Ummni Khan - Carleton University (original) (raw)

Journal Articles and Book Chapters by Ummni Khan

University of Toronto Law Journal , 2020

Historically, homosexuality and prostitution were both branded immoral vices that required crimin... more Historically, homosexuality and prostitution were both branded immoral vices that required criminalization, despite the fact that they were also considered 'victimless crimes.' Yet, in contemporary Canadian society, gays and lesbians have gained wide social acceptance and legal rights, while the sex trade has become more criminalized, stigmatized, and, for clients or third parties, vilified. This article explores the reasons for this divergence. First, drawing on radical queer critique, I problematize this framing, arguing that the equality and rights-based victories for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans community did not necessarily benefit all of its members. Building on this insight, I argue that those queers who are unable or uninterested in accessing the benefits ushered in by 'gay rights' have identities, proclivities, and vulnerabilities that overlap with those of sex workers and/or their clients. Part I of the article sets the socio-legal and political context, providing succinct overviews of key developments relating to gay and lesbian rights and of key developments relating to sex trade regulation, focusing primarily on the last fifty years. Part II analyses how gay/lesbian mainstream acceptance and the queer/sex trade marginalization occurred through overlapping discourses and laws related to privacy, bawdy houses/indecency, disease, spousal/ marital relations, and children. I end with a consideration of the intersectionality between queerness and the sex trade, both in terms of subjectivities and non-normative sexual practices.

Critical Analysis of Law, 2019

Sex trade clients have become a contested identity in academia and mainstream media. Some constru... more Sex trade clients have become a contested identity in academia and mainstream media. Some construct clients as exploitative and inherently deviant, while others destigmatize them as complex and varied. Regardless of one’s position, almost all of the discourse is authored by non-clients (or those who do not identify as clients). Chester Brown’s "Paying For It: A Comic-Strip Memoir About Being a John" marks an autobiographical intervention into the literature. In this 2011 Canadian memoir, Brown chronicles his journey from being a monogamous boyfriend to becoming a client of multiple sex workers.
This article uses Paying For It to situate Brown, and sex trade clients in general, as queer subjects in their rejection of relational normativity and engagement with criminalized consensual sexuality. Part I surveys the changing construction of sex trade clients from ordinary to deviant men, and reviews scholarship that reads sex work as queer activity. Part
II begins by analyzing comics as a genre teeming with queerness. It then queers Brown by considering both aesthetic choices and depicted life episodes, with a focus on his rejection of romantic labor, and fostering of alternative kinship arrangements.

Red Light Labour: Sex Work Regulation, Agency, and Resistance., 2018

The socio-legal significance of sex trade clients in Canada has been unstable and contested over ... more The socio-legal significance of sex trade clients in Canada has been unstable and contested over the past century and a half, but different discourses have dominated at different times. In the early Victorian era, for example, clients were generally tolerated, understood as ordinary men who were simply satiating their naturally robust libido (Backhouse, 1985). In the late nineteenth century, clients’ vulnerability to acquiring sexually transmitted infections became a social concern (McLaren, 1986). Later, in the second half of the 1900s, the male client started to become more visible as an object of inquiry and social control, with this problematization intensifying over the past few decades. The recent criminalization of purchasing sexual services in Canada in 2014, along with the proliferating anti-prostitution discourse found in ideologically driven studies, the media, and pop culture, has constructed the man who buys sex as a veritable sexual deviant – a danger to women and to society in general.

Author Copy. To cite, please refer to published chapter in: Durisin, Elya M., Emily van der Meulen, and Chris Bruckert, eds. Red Light Labour: Sex Work Regulation, Agency, and Resistance. UBC Press, 2018 [chapter 5 pp 67-81].

ABSTRACT The concept of “rapey music” has recently emerged as a social problem in feminist and ma... more ABSTRACT
The concept of “rapey music” has recently emerged as a social problem in feminist and mainstream contexts. Rapey music references songs that critics perceive as artifacts of “rape culture” because they allegedly perpetuate sexual violence, misogyny, and rape myths. This article draws on the con- cept of “fetishism” to analyze accusations that certain songs are rapey and argues that such songs can be recuperated through a kink lens. In the first part, I review the burgeoning category of songs that have been condemned in feminist media analyses and the weak evidence that connects certain songs to sexual coercion, arguing that the terms “rapey” and “rape culture” operate as negative fetish concepts. I then analyze the disproportionate and more vehement targeting of Black performers, contending that a racialized fetishization underlies this phenomenon. In the last part, I defend music branded as “rape culture” by suggesting that its pleasurable dynamic can be understood through a non-normative kinky fetish framework.

