Coupet Sacha M. - Children, sexuality, and the law

Sacha M. Coupet and Ellen Marrus

This book would not have come to fruition were it not for the creative (and provocative) decision that Professor Odeana R. Neal made as chair of the then newly formed Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Children and the Law to assemble a small panel of experts to present on the topic of kids, sex, and the law. Our hope at the 2009 annual meeting of the AALS was to attract a wide cross section of conference attendees from sections that would not otherwise have reserved time in their schedules to attend a panel focusing on childrens issues. Odeanas bold decision paid off, and the panel presentation and the discussion that followed were meaningfully enriched by the input of many legal scholars from not only child and family law but also criminal law, torts, and law and psychology, among others. The panels focus went beyond the traditional exploration of children as victims of adult sexuality, and it is this facet, we believe, that made this gathering unique. We thank Odeana and the other members of the AALS Section on Children and the Law Executive Committee who supported the sections early efforts to shift the discourse around children and sex toward one that acknowledged children as agents and rights holders. We also thank the panelists, Shannon Price Minter, Jennifer Drobac and the late Dr. Ted Shaw, for their valuable contributions. The 2009 AALS panel became the launchpad for this book, and we feel fortunate to have been given the opportunity to broaden the conversation even further here. Our contributors deserve a special thanks for accepting the invitation to participate in a new dialogue about a traditionally taboo subject and for their patience with us as we worked to weave together their various perspectives on the topic of children and sex.

We thank Deborah Gershenowitz for initiating the conversation that transformed the panel presentation into this book and for her enthusiastic, insightful, and creative feedback and support in the initial stages. We offer much thanks to Nancy Dowd for generously making room for this book under the umbrella of her Families, Law, and Society series and for her critical feedback and are honored that this book will sit alongside other innovative texts within this series that are prompting new conversations about provocative changes within the modern family. We are grateful to Clara Platter, editor at NYU Press, for her careful shepherding of this book, and to Constance Grady, editorial assistant at NYU Press, for her tireless work in moving this book to final production.

We relied heavily on the assistance of students and staff at the University of Houston Law Center, who spent countless hours reviewing chapters and assisting with all aspects of formatting. A special note of gratitude is due to all of the Irene Merker Rosenberg Child Advocacy Scholars of the Center for Children, Law and Policy at the University of Houston Law Center, in particular Katherine Quinn, Chloe Walker, and Patricia Zesut, whose editorial assistance was absolutely invaluable. In addition, we would like to thank research assistant Patrick N. McMillin, UHLC 14, who put in endless hours to help with the editing process. Ellen wishes to thank the University of Houston Law Center for a generous research leave that allowed her to devote time and attention to the completion of this book and for support in convening the 2009 Children, Sex, and the Law symposium, at which some of the contributors shared working drafts of their chapters. In addition, Sacha wishes to thank her home institution, Loyola University Chicago School of Law, for a summer research grant that supported a portion of this project.