In Other Words: Putting Sex and Pornography in Context

Abstract

We cannot ask reason to take us across the gulfs of the absurd. Only the imagination can get us out of the eternal present.—Ursula Le GuinLaw controls sexuality not only by its coercive powers, but also through its discursive constructions. While there are other social forces and influences in play, sexual identities and sexual practices are framed within the ample reach of law’s linguistic domain. As well as enforcing prevailing moral norms and deciding the scope of socially-validated sexual behaviour, law also determines what counts as sex in the tableau of human behaviour. Although the relationship of law, sexuality and sex is always ideologically fraught, it is particularly so in regard to graphic representations of sex and sexuality. The debate around this so-calledpornographyhits a very sensitive nerve in the body politic. Indeed, in recent years, few social practices have managed to arouse as much intellectual angst and political anger as pornography. In part, this is because the debate seems to cut across traditional political lines; it sets traditional enemies against each other and fosters strange alliances among them. None of this should be too surprising as pornography touches profound issues which strike at the very heart of those dilemmas, difficulties and denials that comprise the human condition.