The Erotics of Torts

“What kind of feminist would be accused of sexual harassment?” asks Jane Gallop (p. 1). Gallop quickly provides her own challenging answer: “the sort of feminist . . . that . . . do[es] not respect the line between the intellectual and the sexual” (p. 12).” Gallop is firm and unrepentant about not respecting this line: “I sexualize the atmosphere in which I work. When sexual harassment is defined as the introduction of sex into professional relations, it becomes quite possible to be both a feminist and a sexual harasser” (p. 11). Figuring out what this means – and what its implications are for professors, for feminists, for law schools – is the task I’ve set for this review. I begin with a warning. As Margot Channing suggested some forty years ago, “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”