Hard Bargains: The Politics of Sex

The main point of this pedantic text is that ""sex is political"" and that white women have historically bargained their way out of their status as possessions of white men. Retracing the path of male-female relations through Western civilization, the authors conclude that contemporary ""bargaining"" strategies in heterosexual relationships--the exchanges via ""force, sale [or] gift/barter"" that create ""sexual community""--stem from the increasing presence of women in public political roles, and that heterosexual relations are, like other human relationships, based on power. Hirshman, a professor of philosophy and women's studies at Brandeis, and Nelson, a law professor at the Univ. of Wisconsin, draw on such diverse sources as J.S. Mill, Woodhull & Clafin's Weekly (an organ of 19th-century free love advocate Victoria Woodhull) and the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code to develop a densely historical, philosophical and legal portrait of sex relations. Yet despite such delvings into the cultural record, the authors fail to address adequately the significance of race to the power balance (though topics such as the Great Migration are touched on). The role of evolving homosexual, especially lesbian, identity in forming community standards of femininity or masculinity, obscenity or pornography, or even what is considered ""political"" receives similarly short shrift. Scientific sexology studies are reported on more fruitfully, and theological developments are touched on vis-a-vis sexuality. The final section proposes ""a new structure of sexual regulation,"" but few beyond academe will have enough fortitude to make it that far. (Sept.)