Kissing Cousins: Racism, Homophobia and Compulsory Able-bodiedness in the Controversy over Inter-Cousin Marriage

Canadian Journal of Law and Society/Revue Canadienne Droit et Société 30.01: 9-29., 2015

This essay examines surveillant practices that subject sex trade clients (“clients”) to socio-leg... more This essay examines surveillant practices that subject sex trade clients (“clients”) to socio-legal control. In particular, I employ the concepts of the gaze, voyeurism, and exhibitionism to unpack the surveillant dynamics, and consider how power and pleasure are harnessed, produced, and thwarted in the increasing scrutiny of the sex trade’s demand side. I further examine my own research of the regulation of clients within this analytical framework. Following David Lyon’s insights on the scopophilic dimensions of surveillance (2006), I argue that the instrumental goals of surveillance are interconnected with a voyeurism that gratifies the pleasures of looking at, categorizing, defining and making sense of, clients. Yet, bearing in mind the multi-directionality of the gaze, I also analyze the controlled exhibition of sex work signifiers, as information is not just gathered, but also displayed and performed.

The Asian Yearbook of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. , 2019

Is it inherently wrong, or inescapably harmful, to make a game of rape? For the activists , polit... more Is it inherently wrong, or inescapably harmful, to make a game of rape? For the activists , politicians and pundits in ''the West'' who learned about the existence of the Japanese video game RapeLay, the answer would be a resounding and self-evident, 'yes!' The controversy the game sparked was relatively unexpected in its native Japan, where the game forms part of a broad erotic cartoon and game culture. Our analysis argues that the reaction in the West is an example of orientalism and yellow peril, wherein the Japanese 'Other' was targeted as immoral, dangerous and sexually deviant , spurring a call to discipline, educate and enlighten Japanese regulators and industry leaders about the perceived harms attached to sexually violent video games. In the second half of our article we problematize the discourse and reaction of the anti-Rape-Lay movement, and challenge the essentialist reading of the game as having a singular, stable and malevolent meaning. We discuss the possibilities of interpreting the video game through catharsis/sublimation theory, rape terror management, anime orientation , age play and a rape fantasy kinky framework.

This article reviews and compares competing depictions of sadomasochism (SM) sexuality, examining... more This article reviews and compares competing depictions of sadomasochism (SM) sexuality, examining portrayals that range from sick to healthy, from normal to abnormal, and from dangerous to healing. The body of this article proceeds in four parts. The first section considers the treatment of SM in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). The second section addresses debates about the costs, benefits, and scientific validity of the inclusion and definition of SM in the DSM-5. It further highlights how quantitative and qualitative empirical studies of SM practitioners indicate that they fall within normal ranges in psychological and social functioning. The third section examines research on one negative consequence of the inclusion of SM in the DSM: It may interfere with the therapeutic relationship with clients who practice SM or have SM desires by reinforcing broader societal stigma and encouraging diagnostic misuse. The fourth section reviews an emerging body of research that reverses the “SM as pathology” discourse by showing the therapeutic and healing potential of bondage-discipline-dominance-submission-sadism-masochism (BDSM) practice and ethos. Based on this review, the conclusion argues that there is no valid reason to continue identifying SM as a potential mental disorder, and furthermore, there are detrimental effects of its association with pathology in the DSM-5.

Research Handbook on Gender, Sexuality and Law , 2020

This chapter explores how these contrasting viewpoints engage with the law and contribute to the complex status of BDSM in the sociolegal imaginary. While there are generally no laws that explicitly prohibit BDSM practice, kinksters can nonetheless find themselves demonized by many different branches of law, from criminal regulation to family custody disputes. Most often, law extends and entrenches the marginalization of kink desires and practitioners. But in a few discrete cases, law has created discursive space for the recuperation of BDSM within the bounds of sexual citizenship.

The things that seem beautiful, inspiring, and life-a rming to me seem ugly, hateful and ludicrou... more The things that seem beautiful, inspiring, and life-a rming to me seem ugly, hateful and ludicrous to most other people. This may be the most painful part of being a sadomasochist: this experience of radical di erence, separation at the root of perception. Our culture insists on sexual uniformity and does not acknowledge any neutral di erences -only crimes, sins, diseases, and mistakes."

Torn: A Social Media Drama over the Aziz Ansari Scandal

Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, 2019

This is a work of fiction that addresses social media platforms and communication channels that a... more This is a work of fiction that addresses social media platforms and communication channels that are intimately entangled with contemporary movements related to empowerment, oppression, and sexual violence. We created a video that is composed solely of screen recordings from our protagonist’s computer and smart phone. Within a Canadian context and from the perspective of a graduate student, our narrative explores fear, ambivalence, identity, pressure, performance, and image management through the lens of the recent scandal that surrounded celebrity-comedian Aziz Ansari and the broader relationship to the #MeToo movement.

