May 17, 2011
The Law and the Cultural Lens
Sex. It’s the one activity that most of us do, but few want to talk about – especially when it comes to the less-accepted forms of sexuality.
Carleton’s Ummni Khan is trying to peel the layers back on sex work and sadomasochism. Not in a way to condemn or condone these things, but to better understand societal responses to them. Now a law professor, she says her dual backgrounds in legal and English literature are helping her to look at the legal regulation of sexuality through a cultural lens.
“I’m looking at how the law treats sexual outsiders, and how they emerge in multiple arenas – in the public, how the police talk about them, how psychological professionals diagnose them, and how they are treated in movies,” she says.
Khan plans to fly to different “john schools” across Canada to observe how sex trade clients are educated and rehabilitated.
“It’s my first grant, around $16,000,” she says, referring to her recent funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. “I’m interested in looking at the philosophical angle of these programs. What does it say about our understanding of the human condition when sex work is criminalized or not?”
What does it say about our understanding of the human condition when sex work is criminalized or not?
She is also working on a book examining the public’s reaction to sadomasochism; the prospectus has been accepted at the University of Toronto Press and it is slated to be submitted in August. While she is careful to say potential victims and children must be protected, Khan says she has “huge compassion” for most kinds of sexual variation.
“It’s interesting for me to think about places where consensual adult sexuality gets criminalized. It’s a case where the state comes in and says, ‘No, we don’t trust you. We think we know better.’
“It’s an area that’s burdened by stereotypes and I hope to be able to shed some light on how we perceive unusual or unpopular sexual practices.”
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