Hard Bargains by Jane E. Larson, Linda R. Hirshman 1998, Hardcover: items on eBay.com

Publisher's Note
The authors take a forthright and level-headed look at all aspects of one of the biggest controversies in contemporary American society--heterosexual sex--and deliver a radically new perspective on the sexual lives of women and men.

Industry Reviews
"Male-female sex can be understood as a political relationship, even though it mostly takes place in private circumstances of one-on-one bargaining," write Hirshman (Brandeis) and Larson (Univ. of Wisconsin Law Sch.) in their scholarly look at the regulation of heterosexuality in the United States. The book moves from the impact of Christianity on British Common Law in the American Colonies to the writing of visiting French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville, the laws of coverture declaring husband and wife to be one male-dominated entity, the influential philosophies of John Stuart Mill and Charles Darwin, 19th-century social purity and free love movements, and finally the "libertine" loosening of social codes since the 1960s. Although the writing is often dryly academic, the book offers an incisive look into how morality gets shaped and regulated. As such, it is an important contribution to feminist theory and U.S. social history. Eleanor J. Bader, Brooklyn, NY
Kakutani

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-?-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.)
Bukey

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-…-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.)
Publishers Weekly (07/20/1998)

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