminist Reframings, Part 2: Redescribing the Role of Law 139 Legal Paradigms: An Explanation and a Way Out? 142 Conclusion 149 CHAPTER FOUR: The Debate over the Reflexive Paradigm 151 The Systems-Theoretical Model of Reflexive Law 153 The Action-Theoretical Approach: A Procedural Paradigm 157 A Proposed Synthesis: The Sociological Reflexivity Model 164 Responsive Law 169 Dangers of Reflexive/Procedural/Responsive Law: Arbitrariness and/or Normalization 172 Reconceptualizing the Reflexive Paradigm: A Synthetic, Pluralist Approach 175 CHAPTER FIVE: Status or Contract? Beyond the Dichotomy 180 The Traditional Status Regime Regulating Intimacy 182 Privatization of Family Law 184 The Communitarian Critique of Private Ordering: Toward a New Status Order 187 The Limits of Status 196 Conclusion 197 Notes 205 Cases Cited 261 Bibliography 263 Index 279
