RT Book
T1 Crime, desire and law's unconscious: law, literature and culture
A1 Gurnham, David
LA English
PP Abingdon, Oxon u.a.
PB Routledge
YR 2014
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/776178687
AB "Sexual desire, and the possible dangers associated with its more extreme manifestations, provokes strong, albeit often contradictory reactions. Such reactions are a well-known stimulant of creative, juridical and scholarly activity, and the texts of law, literature and academic criticism respond to it in ways that are suggestive both of revulsion and fascination. But how are we to understand such responses, and what can they tell us about the relationship between law and its 'others'? Exploring these questions in the context of HIV transmission, on-street sexual exploitation and erotic asphyxiation, this book seeks to understand the motivations behind legal, literary and cultural constructions of sexual offences, their perpetrators and victims. It analyses these constructions in a diverse range of sources: appeal judgments in England & Wales and North America, criminal trials and their reporting, visual and linguistic cultures and both modern and 'classic' literature. The perspective taken here is informed by a psychoanalytic understanding of the uses of metaphor in these texts that may indicate a displacement of troubling unconscious influences, assumptions and prejudices. Sexual behaviours considered to be 'beyond the pale', that we publicly and consciously condemn, may also serve as uncanny reminders of long-forgotten and repressed desires and memories that suggest secret affinities between offenders and the society that judges them"--
AB "Sexual desire, and the possible dangers associated with its more extreme manifestations, provokes strong, albeit often contradictory reactions. Such reactions are a well-known stimulant of creative, juridical and scholarly activity, and the texts of law, literature and academic criticism respond to it in ways that are suggestive both of revulsion and fascination. But how are we to understand such responses, and what can they tell us about the relationship between law and its 'others'? Exploring these questions in the context of HIV transmission, on-street sexual exploitation and erotic asphyxiation, this book seeks to understand the motivations behind legal, literary and cultural constructions of sexual offences, their perpetrators and victims. It analyses these constructions in a diverse range of sources: appeal judgments in England & Wales and North America, criminal trials and their reporting, visual and linguistic cultures and both modern and 'classic' literature. The perspective taken here is informed by a psychoanalytic understanding of the uses of metaphor in these texts that may indicate a displacement of troubling unconscious influences, assumptions and prejudices. Sexual behaviours considered to be 'beyond the pale', that we publicly and consciously condemn, may also serve as uncanny reminders of long-forgotten and repressed desires and memories that suggest secret affinities between offenders and the society that judges them"--
CN K346
SN 9780415516600
K1 Law : Psychological aspects
K1 Sex and law : Psychological aspects
K1 Law and literature
K1 Sex crimes : Psychological aspects
K1 Sex crimes : Moral and ethical aspects
K1 Trials (Sex crimes)
K1 Sex crimes in literature
K1 Lust : Sexualethik : Sexualverhalten : Risikoverhalten : Rechtsverständnis