Putting a Dominatrix in Her Place: The Representation and Regulation of Female Dom/Male Sub Sexuality

Canadian Journal of Women and the Law/Revue …, Jan 1, 2009

Am. UJ Gender Soc. Pol'y & L., Jan 1, 2011

The Routledge Companion to Media, Sex and Sexuality (chapter 6), 2017

Fifty Shades of Grey has broken ground in making BDSM legible and desirable. Given its unpreceden... more Fifty Shades of Grey has broken ground in making BDSM legible and desirable. Given its unprecedented popularity, the Fifty Shades series stands as an apposite cultural artefact to think through BDSM mainstream representation. Through a comparative analysis, this chapter takes a meandering journey through Fifty Shades to see how the story stacks up in relation to some of the dominant themes and ideologies found in an array of popular BDSM films, and, in so doing, will provide an overview of that body of work. I begin by summarising the plot of the trilogy, highlighting features that I later pick up in my analysis. I then turn to considering the two main genre categories that feature BDSM themes – the romantic drama and the erotic thriller – and discuss how Fifty Shades incorporates both, conforming to some conventions and defying others. After this, I consider the way in which stories with sympathetic BDSM characters, such as Fifty Shades, often displace stigma and abjection onto other identities and practices, using narratives of childhood trauma and pathology and reinscribing gender and sexual normativity, albeit with a tolerance towards mild heterosexual kink. By way of conclusion, I offer a brief summary of the analysis, and then consider the progress made in humanising BDSM subjectivity.

Having Your Porn and Condemning it Too: A Case Study of a “Kiddie Porn” Expose

Law, Culture and the Humanities, Jan 1, 2009

In 2005, the Toronto Police Department’s Sex Crime Unit embarked upon the unprecedented move to g... more In 2005, the Toronto Police Department’s Sex Crime Unit embarked upon the unprecedented move to go public with forensic evidence related to an on-going child pornography investigation. This strategy provided the public with exceptional glimpses into the taboo arena of child pornography. In this article, I trace the media coverage of this investigation to highlight the rhetorical and aesthetic components that, I posit, are related to a pedophilic logic. My goal is to reveal the latent but omnipresent desire encoded in the media narratives to imagine children and childhood in sexualized contexts. In particular, my analysis maps the literary and photographic aspects of the coverage to highlight the “performative contradiction” of the texts; though the media articulated a one-dimensional story of outrage and condemnation, the rhetorical and pictorial aspects of the story produced meanings that undermined the purported censure of child sexualization.

Woman's Right to Be Spanked: Testing the Limits of Tolerance of SM in the Socio-Legal Imaginary, A

Law & Sexuality: Rev. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & …, Jan 1, 2009

I. Introduction Picture this: a woman is hired as the secretary of a sole practitioner, a lawye... more I. Introduction

Picture this: a woman is hired as the secretary of a sole practitioner, a lawyer. During one meeting with her boss, he interrogates her about her sex life. Later, the boss tells her to bend over his desk to receive a spanking for making repeated spelling errors. At one point she is seen delivering the mail to her boss while crawling on her hands and knees, with the letters clutched in her mouth. In another instance she is on all fours on his desk, gussied up as a horse complete with a bridle and a saddle. And finally, not only is making coffee for the boss part of her job, but she has to accomplish this task while in bondage. Though this may sound like a definitive if extreme case of sexual harassment, in fact it is the plot to a love story. And in the end, the boss and his secretary in the movie entitled Secretary live happily and sadomasochistically ever after...

This Article argues that Secretary's moral-sexual order is reflected in the legal gaze upon the sadomasochist subject. In other words, there is a correlation between Secretary and legal cases about consensual SM sexuality, in that the judging community (whether audiences, critics, or legal decision-makers) is more lenient with SM that is positioned within
heterosexual, marital and monogamous confines. In Framed- Women in Law and Film, Orit Kamir argues that "some films' modes of social operation parallel those of the law and legal system, that some films enact viewer-engaging judgment, and that some films elicit popular jurisprudence."" Kamir's insight regarding the interpenetration of law and film in the construction of social reality is a useful starting point for considering the shared sexual ideology found in Secretary and some recent caselaw on SM. I posit that the legal and cinematic discourse
coordinate to constitute SM sexuality as suspect, but nonetheless provide conditions upon which it will be rendered acceptable.

