The swing of the pendulum: the detraditionalisation of the regulation of sexuality and intimacy in Belgium (1973–2003)

Abstract

The current transformation of sex legislation in liberal democracies is usually described in terms of growing permissiveness or, on the contrary, as the result of a conservative backlash. A review of the changes in the Belgian sex legislation during the past three decades, however, demonstrates that both models are inadequate to understand this transformation. Indeed, in the 1973–1989 period various Acts resulted in a liberalisation of sexual behaviour in Belgium, while from 1989 onwards new legislative restrictions were introduced. While traditional regulations referred to a vague notion of public morality, these new measures explicitly aimed at protecting victims of sexual violence, e.g., minors or prostitutes from Third World countries. This new regulatory regime can therefore be considered as an example of ‘detraditionalised’ (Giddens) regulation of sexuality: new rules can only be considered as legitimate if they are congruent with the fundamental values of contemporary, individualised and rationalised societies.