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Eight Venus in Robes: Richard Posner (1992), Sex and Reason
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Published:March 2012
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Abstract
This chapter reviews the book Sex and Reason (1992), by Richard Posner. Sex is ubiquitous in American courts, as it is in American life. Judges must deal with it in civil, criminal, and constitutional cases of many kinds; they are called upon to concern themselves with topics such as prostitution, homosexuality, contraception, nudity, child abuse, and erotic art. And yet, as Posner observes, judges often know very little about such topics. We all too often find opinions that combine naïveté with the puritanism and the moralism that are such a large part of the American cultural heritage. Prejudice, a lack of curiosity, flawed logic: all of these are depressingly common when judges confront the complexities of sex. Posner wishes to alter this situation. His book has three goals: to provide judges (and others) with information and arguments on sexual matters likely to come before the courts; to provide a comprehensive explanatory theory of sexual behavior, drawing both on economics and on evolutionary biology; and to advance a normative theory of sexual legislation that is “libertarian”.
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