Followers

Monday 2 May 2011

PORNOGRAPHY IN A FREE SOCIETY



ISBN-13-978-0-521-36317-4
Writers: Gordon Hawkins & Franklin E. Zimring
Title: Pornography in a Free Society
Language: English
Place of Publication: Cambridge, New Rochelle, Melbourne, Sydney
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year of Publication: 1988
Format: 154x234mm
Pages:xiii+236; References, 227; Index, 233
Tables and Figures: 18 single colour
Binding: Cloth in duotone dust jacket
Jacket design: Dennis Arnold
Weight: 495gr.
Entry No.: 2011011
Entry Date: 2nd May 2011


BOOK DESCRIPTION

Pornography in A Free Society addresses an issue about which citizens of Western nations are sharply divided, one regarded as sufficiently important to justify the establishment of four nationally chartered commissions within twenty years: in the United States in 1968, in Great Britain in 1977, in Canada in 1985, and in the United States again in 1985. The reports of the two American commissions were met with storms of protest and denunciation. That of the first, appointed by President Johnson, was denounced as legitimizing pornography and rejected as “morally bankrupt” by President Nixon when it appeared in 1970. That of the second, appointed by Attorney General William French Smith at the specific request of President Ronald Reagan, was criticized for its “glaring and persistent biases” and condemned as “the signal for a gigantic national crusade… against demon porn” when it appeared in 1986.

The immediate stimulus for this book was the publication of the 1986 report. Gordon Hawkins and Franklin Zimring attempt to look at the problem of pornography in a wider perspective than that of partisan political debate. To that end, they compare the two American reports with the report of the British Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorship, which appeared during the years between the American reports. Then they consider a number of particular problems that have become significant with the increased availability of sexually explicit material since the 1960s: pornography and the status of women; pornography and child protection; and the social control of pornography without censorship.

Pornography has been described as a problem “freighted with all the anxieties and hypocrisies of society’s attitude toward sex.” The authors argue that the furor over pornography and the commissions themselves are part of a “ceremony of adjustment” to widespread availability of sexually explicit material, and that we can expect less social concern about pornography as time passes.

Whatever their own views, readers will find the authors’ analysis of the conceptual basis of the controversy over pornography interesting and compelling.

SEXUAL SCIENCE AND THE LAW




ISBN-13-978-0-674-80268-3
Writer: Richard Green
Title: Sexual Science and the Law
Language: English
Place of Publication: Cambridge, MA & London, England
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Year of Publication: 1992
Format: 152x241mm
Pages:323 printed on acid-free paper; Notes, 269; Index, 313
Binding: Boards in colour dust jacket
Jacket design: Annamarie McMahon
Weight: 569gr.
Entry No.: 2011010
Entry Date: 2nd May 2011


BOOK DESCRIPTION
A rape victim charges that pornography caused her attacker to become a sex offender. A lesbian mother fights for custody of her child. A transsexual pilot is fired by a commercial airline after undergoing sex change and sues for sex discrimination. A homosexual is denied employment because of sexual orientation. A woman argues that her criminal behavior should be excused because she suffers from premenstrual syndrome. The law has much to say about sexual behavior, but what it says is rarely influenced by the findings of social science research over recent decades. This book focuses for the first time on the dynamic interplay between sexual science and legal decision-making. Reflecting the author’s wide experience as a respected sex researcher, expert witness, and lawyer, Sexual Science and the Law provides valuable insights into some of the most controversial social and sexual topics of our time.

Drawing on an exhaustive knowledge of the relevant research and citing extensively from case law and court transcripts, Richard Green demonstrates how the work of sexual science could bring about a transformation in jurisprudence, informing the courts in their deliberations on issues such as sexual privacy, homosexuality, prostitution, abortion, pornography, and sexual abuse. In each case he considers, Green shows how the law has been shaped by social science or impoverished by reliance on conjecture and received wisdom. He examines the role of sexual science in legal controversy, its analysis of human motivation and behavior, and its use by the courts in determining the relative weight to be given the desires of the individual, the standards of society, and the power of the state in limiting sexual autonomy.

Unprecedented in its portrayal of sexuality in a legal context, this scholarly but readable book will interest and educate professional and  layperson alike –those  lawyers, judges, sex educators, therapists, patients, and citizens who find themselves standing nonplussed at the meeting place of morality and behavior.