Using the 2000 Little Sisters v Customs Canada case as a springboard, Kendall argues that gay male pornography violates the legal right to sex equality, and that there is little to be gained from sexualized conformity.
Description
The 2000 case of Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium v. Customs Canada provided Canada’s highest court with its first opportunity to consider whether the analysis set out in R. v. Butler – in which the Supreme Court identified pornography as an issue of sex discrimination – applies to pornography intended for a lesbian or gay male audience. The Court held that it did, finding that, like heterosexual pornography, same-sex pornography also violates the sex equality interests of all Canadians. Christopher Kendall supports this finding, arguing that gay male pornography reinforces those social attitudes that create systemic inequality on the basis of sex and sexual orientation – misogyny and homophobia alike – by sexually conditioning gay men to those attitudes and practices.