SLSA 2013 CFP: Gender, Sexuality and Law

I'm once again organising the Gender, Sexuality and Law Stream at the Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference next year.  It's going to be at the University of York and will take place March 26-28th.  I hope many of you will be able to make it, and that you'll consider presenting a paper or poster.  You can see all the Calls for Papers here, along with general info on the conference.

Obscentiy Lawyer is Junior Lawyer of the Year 2012

Yes, I've been far too slow getting to a story that I'm sure many of you are already aware of.  Nonetheless, it seemed important to still mark the occasion.

The brilliant, kind and now, award-winning, Myles Jackman (aka @ObscenityLawyer) of Hodge, Jones & Allen LLP, walked away with the Junior Lawyer of the Year Award at the Law Society bash last month.  

Myles has forged a reputation through his obscenity work, and the high-profile cases of Peacock, Walsh (which I was involved with in a tiny tiny way), and the 'Tiger Porn' case.  I have found him to have a deep and sophisticated understanding of sexuality, legal theory and human rights.    That sounds a little bit patronising, but what I mean to say is that he's a guy who brings an awful lot to the practise of law and that depth of understanding benefits his work and his clients.   Undergraduate law students seeking to undertake a career in the law, should perhaps consider the long-term benefits of the broader, more liberal-arts subjects as part of their studies alongside narrower vocational subjects.

Myles also appears in the Law Society Gazette today reflecting on his 'legal life', and the short piece is well worth a read.  His closing remarksshould be reflected upon by all law students:  'If you want to be a lawyer but are not sure what to do, be a corporate lawyer.  If you have a calling – a vocation – be a legal aid lawyer.'

Book launch for Homosexuality and the European Court of Human Rights

I'm sure this will be a terrific event for an important book.  Try and make it if you can.

Thursday 1st November 2012, 7pm

Gay's the Word bookshop
66 Marchmont Street
London, WC1N 1AB

The author of Homosexuality and the European Court of Human Rights would be delighted if you could join him for a discussion of some of the important issues raised in this first book-length study of the Court’s jurisprudence on sexual orientation.

The book offers a socio-legal analysis of the substantial number of decisions and judgments of the Strasbourg organs on the wide range of complaints brought by gay men and lesbians under the European Convention on Human Rights. It provides a systematic analysis of Strasbourgcase law since 1955 and examines decades of decisions that have hitherto remained obscure. Going beyond doctrinal analysis by employing a nuanced sociological consideration of Strasbourg jurisprudence, the book shows how the Court is a site at which homosexuality is both socially constructed and regulated.

The author argues that the Court’s judgments have played an important role in reshaping the landscape of sexuality in contemporary Europe and have provided lesbians and gay men with an authoritative and powerful resource with which to challenge homophobic and heteronormative social relations. The book identifies limitations in the Court’s approach to homosexuality and aims to promote discussion about how its interpretation of the Convention might be evolved in the future to better protect lesbian and gay rights and lives.

There will be a talk by the author, followed by open discussion and a wine reception.

The event is open to all and if you wish to attend please send an email to paul.johnson@york.ac.uk 

Published by Routledge, a GlassHouse book. ISBN: 978-0415696579

Paul Johnson is Anniversary Reader in Sociology at the University of York.

Bisexuality, Social Science Research and Re-discovering the Personal

A lot of fellow academics think I have a nice time of it given I spend so much of my research exploring issues of public sex, barebacking and porn. Oh yes, it's a string of rampant antics and masturbatory machinations. Well, no it's not. Not quite. When I therefore read of scientists who spend their time attaching penises to electrodes (or electrodes to penises - I find myself pondering this sentence structure) and watching men orgasm all day, I know that it might sound more fun than it is.

Anyway, I found myself thinking of these fellow academics upon reading Mark Simpson's latest blog post in which he highlights what he calls 'those kinky penile plethysmograph fetishists at Northwestern University [who] just can’t get enough cock.'

This latest study reveals (shock, horror) that bisexual men do exist. Interestingly, Simpson doesn't welcome the report and is critical of the impact these findings will have on bisexual identity (read his post in full here).

Simpson disciple (or Simpsonista), Quiet Riot Girl (and regular commenter on this blog) supports Simpson's claims, noting that his own comments are rooted in experience rather than the 'removed' objectivity of science. I've spoken at a number of conferences and written on what I regard as a failure of modern day academia in addressing the personal. For reasons of complex ethics and established methodological norms, we can not (usually) merely talk about our own experiences even though we quietly acknowledge that they are crucial. In contrast to the 'say it all' scholarship of the 1960s and 1970s, social science research has become impersonal.

