Sex Laws and Sexuality Rights in Comparative and Global Perspectives

Abstract

This article seeks to explain the emergence of a new field of study oriented toward sex laws and sexuality rights in comparative and global perspectives. We argue that this field comes into focus because of three changes in the social context: the introductions of sexuality into sex, of human rights into national laws, and of global into comparative perspectives. Each turn of the social kaleidoscope generates new objects of and rationales for scholarly analysis, along with new ways and reasons to think about existing objects of analysis. Together, these contextual changes inaugurate the global study of sexuality rights and invigorate the comparative study of sex laws. Theoretical shifts accompany the empirical developments. Phenomenological approaches arise alongside their realist counterparts. The consolidation of this new field of study is important not only on academic grounds: It suggests the dynamics of a wider field of policy and practice.

Safe at home? Examining the extension of criminal penalties for marital rape in cross-national context, 1979–2013

“…For instance, international embeddedness influenced the diffusion of universal suffrage during the twentieth century, during which time, women gained the right to vote across most of the globe (Boli and Thomas 1997). After World War II, a greater focus on the rights of the individual and gender equality began to spread as a dominant script (Frank and Mceneaney 1999;Pandian 2019) and laws shifted from protecting collective entities, like family and state, to protecting individualized persons and their bodies (Frank et al 2010;Frank and Phillips 2013). While the criminalization of marital rape is one issue that has not fully diffused as a universal right across nations, previous research suggests that international embeddedness may play a role in the ongoing diffusion process among countries that have criminalized marital rape to date (Frank et al 2010;Frank and Moss 2017).…”

Don’t You Be My Neighbor! Perceptions of Homosexuality in Global Cross-Cultural Perspective, 1990 to 2019

“…In the United States, younger cohorts tend to analogize homosexuality with race (Hart-Brinson 2016), and a slight majority of Americans now believe that being gay or lesbian is a trait someone has from birth (Saad 2018). 4 Although “sexual ‘orientation’ and race are radically different forms of identity” (Walters 2014:165), the important point is that they are both increasingly understood in terms of identity , such that homosexuality—“being” gay—is now often deemed to transcend sexual behavior (Frank and Phillips 2013). One need not engage in same-sex sexual activity to identify as gay, nor do men who have sex with men or women with women necessarily adopt a gay identity (Frank and Meyer 2002).…”

The Catholic Church and International Law

“…This is something the Church cannot offer. Franco (1998) argues that the Church can gain leverage in other areas where its stance is less compatible with the secular mission of the UN by building on its altruistic and collective orientation to the poor. The battleground of poverty reduction, where states appear to lag behind, could serve as the Church's fort to defend its role as the original "altruistic other."…”