"Police Free Gay Slaves": Consent, Sexuality, and the Law

Abstract

On 11 January 1995, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg agreed hear complaint against Great Britain by three gay men imprisoned for sado-masochistic sexual practices in the infamous Operation Spanner case.l This international hearing addressed the vital question, If man wants his scrotum sandpapered in the privacy of his own home, is it anybody else's business? The complaint the Court arose after the United Kingdom had sentenced sixteen men prison for engaging in consensual sado-masochistic sexual activities; specifically, among other things, nailing each other's willies the skirting b ~ r d . ~ The men were convicted on assault charges; the case was unusual in that the evidence against them was set of videotapes of the activity rather than the testimony of any victim. Since the activity itself was entirely consensual, there was no complaining witness in any of the cases.4 The Commission eventually rejected the men's complaint, ruling that the state has the right interfere in the private lives of its citizens to protect health and moral^.^ One commentator called the day of the Commission's decision a black day for human rights in Europe, arguing that the Commission's Judge Pettiti displays contempt for individual freedom unrivalled even by the Thought Police in Orwell's 1984.6 Underlying such condemnations of the Commission's judgment is an insistence that the government stay out of the affairs of consenting adults. It is presumed by critics that the state should not interfere with the consensual sexual activities of individuals, no matter how bizarre such activities might seem other^.^ Because the men involved consented the activities they engaged in, it is argued, any physical harm sustained by the participants should be deemed no more injurious public health and morals than similar injuries that might occur during particularly vigorous boxing match or mountain climb. This essay is an attempt understand the discursive apparatus surrounding sexual in the broader context of the history of the Anglo-American juridico-legal repression of sexuality. The goal of this essay is make few observations about the production of erotic subjectivities through juridico-legal discursive ma~hinery.~ I have chosen rather circuitous route this goal. Rather than approaching the problem systematically in order arrive at final conclusions, I have chosen analyze cluster of events in Anglo-American juridico-legal history in order tease out some of the implications of the way in which certain assumptions about consent circumscribe erotic identities.