Carrie N. Baker (ed): Fighting the US Youth Sex Trade: Gender,Race, and Politics

Journal of Youth and Adolescence -     

Shameful Separations and Embarrassing Proximities: Affective Constructions of Political (Il)Legitimacy in the Danish Debate on Prostitution

Political documents on gender equality in the Nordic countries contain interesting systematic variations in justification strategies and discursive commitments at different political-rhetorical levels. This is particularly apparent when political texts move from general gender equality to arguing about specific issues. This article looks at the variety of "versions" of gender equality that appear when the discourses of gender and the conceptualisations of power that inform Swedish political party documents are scrutinised. Consequences of different versions of gender equality for rhetoric about policy measures and rhetorical uses of "uniformity" versus "heterogeneity" are also discussed.     

Sex and the civil partnership act: the future of (non) conjugality?

This article considers the transgressive and transformative possibilities in the sexual silences of the U.K.’s Civil Partnership Act 2004. The absence of a consummation requirement and adultery as a specific ground of dissolution do open up some possibilities but are not unproblematic. These issues are explored in the context of the England and Wales Law Commission’s apparent ‘return’ to a conjugal model in its forthcoming consultation on cohabitation. It is concluded that though the Act may open up possibilities for expanding the legal recognition of relationships beyond those that are sexual, this raises concerns about the further privatisation of care as well as increased state intervention in relationships. Instead, I argue that the purpose and function of relationship recognition should be deconstructed and separated from ideology and romantic mythology about what families and relationships are and should be. If it does wed itself so closely to the conjugal marriage model in the consultation document, the Law Commission will miss a valuable opportunity to ask important questions about the purpose and function of relationship recognition.