Perpetuating the Cycle of Abuse: Feminist (Mis) Use of the Public/Private Dichotomy in the Case of Nixon v. Rape Relief

Windsor Rev. Legal & Soc. Issues, Jan 1, 2007

This article addresses the human rights case between Kimberly Nixon, a transsexual woman, and Van... more This article addresses the human rights case between Kimberly Nixon, a transsexual woman, and Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter (Rape Relief), a women-only collective, by critically analyzing the legal arguments and justifications put forth by Rape Relief and its counsel. Nixon was denied the opportunity to volunteer at Rape Relief on the basis that she was allegedly not born a woman and was not treated as one her entire life. By engaging in a discursive analysis of Rape Relief's oral arguments, Rape Relief's co-counsel Christine Boyle's academic arguments, and the judicial decisions related to the human rights complaint, I argue that Rape Relief exploited the governing assumptions of the public/private divide in its attempt to justify its exclusionary policy against transsexual women volunteers.

As my title suggests, Rape Relief's use of the public/private dichotomy could be understood as perpetuating a cycle of abuse: it appropriated and perpetuated a legal principle that has consistently been used to the disadvantage of all women in society. Ultimately, I posit that Rape Relief's arguments worked against the interests of both transsexual and non-transsexual women.

Hit Me with Your Best Shot: The Legal Controversy over SM Porn

Porn‐Philosophy for Everyone, Jan 1, 2010

Excerpt: Does SM porn signify insidious sexual violence or innocuous sexual variation? The answer... more Excerpt: Does SM porn signify insidious sexual violence or innocuous sexual variation? The answer to this question can have a determinative effect... on whether a court will
find a sadomasochistic text to be obscene.
Defendants define SM as a “consensual exchange of power” that can involve fantasy, erotic pain, and/or restraint for the mutual pleasure of the players. The argument here is that SM text is not a representation of violence per se, but rather a coded expression of the complementary sexual desires of dominance and submission. Adherents to this view... may define SM as role-playing in order to differentiate the theatrical nature of the sexual practice from genuine coercive exploitation.
Furthermore, people who enjoy SM porn contend that consent is
either expressed or implied in these representations. Some defendants have argued that sadomasochistic desire can be likened to or indeed is a type of sexual orientation, and that censorship of these materials will have a discriminatory impact on a sexual minority. Critics and prosecutors have countered that if aggression, humiliation, hitting, bondage, and/or skin bruising or breaking is portrayed in a sexual context, it is self-evident that this conveys violence. For anti-SM advocates, demonstrations of consent do not neutralize the harm, but
indeed can actually compound the dehumanizing nature of the text. Anti-SM feminists might further argue that this pathology – particularly when manifested in submissive-leaning women – is born out of a patriarchal monopoly on mainstream sexual representation. ... Those who fall prey to SM arousal are victims of a society that does not offer egalitarian images of sexuality. Finally, the critics have suggested that even if SM desires constitute a sexual orientation, it is still a dangerous pathology that is justifiably discouraged by the state through censorship of SM texts.

Prostituted Girls and the Grown-up Gaze

wwwords.co.uk

This article examines the representation of under-age girls in the sex trade through a comparativ... more This article examines the representation of under-age girls in the sex trade through a comparative analysis of the social scientific monograph Gangs and Girls: understanding juvenile prostitution and the fictional novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals. Through a semiotic examination of the book covers, and a discursive deconstruction of the fairy-tale conventions of the textual content, the author considers how the ‘grown up gaze’ is both gratified and sometimes challenged. She further demonstrate that ironically, the fictional account in Lullabies offers a more nuanced consideration of the socio-economic factors that contribute to the abuse and sexual exploitation of children than the expert account in Gangs. The article concludes by suggesting ‘grown ups’ must be cognizant of the voyeuristic tendencies and the political pitfalls of adult renderings of girl prostitutes.

