Eric Berkowitz. (2015). The Boundaries of Desire: A Century of Good Sex, Bad Laws, and Changing Identities. Catapult.

Eric Berkowitz. 2015. The Boundaries of Desire: A Century of Good Sex, Bad Laws, and Changing Identities. Catapult.

Eric Berkowitz, The Boundaries of Desire: A Century of Good Sex, Bad Laws, and Changing Identities. Catapult, 2015.

Eric Berkowitz. The Boundaries of Desire: A Century of Good Sex, Bad Laws, and Changing Identities. Catapult, 2015.

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1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Berkowitz, Eric
   • bioText: Eric Berkowitz's lengthy career as a lawyer, journalist and writer has been marked by both meticulous scholarship and uncompromising advocacy. An active intellectual property, First Amendment and business litigator, his work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, California Lawyer, and The Washington Post, as well as websites such as
     Huffington Post, AlterNet and Salon. He has been interviewed widely for radio and television including for the History Channel's recent 9–partseries, "How Sex Changed the World." He lives in Los Angeles, California.
   • name: Eric Berkowitz

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2015-08-01T00:00:00-04:00

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title

The Boundaries of Desire

fullDescription

The act of reproduction, and its variants, never change much, but our ideas about the meaning of sex are in constant flux. Switch a decade, cross a border, or traverse class lines and the harmless pleasures of one group become the gravest crimes in another.
Combining meticulous research and lively storytelling, The Boundaries of Desire traces the fast–moving bloodsport of sex law over the past century, and challenges our most cherished notions about family, power, gender, and identity.
Starting when courts censored birth control information as pornography and let men rape their wives, and continuing through the "sexual revolution" and into the present day (when rape, gay rights, sex trafficking, and sex on the internet saturate the news), Berkowitz shows how the law has remained out of synch with the convulsive changes in sexual morality.
By focusing on the stories of real people, Berkowitz adds a compelling human element to what might otherwise be faceless legal battles. The law is made by people, after all, and nothing sparks intolerance – on the left and right –– more than sex. Ultimately, Berkowitz shows the emptiness of sanctimonious condemnation, and argues that sexual questions are too subtle and volatile for simple, catch–all solutions.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Slate
   • content: "Because sexual conventions tend to shape legislation rather than the reverse, sex law always lags behind our actual sex lives. As Berkowitz asserts, this leaves the former in a perpetual state of crisis. Time and time again, Berkowitz shows that sex laws are like ghosts, tormenting the living long after their own times have passed."
2. • premium: False
   • source: Booklist
   • content: "A bracing look at the often–strange relationship between sexuality and the legal system over six tumultuous decades."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Publishers Weekly Starred Review
   • content: "an eye–opening history of sexual legislation....Berkowitz makes legal history readable, not relying on the subject matter being salacious (which this book is not) but accessibly conveying sophisticated topics and complex events with the assurance of an expert....Readers will be sad to arrive at the end of this skillful piece of popular history."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Kirkus Starred Review
   • content: "Sagely, Berkowitz throws some much–needed light on the still–shadowy definition of obscenity ...The author cogently exposes what he believes is "panic mentality" in many cases of rape and child molestation. As laws and mores continue to change at a rapid pace, this engaging study offers helpful historical and legal explanations."
5. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from June 29, 2015
     Berkowitz, a lawyer with experience in intellectual property, First Amendment, and business litigation, presents an immersive, sometimes shocking history of changing sexual mores, and the laws pertaining to them, in the U.S. He covers topics including homosexuality, pedophilia, interracial couples, and sex trafficking, maintaining a pragmatic, non-judgmental tone. The result is an eye-opening history of sexual legislation. Readers will learn of historical givens that strike us as barbaric now (such as the onetime acceptance of marital rape, not fully outlawed in the U.S. until 1993) and of controversial ongoing practices (such as the lifelong registration of minors in sex-offender registries). Berkowitz makes legal history readable, not relying on the subject matter being salacious (which this book is not) but accessibly conveying sophisticated topics and complex events with the assurance of an expert. Moreover, he ties sexual legislation to disparate historical topics, including the eugenics movement, welfare policy, and even the outbreak of WWI. Readers will be sad to arrive at the end of this skillful piece of popular history. Agent: Andrew Stuart, Stuart Agency.

6. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from June 15, 2015
     This follow-up to lawyer Berkowitz's Sex and Punishment: Four Thousand Years of Judging Desire (2012) brings Western society's continued attempt at regulating sexual mores to the present. Sex, as the author pertinently grasps in this comprehensive survey that moves forward from around the turn of the 19th century, "burns at the intersection of existence, identity and power," and the way we regard it tells a great deal about our society. Berkowitz covers the enormous changes that have swept sex law in the categories of family and marriage; homosexuality; minors; definitions of obscenity; rape and sexual harassment; and interracial sexual relations and marriage. In each chapter, the author reveals the way that power has been gradually relinquished and fear vanquished. He explores the intractable (until a groundbreaking 1984 decision in New York) legal doctrine of what Berkowitz calls the "Rape-Your-Wife Privilege," which entitled a husband to force himself on what was legally his property; the increasing availability of birth control, which has allowed women agency over their bodies, especially significant to the health of working and poor women; the breaking of long-held stereotypes about black females being the "root cause of black poverty"; the defeat of what now appears to us astounding prejudice against "feebleminded" women who got pregnant and homosexuals as criminal and deserving of sterilization and incarceration; and how the hysterical terror of the sex offender prompted draconian residence-restriction laws. Sagely, Berkowitz throws some much-needed light on the still-shadowy definition of obscenity (for example, in public performance), pornography ("sexting" by minors, Clarence Thomas' record of porn-video rentals), and, especially, "the limits of consent" (what constitutes rape in the college setting and who should deal with it). The author cogently exposes what he believes is "panic mentality" in many cases of rape and child molestation. As laws and mores continue to change at a rapid pace, this engaging study offers helpful historical and legal explanations.

     COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

7. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     August 1, 2015
     In this erudite volume, lawyer and journalist Berkowitz examines in meticulous and fascinating detail a dizzying number of issues related to sexuality and the law: women's rights, gay rights, birth control, the eugenics movement, the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, the legalization of abortion, obscenity and the arts, rape and sexual harassment, and prostitution and sex trafficking. Berkowitz is especially interested in addressing sexuality in terms of the power of the strong over the bodies of the weak; hence, his investigations into Jews in Hitler's Germany killed for having German lovers, African Americans lynched for having relationships with whites, homosexuals forced to undergo lobotomies in mental hospitals as a cure, and sexting teenagers imprisoned as child pornographers. As Berkowitz points out, the law often lags behind social mores and behaviors. It adjusts too slowly to changing social norms and clings too tightly to noxious rules, he writes, citing antimiscegenation laws and Rape-Your-Wife Privilege as two of the most egregious examples. A bracing look at the often-strange relationship between sexuality and the legal system over six tumultuous decades.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

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42

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The act of reproduction, and its variants, never change much, but our ideas about the meaning of sex are in constant flux. Switch a decade, cross a border, or traverse class lines and the harmless pleasures of one group become the gravest crimes in another.
Combining meticulous research and lively storytelling, The Boundaries of Desire traces the fast–moving bloodsport of sex law over the past century, and challenges our most cherished notions about family, power, gender, and identity.
Starting when courts censored birth control information as pornography and let men rape their wives, and continuing through the "sexual revolution" and into the present day (when rape, gay rights, sex trafficking, and sex on the internet saturate the news), Berkowitz shows how the law has remained out of synch with the convulsive changes in sexual morality.
By focusing on the stories of real people, Berkowitz adds a compelling human element to what might otherwise be faceless...

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A Century of Good Sex, Bad Laws, and Changing Identities

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