ABSTRACT
The very idea of a 'sexual contract' - conceived in the narrow sense of 'contract', as an agreement for mutual services - indicates the extent to which perceptions of sexuality have changed, so that physical desire, rather than erotic love, is given the primary place in sexual adventures. The stratagem is to replace erotic love with 'sex', construed as a commodity available to anyone and from anyone, regardless of the relation between them. An academic industry is devoted to the theology of this new moral order - excreting theories of justice in the manner of Rawls, of law in the manner of Dworkin, and of culture in the manner of the deconstructionists. The most salient feature of a sentimental emotion is the prominence accorded to the subject, rather than the object, of the feeling. New crimes are invented with which to punish the miscreant: 'date rape', 'sexual harassment', and so on.