Riding the Magic Carpet with Twilight

Excerpt: ...The star-crossed, cross-species love story between Bella, the teenage human, and Edwa... more Excerpt:
...The star-crossed, cross-species love story between Bella, the teenage human, and Edward, the tantalizing vampire, concerns the rapturous delight of restrained desire. While Bella is constantly attempting to seduce the stoic Edward, he represses his sexual lust in order to control his bloodlust, lest he accidentally devour the one he loves. To further complicate things, another captivating creature enters the picture. Jacob, a part-time werewolf and Bella’s BFF, comes down with a serious case of puppy-love for the vamp’s girl. Bella, believing at first that both men are ordinary humans, slowly comes to discover just how dangerous they are.
Like many runaway success stories, Twilight has received its fair share of criticism. Intellectuals read it as faux literature and bemoan its absurd plot, its clichéd writing, and its conservative sexual moralism. Feminists further contend that the main love story between Bella, the awkward adolescent, and Edward, the broody blood-sucker, romanticizes domestic abuse. From this perspective, if you scratch the surface of Edward’s pale skin, you find a cold, controlling stalker with violent tendencies.
But I think such interpretations take the series too literally, when in fact, it should be interpreted more pornographically. In other words, Twilight is not a prescription for behavior; rather, it is a stimulus for arousal...
Furthermore, Twilight does something few simplistic love stories dare: it provides us with a rival who, depending on your philosophy on love, might be more attractive than the romantic hero. In the second and third books, Jacob, with his canine charisma, becomes a serious contender for Bella’s affections. And Twilight does not predispose the audience to pick one suitor over the other in the way the literary classic Pride and Prejudice, does. In that love story, it is clear by the end of the book that the deceitful and greedy Wickham is no match for the honorable and generous Mr. Darcy. Twilight, on the other hand, allows its audience to feast upon two mouth-watering monsters, both of whom – feminist critiques notwithstanding – are champions. Both love Bella and both slay villains.
In response to the rivalry between these supernatural studs, fan culture has organized itself into two fiercely opposed camps: Team Edward versus Team Jacob. The enthusiastic members of these teams battle it out on the Internet and at conferences, sacrificing time, money, and their very reputations for their cause.
How can we explain the wild popularity of this fantasy?

University of Toronto Law Journal , 2020

Critical Analysis of Law, 2019

Red Light Labour: Sex Work Regulation, Agency, and Resistance., 2018

Kissing Cousins: Racism, Homophobia and Compulsory Able-bodiedness in the Controversy over Inter-Cousin Marriage

Canadian Journal of Law and Society/Revue Canadienne Droit et Société 30.01: 9-29., 2015

The Asian Yearbook of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. , 2019

Research Handbook on Gender, Sexuality and Law , 2020

Torn: A Social Media Drama over the Aziz Ansari Scandal

Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, 2019

Putting a Dominatrix in Her Place: The Representation and Regulation of Female Dom/Male Sub Sexuality

Canadian Journal of Women and the Law/Revue …, Jan 1, 2009

Am. UJ Gender Soc. Pol'y & L., Jan 1, 2011

The Routledge Companion to Media, Sex and Sexuality (chapter 6), 2017

Having Your Porn and Condemning it Too: A Case Study of a “Kiddie Porn” Expose

Law, Culture and the Humanities, Jan 1, 2009

Woman's Right to Be Spanked: Testing the Limits of Tolerance of SM in the Socio-Legal Imaginary, A

Law & Sexuality: Rev. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & …, Jan 1, 2009

I. Introduction Picture this: a woman is hired as the secretary of a sole practitioner, a lawye... more I. Introduction

Perpetuating the Cycle of Abuse: Feminist (Mis) Use of the Public/Private Dichotomy in the Case of Nixon v. Rape Relief

Windsor Rev. Legal & Soc. Issues, Jan 1, 2007

Hit Me with Your Best Shot: The Legal Controversy over SM Porn

Porn‐Philosophy for Everyone, Jan 1, 2010

Prostituted Girls and the Grown-up Gaze

wwwords.co.uk

Riding the Magic Carpet with Twilight

Vicarious Kinks: SM in the Socio-Legal Imaginary

http://www.utppublishing.com/Vicarious-Kinks-S-M-in-the-Socio-Legal-Imaginary.html "Who decide... more http://www.utppublishing.com/Vicarious-Kinks-S-M-in-the-Socio-Legal-Imaginary.html

"Who decides where “normal” stops and “perverse” begins? In Vicarious Kinks, Ummni Khan looks at the mass of claims that film, feminism, the human sciences, and law make about sadomasochism and its practitioners, and the way those claims become the basis for the legal regulation of sadomasochist pornography and practice. Khan’s audacious proposal is that for film, feminism, law, and science, the constant focus on taboo sexuality is a form of “vicarious kink” itself.

Rather than attempt to establish the “truth” about sadomasochism, Vicarious Kinks asks who decides that sadomasochism is perverse, examining how various fields present their claims to truth when it comes to sadomasochism. The first monograph by a new scholar working at the juncture of law and sexuality, Vicarious Kinks challenges the myth of law as an objective adjudicator of sexual truth."

Why We Still Can't Get Enough of Ghomeshi

Much of the commentary on this case has focused on either Ghomeshi or his alleged victims. But wh... more Much of the commentary on this case has focused on either Ghomeshi or his alleged victims. But what if we shift the gaze away from the main players, and interrogate ourselves for a moment? What does it mean that we can’t get enough of the Ghomeshi spectacle?

