If you’ve been paying attention to the news, or to NCSF Media Updates, you’ve probably read about a recent case brewing in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, of BDSM gone horribly wrong. Horribly. At the beginning of June the first story arrived, sensationalized: Three accused of keeping transgender woman as slave in Natchitoches Parish: “According to investigators, […]
If you follow the world of sex and law (as I assume you do), you may have noticed that the internets are ablaze with enthusiasm over a judge in Utah taking a slice out of the bigamy law. The short form of the long story is that the Brown family, featured on reality TV show […]
“Sexual freedom is a fundamental human right” – this mantra was the theme of Woodhull Alliance’s 2013 Sexual Freedom Summit, held this past September just outside of Washington DC. The Alliance is an organization that unites disparate groups and people who fight for greater sexual freedom, whether their fights are in courts or classrooms, in […]
You may have heard that with the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (the DSM-5), the American Psychological Association had “depathologized kink;” that the paraphilias (Fetishism, Sexual Masochism, Sadism… all of the ISM’s close to our hearts) are no longer necessarily diagnosable mental illnesses. This is tremendous news for kinky folks – especially […]
There has been a lot written recently about the conviction of Gilberto Valle, “Cannibal cop,” and advent of “thought crime.” (an interesting point-counterpoint at Salon, and great thorough coverage by Daniel Engber’s Slate.com) Gilberto Valle is the New York cop who fantasized in elaborate and gruesome detail about kidnapping, cooking and eating a young woman […]
In Rhode Island, by an oversight of the criminal code indoor prostitution was legal until just recently; in Reno Nevada it’s still legal. Next door in California, anyone convicted of prostuitution could face up to one year in prison and $1,000 fine. Las Vegas and Atlantic City used to be the only places you could […]
All-or-nothing…compromise…all-or-nothing…compromise. So beat the political drum for decades, with both parties electing theirs on all-or-nothing platforms, but most legislation happening as a result of compromise. But you cannot help but notice that talk of compromise is at an all-time low, at least on the national stage. In Massachusetts on the other hand, if you look […]
OK, I will confess, I really wanted to write something else. I really wanted to write about the interesting obscenity case going on in the United Kingdom, or about whether prostitution laws apply to pro-dommes. I really wasn’t planning on writing another “you can’t consent to assault in the context of a BDSM relationship” article. […]
I presented a class on BDSM, Sex, and the Law: Consent and Beyond at the New England Dungeon Society last Friday, subtitle: “when things go horribly wrong.” Because the truth is, “The Law” doesn’t get involved unless things do go horribly wrong. In fact, some might say that getting “The Law” involved is the very definition of things […]
By Brian Flaherty Over the past few decades, the number of federal criminal laws has grown dramatically. Crimes which used to be prosecuted in the states have been adopted – co-opted – by the federal code. For example, in 1994 the U.S. Congress passed the Violence against Women Act, among other things federalizing laws against […]