Sex

Lying to get into someone's pants: Not just skeezy, but tortious, too.

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Professor Deana Pollard Sacks writes, over at Feminist Law Professors:

Since 2005, four states have finally recognized that fraudulent inducement of sex is rape. Not just immoral, not just “boys being boys” behavior, but misappropriation of a woman’s personal right to choose who invades her body. Perhaps surprisingly, the first state to recognize fraudulent inducement of sex as a basis for rape was Alabama in 2005.

Well, it’s not that surprising — Alabama’s not really that big on sex. Remember their sex toys ban?

California, Michigan, and Tennessee followed suit the following two years, and Peter Koutoujian of Massachusetts filed a similar bill in February, 2008, which, when passed, will make Massachusetts the fifth state to recognize the crime of “stealing” another’s sexual prerogative.

As Britney Spears famously sang, covering the Bobby Brown hit: “That’s my prerogative. They say I’m nasty. But I don’t give a damn. Getting boys is how I live.”

Oh, sorry, we got distracted. Back to Professor Sacks:

…. In a world filled with dangerous sexual diseases, it is particularly important to protect women’s rights to protect their own bodies, not just against physical violence, but against fraudulent inducement of sexual decisions and all of the dangerous consequences that can result from a lack of truly informed consent to sexual relations. For more background about the need for tort law to respond to the reality of sexual misappropriation, see my new article, Intentional Sex Torts, to be published in the Fordham Law Review in the fall of 2008.

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Marc Randazza — whose Legal Satyricon blog is excellent, even if more sex-obsessed than ATL — is skeptical:

Expanding tort law to cover dishonest sexual encounters is a horrifying proposition. We have to be left to be human — even if that means that some immoral, abhorrent, and even disgusting behavior will leak through the sieve of our legal system. There simply does not need to be a law to cover every bit of sketchy behavior. For as long as we live and love, someone will lie about their feelings to someone else. Hearts will break. Men and women will lie to each other. Men and women will sleep with each other for the wrong reasons. I’m not simply arguing that “boys will be boys.” I am arguing that this is the yin to the yang of love, passion, and ecstasy.

Every time you meet someone or f*** someone, you are taking a risk. That’s part of the thrill!

True. But if it burns when you pee a few weeks later, the “thrill” is pretty much gone.

I wonder how the legal academy would respond if I published a law review article, Cock-blocking as tortious interference with sexual relationships.

Sounds like a tough sell. Try the Journal of Law & Chauvinism. But if they don’t accept it, nobody will.

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We have enough problems with the religious right trying to squeeze government under our bedroom doors. Don’t let bored law professors push tort lawyers under our sheets too.

These are just snippets from two interesting, longer posts. Read them in full over here (Sacks) and here (Randazza).

Intentional Sex Torts [Feminist Law Professors]

“Intentional sex torts” [Legal Satyricon]

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