Jian Ghomeshi's claim of BDSM discrimination, the sexual assault allegations against him, and the... more Jian Ghomeshi's claim of BDSM discrimination, the sexual assault allegations against him, and the public response raise important issues. In this blog, I analyze how the story engages with BDSM human rights and discrimination, the danger of BDSM misappropriation as a camouflage for violence, and the tension between supporting sexual assault victims and supporting practitioners of more 'edgy' kink practices .

Fifty Shades of a Moral Panic!

Binding and Unbinding Kink

From Average Joe to Deviant John

University of British Columbia Press eBooks, Sep 1, 2018

From Average Joe to Deviant John: The Changing Construction of Sex Trade Clients in Canada

Fifty shades of ambivalence

The Routledge Companion to Media, Sex and Sexuality

The Treachery of Rape Representation

I Confess!, 2019

Kinky identity and practice in relation to the law

Research Handbook on Gender, Sexuality and the Law, 2020

BDSM can signify very different things, depending on one’s ideological perspective and experienti... more BDSM can signify very different things, depending on one’s ideological perspective and experiential knowledge. For aficionados, BDSM (kink) represents pleasure or satisfaction, usually erotic but not always, derived from consensual power play. For some, BDSM is simply an occasional treat used, for example, to “spice up” one’s sex life. For others, it is a crucial and even immutable part of their identity. According to its detractors, however, BDSM is a negative and noxious practice. It can be cast as inherently harmful, a mental illness, a retreat from authentic intimacy, a camouflage for violence, a manifestation of patriarchy, an eroticization of white supremacy, a symptom of neoliberalism and capitalist decadence, and/ or a slippery slope toward unmitigated sadism or self-destruction. This chapter explores how these contrasting viewpoints engage with the law and contribute to the complex status of BDSM in the sociolegal imaginary. While there are generally no laws that explicitly prohibit BDSM practice, kinksters can nonetheless find themselves demonized by many different branches of law, from criminal regulation to family custody disputes. Most often, law extends and entrenches the marginalization of kink desires and practitioners. But in a few discrete cases, law has created discursive space for the recuperation of BDSM within the bounds of sexual citizenship.

Sex trade clients have become a contested identity in academia and mainstream media. Some constru... more Sex trade clients have become a contested identity in academia and mainstream media. Some construct clients as exploitative and inherently deviant, while others destigmatize them as complex and varied. Regardless of one’s position, almost all of the discourse is authored by non-clients (or those who do not identify as clients). Chester Brown’s Paying For It: A Comic-Strip Memoir About Being a John marks an autobiographical intervention into the literature. In this 2011 Canadian memoir, Brown chronicles his journey from being a monogamous boyfriend to becoming a client of multiple sex workers. This article uses Paying For It to situate Brown, and sex trade clients in general, as queer subjects in their rejection of relational normativity and engagement with criminalized consensual sexuality. Part I surveys the changing construction of sex trade clients from ordinary to deviant men, and reviews scholarship that reads sex work as queer activity. Part II begins by analyzing comics as a ...

Perpetuating the Cycle of Abuse: Feminist (Mis)Use of the Public/Private Dichotomy in the Case of Nixon v. Rape Relief

The Dalhousie Law Journal, 2014

Slipping Between Danger, Pleasure and the Law: Thoughts on Three Recent Books Addressing Sexualit... more Slipping Between Danger, Pleasure and the Law: Thoughts on Three Recent Books Addressing Sexuality Jackie Jones et al, eds, Gender, Sexualities and Law, New York: Routledge, 2011, 352 pages.Paul Johnson & Derek Dalton, eds, Policing Sex, New York: Routledge, 2012, 192 pages.Troubling Sex: Towards a Legal Theory of Sexual Integrity by Elaine Craig, Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 2012, 220 pages.Sexuality is slippery. It slips, for example, between pleasure and danger, between surrender and repression, and between force (the kind that turns some of us on) and violence (the kind that terrorizes us). It can be a site of intense oppression and unwanted objectification, and also of empowerment and affirming desirability. In this review, I address three recent books that reckon with the ambivalence of sexuality in relation to the law and regulatory practices.The first book is a 2011 anthology, Gender, Sexualities and Law, edited by Jackie Jones, Anna Grear, Rachel Anne Fenton and Kim Stevenson....