Nonetheless, this is starting to change. Tim Dean's Unlimited Intimacy is a remarkable mould breaker. Similarly, I was recently on the awards committee that bestowed the 2011 Hart-SLSA book prize to Rosie Harding's Regulating Sexuality - a book that includes a moving and powerful personal conclusion. If social science is having these difficulties, it is perhaps unsurprising that traditional science operates in a separate silo. A silo in which things can only be precisely measured, prodded and reduced to quantifiable data. Social scientists have traditionally stood as a counter-wight to this, and if anything, the comments of Simpson and QRG are a reminder that we need to re-discover the personal in our own writing.

Notes From a Porn Island: Queer Identities and Documenting Legal Truth(s) in the Age of Treasure Island Media

I was away at the Law and Society Annual Conference last week (reflections to follow). My paper was as titled above, and below you can read my abstract (summary) and take a look at my slides from the paper presentation. All thoughts/comments welcome. I'm hoping to (finally!) finish an article this summer and get it sent off to a journal (probably sociology based).

Abstract:

Paul Morris cuts a controversial figure in the world of queer pornography. The San Francisco based Director and founder of Treasure Island Media (TIM) remains at the centre of a company that seeks to celebrate, highlight and explore the ‘raw’ sexual experience whether through bareback anal sex, intense oral sexual encounters and cascades of semen.

Morris’ films shock, excite and sell. The recent emergence of a ‘spin off’ website called Ryan Sullivan’s Island produced by TIM employee and film-maker, Ryan Sullivan claims to offer viewers an insight into the world of Treasure Island Media as well as insights into the personal journey of Ryan Sullivan.

Morris is himself at the heart of the bareback controversy, revelling in a brand that casts him as a demonic and twisted porn master, his ‘performers’ cast as the male species set free. Morris has commented that ‘TIM was meant to be a kind of pornographic nature reserve, a place where wildness could take place and be observed.’ For him, bareback porn represents an authentic documenting of the gay sex experience; the notion that wild ‘authentic’ men released from the bonds of a heteronormative society fuck as TIM records them. Rather than porn as the producer of fantasy, here TIM seeks to document gay masculinity as a lived experience.

Lsa11 notes from a porn island

View more presentations from Chris Ashford

In doing so, it challenges the established norms of the HIV/AIDS world, a socio-legal culture that seeks to respond to the medical realities of a world in which the spread of HIV/AIDS is a political and cultural concern in which even promiscuous slutdom is constructed through the ethics of high-risk health strategies. Since the emergence of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and the subsequent medical response, the lives of gay men have been transformed leading to Carl Stychin noting that ‘the politics of safe sex education…is surely one of the primary moral issues surrounding our sexuality today.’ Fifteen years on from those words being published, it remains equally true.

This paper will seek to explore how TIM is attempting to document bareback gay sex within the wider context of bareback and bareback pornography. It will highlight the latest move by the Company within the context of ‘barebacking bloggers’ through Ryan Sullivan’s video log and film Island to document itself, and in doing so, will consider the construction of pornographic truth that TIM seeks to present, and the challenge that represents for the legal construction of queer sex.

Living with a Sex Offender

Absolutely fascinating piece in the Guardian today from a woman who describes falling in love with, and now living with a guy who turned out to be a sex offender. There are many who will point to the author's revelation that she herself was sexually abused as a child. I also find it interesting that it's only towards the end of the piece that there appears to be an age dimension to the sex crime committed by her partner - it's very vague. Thus, given someone has chosen tow rite and publish this, there also seems unease at the situation. It's a reminder that sex offenders are human beings (shock, horror) but also that there is a lasting legacy from sex crime for the victim, the offender and also anyone who comes into contact with that individual. As this piece makes clear, to be placed on the sex offenders register is to become socially radioactive. Well worth a read, check it out here.

Socio-Legal Perspectives on Gender, Sexuality and Law

So, here's another article upload. This is actually the opening piece to a special issue of Liverpool Law Review I edited with the same title as my opening piece. You can view the full contents list of that issue here. It's packed with really great articles. As well as considering the meaning of socio-legal, I offer my take on the emerging 'field' of Gender, Sexuality and Law. The full reference for the piece is below. Check it out, and if you like it, cite it! :-) Thanks.

Ashford, C (2010) ‘Socio-Legal Perspectives on Gender, Sexuality and Law’, Liverpool Law Review, 31(1): 1.

Ashford socio legal perspectives

View more documents from Chris Ashford.