Sexuality and Social Change: Sexual Relations in a Capitalist System

In 1975, in the classic work The Traffic in Women: Notes on the Political Economy of Sex, Gayle Rubin established the importance of the exchange of women between house holds as the foundation for the sex-gender system. Since Rubin's germinal article, anthropologists have increasingly examined both the influence of commodities on women's sexuality and the treatment of women's sexuality as a commodity. The three books reviewed in this essay address both approaches to the intersection between sex and the economy; collectively, authors Viviana Zelizer, Holly Ward low, and Gloria Wekker suggest that sexuality has been examined too narrowly as either inimical to the economic sphere or deeply subsumed within it. As an alternative, the authors suggest that sexuality is embedded within the economic sphere, influenced by economic changes yet not determined by them. Economic sociologist Viviana Zelizer's book, The Pur chase of Intimacy, examines the relational behavior of inti macy and finances in the U.S. legal and social systems. Us ing a sophisticated collection of legal cases and secondary data, Zelizer uses an expansive definition of intimacy to ex plore a range of intimate economic transactions from cou pling to household commerce. This definition extends be yond sexual relations to incorporate usually excluded inti mate relations such as the attorney-client privilege, which treats communication of personal information as a type of intimacy. Zelizer's research challenges the two dominant theo ries on intimacy and economics?what she refers to as the "hostile spheres" and "nothing but" theories?in favor of a relational theory of economics and intimacy. The "hostile spheres" argument suggests that "sustaining intimacy" and "corrupting markets" are inherently contradictory (p. 40). The "nothing but" argument is a collection of theories that reduce intimacy to factors such as the market or cul ture without examining the intersection between intimacy and economics. Zelizer proposes instead the "relational" or "connected lives" argument, namely arguing that "people who blend intimacy and economic activity are actively en gaged in constructing and negotiating 'Connected Lives' " (p. 22). This relational work includes the negotiations indi viduals engage in when they blend intimacy and economics in several spheres: coupling relations, "caring" work, and household commerce. For example, the relational work in volved in allocating money for children's allowances and the exchange of money or goods for sex is all within the purview of this book. Zelizer examines data not only on how individuals ne gotiate this relational work but also on how this relational work is interpreted and policed by the U.S. legal system. Zelizer admits that she provides neither a definitive account of the U.S. law of intimacy nor an account that would be satisfactory for a legal specialist. Indeed, in some portions of the book, it seems Zelizer wanders from one interesting example to another without pausing for detailed analysis. However, from an economic sociology perspective, she an alyzes how judges and lawyers attempt to first understand the type of intimate relationship between two parties and then to match these relations with an appropriate legal def inition, such as marriage or cohabitation, that includes an