Kissing Cousins: Racism, Homophobia and Compulsory Able-Bodiedness in the Controversy Over Inter-Cousin Marriage

This article analyses cousin couples as a contested form of intimacy in relation to racism, homop... more This article analyses cousin couples as a contested form of intimacy in relation to racism, homophobia and compulsory able-bodiedness. Looking at representational and regulatory practices from the politico-legal realm, cousin couple advocacy and popular culture, I demonstrate that each discourse is in conversation with the others. I first consider procreative objections to inter-racial and same-sex marriage and compare them to arguments made about inter-cousin marriage in U.S. law and recent calls to discourage cousin marriages in England and prohibit them in the Netherlands. Next, I analyse how the ‘Cousin Couples’ website advocates on behalf of inter- cousin relationships by invoking the race analogy while at the same time failing to address the impact of consanguinity laws on racialised communities. Of particular note are the conspicuous absence of a same-sex marriage analogy in the editorial arguments in ‘Cousin Couples’, and the ways stigmatisation is transferred to people with...

Bordering on Identity: How English Canadian Television Differentiates American and Canadian Styles of Justice

Law and Justice on the Small Screen, 2012

While the boundary between Canada and the United States has rhetorically been dubbed ‘the longest... more While the boundary between Canada and the United States has rhetorically been dubbed ‘the longest undefended border in the world’, Canadian narratives have vigorously sought to defend the border in symbolic terms. In 1972, Margaret Atwood suggested this nationalist project to withstand American cultural hegemony reflected the recurring theme of survival in Canadian fiction. Similarly, theorists of Canadian television have found that discerning Canadian identity, separate from that of its southern neighbor, is a frequent (and anxious) theme in its programming. This chapter examines this symbolic border-defending through a discursive analysis of two successful English Canadian television shows, Due South and The Border, with particular emphasis on the ways in which they differentiate Canadian and American styles of justice. Although the shows represent different genres, occupy different settings, and take place in different time periods, both articulate Canadian national pride in terms of law enforcement. Both plots devote a substantial amount of time dramatising the tension, and often the conflict, between Canadian and American approaches to justice. While the Canadian approach is usually vindicated in the storyline, both shows also offer the promise of productive collaboration between the nations.In the 1990s show Due South, this fraught collaboration is comically portrayed when an upstanding Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) member teams up with a cynical American cop to solve crimes in Chicago. Debuting in 2008, The Border takes Toronto as its setting, and the outsider is Bianca LaGarda (Sofia Milos), a brash American agent sent by the United States Department of Homeland Security (Homeland Security) to represent its interests on Canadian soil. Both shows feature a fish-out-of-water, albeit two very different kinds of fish. The Canadian fish is hyper- bolically polite in the midst of American obnoxiousness, while the American fish is hyperbolically pugnacious in the midst of Canadian diplomacy. Other important distinguishing features of Canadian law enforcement officers in these programmes include their intelligence, temperance, tolerance, heroism, connection to nature, Aboriginal ties, and commitment to the rule of law. While these values and characteristics often aggrandise Canadian law enforcement characters, the shows also suggest that sometimes Canadians must rely on American strong-arm tactics to secure justice. Indeed, the last season of The Border finds the two national security agencies in sync as they battle inside corruption and cross-border criminality...... As will become evident, the events of September 11th serve as a significant landmark that divides the imaginaries of the two shows under examination. I argue that a comparison of the televised shift from ‘self-othering’ a Canadian against an American backdrop in Due South, to ‘othering’ an American against a Canadian backdrop in The Border, reflects both the political climate of the day, and a strengthening sense of self in the Canadian imaginary. Amidst America’s ‘war on terror’, and in relation to international protest against American foreign policy, many episodes of The Border depict Canada as a mature and progressive nation that strikes a better balance between security and rights. No longer needing to just survive, Canadian policing identity appears robust and confident.The Border shifts perspective in the last half of its run, however. A review of the latter episodes indicates that Canadian identity ceases to hinge on distinguishing Canadian and American law enforcement. Instead, the show shifts to emphasise bi-national compatibility between security officers on both sides of the border, allied against two other groups: terrorists and politicians. Terrorists, usually racialised and often Muslim, are portrayed as self-absorbed fanatics out to murder innocent Westerners. Interestingly, the security officers’ other adversaries are much closer to home. Canadian and American politicians and their aides are often portrayed as elitist, morally questionable and concerned solely with staying in power. These grandstanders and bureaucrats do not prioritise security and human rights, particularly for non-citizens and/or racialised people. The Border thus capitalises on the entertainment value of vilifying racialised and ethnicised people, while still portraying its law enforcement protagonists in contradistinction to racist politicians.This examination of the parameters of Canadian identity in crime shows demonstrates that survival does not depend on being the fittest, but rather the most flexible. The Canadian approach to justice in the popular imagination reflects the ways Canadian national identity must be flexible enough to sometimes stand in opposition to American styles of justice, and sometimes in alliance when going up against Other maligned subjectivities.

