Sexuality and the Law. DO WANT.
On Wednesday, I register for classes for next semester. I'm going to sign up for things like "advanced legal writing" and "professional responsibility" but the class I'm most excited about is Sexuality and the Law.
And when I say most excited here, I mean genuinely excited.
It'll be the third sexuality class I've taken. I took two sexuality classes in undergrad-- one in the psych department, and one in the sociology department. Both were, ultimately, awesome experiences, though in totally different ways. The pysch one was a little more of "this is what people do, here's some biology behind it". That's pretty typical of a basic psych course-- the links to biology, especially, are growing in the field. The sociology one went to a broader range-- addressing what we do in bed, yes, but also what society does to us, and how things we do in public are reflective of what we do in bed. There were also some interesting looks into subcultures (tearoom trade! Before Republicans embraced it on accident!) expressions of sexuality in music and pop culture. It was a lot more wishy washy than the psych course, and I argued with the prof a lot over social constructions vs. biology, but it was fun! And honestly, if I hadn't gone to law school, I might well have ended up in grad school studying the psychology of sex.
This class promises to be different though-- because this class is about law which is pretty much entirely artificially constructed, and in the areas of sexuality, changing fast. Just recently two new states recognized same-sex marriage, a fantastic jump forward from when marraige was restricted to a man and woman of the same race. I'm hoping the class also takes on the recent teen texting controversies-- it seems insane to me that teens would be charged with child porn distribution for sending out pics of themselves. Abortion, rape (especially date-rape), and just... there's so much to talk about. Its only a two credit class, and honestly, some days it will probably make me furious, but I'm willing to compromise on pretty much anything else in my schedule in order to take it.