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Perversion by Penumbras: Wolfenden, Griswold, and the Transatlantic Trajectory of Sexual Privacy

Minto, David

Perversion by Penumbras: Wolfenden, Griswold, and the Transatlantic Trajectory of Sexual Privacy Thumbnail


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Abstract

This article provides a queer, transnational account of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1965 articulation, in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), of a constitutional right to privacy. The right in question trumped a Connecticut statute prohibiting contraceptive use even by married couples. But historians emphasizing its emergence from tort privacy and criminal procedure law have neglected an alternative source of its articulation beyond obvious jurisdictional and sexual borders: Britain’s 1957 Wolfenden Report on homosexual offenses and prostitution. The government-commissioned report famously recommended the decriminalization of gay sex on the basis of “a realm of private morality and immorality which is . . . not the law’s business.” In doing so, it not only captured the attention of U.S. homophiles and advocates, who had particular interests in overturning state sodomy laws, but also inspired transatlantic reportage and legal debate that helped to make a sexual privacy right conceptually legible and politically realizable. Elaborating the connection between Wolfenden and Griswold, this article probes the resonance between the Supreme Court’s attention to “penumbras” and the insights of queer history.

Citation

Minto, D. (2018). Perversion by Penumbras: Wolfenden, Griswold, and the Transatlantic Trajectory of Sexual Privacy. American Historical Review, 123(4), 1093-1121. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhy027

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jun 13, 2018
Online Publication Date Oct 4, 2018
Publication Date Oct 1, 2018
Deposit Date Jun 13, 2018
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal American Historical Review
Print ISSN 0002-8762
Electronic ISSN 1937-5239
Publisher Oxford University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 123
Issue 4
Pages 1093-1121
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhy027

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Copyright Statement
This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in American historical review following peer review. The version of record Minto, David (2018). Perversion by Penumbras: Wolfenden, Griswold, and the Transatlantic Trajectory of Sexual Privacy. American Historical Review 123(4): 1093-1121 is available online at: xxxxxxx https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhy027.




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