Rape as Play: Yellow Peril Panic and a Defence of Fantasy

The Asian Yearbook of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, 2019

Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 2017

The concept of "rapey music" has recently emerged as a social problem in feminist and mainstream ... more The concept of "rapey music" has recently emerged as a social problem in feminist and mainstream contexts. Rapey music references songs that critics perceive as artifacts of "rape culture" because they allegedly perpetuate sexual violence, misogyny, and rape myths. This article draws on the concept of "fetishism" to analyze accusations that certain songs are rapey and argues that such songs can be recuperated through a kink lens. In the first part, I review the burgeoning category of songs that have been condemned in feminist media analyses and the weak evidence that connects certain songs to sexual coercion, arguing that the terms "rapey" and "rape culture" operate as negative fetish concepts. I then analyze the disproportionate and more vehement targeting of Black performers, contending that a racialized fetishization underlies this phenomenon. In the last part, I defend music branded as "rape culture" by suggesting that its pleasurable dynamic can be understood through a non-normative kinky fetish framework.

The Man Who Invented Gender: Engaging the Ideas of John Money by Terry GoldieTerry Goldie. The Man Who Invented Gender: Engaging the Ideas of John Money. University of British Columbia Press. x, 246. $32.95

University of Toronto Quarterly, 2016

Current Sexual Health Reports, 2015

This article reviews and compares competing depictions of sadomasochism (SM) sexuality, examining... more This article reviews and compares competing depictions of sadomasochism (SM) sexuality, examining portrayals that range from sick to healthy, from normal to abnormal, and from dangerous to healing. The body of this article proceeds in four parts. The first section considers the treatment of SM in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). The second section addresses debates about the costs, benefits, and scientific validity of the inclusion and definition of SM in the DSM-5. It further highlights how quantitative and qualitative empirical studies of SM practitioners indicate that they fall within normal ranges in psychological and social functioning. The third section examines research on one negative consequence of the inclusion of SM in the DSM: It may interfere with the therapeutic relationship with clients who practice SM or have SM desires by reinforcing broader societal stigma and encouraging diagnostic misuse. The fourth section reviews an emerging body of research that reverses the "SM as pathology" discourse by showing the therapeutic and healing potential of bondage-discipline-dominance-submissionsadism-masochism (BDSM) practice and ethos. Based on this review, the conclusion argues that there is no valid reason to continue identifying SM as a potential mental disorder, and furthermore, there are detrimental effects of its association with pathology in the DSM-5.

Canadian Journal of Law and Society / Revue Canadienne Droit et Société, 2015

Antiprostitution Feminism and the Surveillance of Sex Industry Clients

Feminist Surveillance Studies

Not a Lust Story: Judicial Imaginaries of Sexual Citizenship

This paper seeks to examine the explanations offered within the judicial imaginary to account for... more This paper seeks to examine the explanations offered within the judicial imaginary to account for the desires of improper sexual subjects. I will consider primarily Canadian caselaw to investigate how the judicial imaginary makes sense of contested sexual practices by resorting to three interlocking sites of belonging and exclusion: gender, nation and humanness. I start by considering the gender imperatives perpetuated by the judicial analysis of contested sexual practices. I next consider how the Canadian courts circumscribe and limit the adjudicating national community, homogenizing Canadian sexual identity, and otherizing or marginalizing those whose sexuality does not fit within these discursive borders. Finally, I consider how these gender and national identity imperatives buttress judicially-articulated human imperatives, expunging practitioners of non-normative sexual behaviour from the category of human altogether. Ultimately, I argue that these judicial imperatives perpetuate the harm of what has been called sexual chauvinism, discriminating, devaluing and dehumanizing individuals based on their sexual practices, usually grounded upon stereotypes.

Book Review: Framing Crime: Cultural Criminology and the Image

Social & Legal Studies, 2012

Queer Legal Studies

While the ‘feminist killjoy’ has historically operated as a misogynist epithet, Sara Ahmed has re... more While the ‘feminist killjoy’ has historically operated as a misogynist epithet, Sara Ahmed has reclaimed the figure as one of resistance and world-making. As both an identity and an analytic lens, killjoys have proliferated across the academic, activist and social media landscapes, calling out oppression wherever they detect it.

Positioning the killjoy as my foil, this project presents the kinky brat -- a personality that holds epistemological significance beyond standard kinky practice. Like the killjoy, the kinky brat is a mindset and a way of accessing unique knowledge. But while the killjoy’s mission is to expose and challenge objectionable phenomena (speaking truth to power), the kinky brat is interested in playful interventions and teasing out joy (speaking pleasure to power). Understanding the killjoy and the brat as rival affective perspectives can then help to demonstrate some of the broader tensions in feminist legal debates.