Drawing on a range of interdisciplinary research, this book uses the discourses around current European sexual politics as an entry point to interrogate how, and with what effect, the EU and its Member States harness issues of gender and sexuality to support issues of higher political importance.

Chapter One: Introduction: Reframing the Permissive.- Chapter Two: On the Road to Lisbon: Europe becoming a Normative Community.- Chapter Three: From Sweden to Brussels: Forging a European Agenda on Prostitution.- Chapter Four: What Kind of Problematic is Rape for the EU?.- Chapter Five: Forging National Sexual Politics: A Dance of Moving Targets and Sitting Ducks.- Chapter Six: Sexual politics in contemporary Europe: resonance and dissonance.

The legal regulation of gender and sexuality has undergone dramatic changes throughout Europe in the last 40 years and this has shaped what it means to be a European citizen. Drawing on a range of interdisciplinary research, this book uses the discourses around current European sexual politics as an entry point to interrogate how, and with what effect, the EU and its Member States harness issues of gender and sexuality to support issues of higher political importance. It takes recent and ongoing political debates and legislative changes around prostitution and sexual assault as a focus. Using four national case studies: Poland, Germany, Sweden and Italy it illuminates how the EU’s desire for increased harmonisation across the Union around gender and sexuality norms and values operates differently and with specific effects across Member States. The book’s structure provides a detailed map of how and why contemporary European sexual politics is changing, and how this contributes to establishing European norms and values in developments in law and policy around prostitution and sexual assault. By examining how and why the EU and its Member States implement their policies in these two policy areas we can begin to illuminate how contemporary European sexual politics serve some groups’ interests while marginalizing ‘Others’.Sharron FitzGerald is Senior Visiting Researcher in the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law at the University of Oslo, Norway. May-Len Skilbrei is Professor in the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law at the University of Oslo, Norway. 

Connects the discussions around sex work and sexual assault to broader debates on gender and sexuality Looks at how EU norms governing gender and sexuality have changed Explains how the EU engages with notions of ‘appropriate’ European values around gender and sexuality

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