Sexual Rights

Variations in Sexual Behavior

Sexual Rights

Today, many people demand sexual rights as part of their human rights. This demand is relatively new in human history. Indeed, the demand for human rights itself is new. While there are precedents in some older civilizations, a universal human rights movement did not gain international momentum until the18th century. Its most vigorous pioneers were European and American authors of the “Age of Enlightenment”. Their common goal was the establishment of a just society in which all members enjoyed equal rights. The American “Declaration of Independence” of 1776 for the first time asserted that everyone possessed certain “unalienable Rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”. The French Revolution, in 1789, adopted a Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which inspired various social movements in other countries and eventually, in 1948, led to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
(For a more detailed history, click
here.)

The American Declaration of Independence (1776)
This document, by claiming an “unalienable right to the pursuit of happpiness” is seen by some rights advocates as the original inspiration and justifiation of the demand for sexual rights, which, among other things, imply a right to physical pleasure.
(Our illustration shows the original title and the first few lines of the text.)

[Course 6] [Description] [How to use it] [Introduction] [Development] [Basic Types] [Variations] [Sexual Rights] [Sexual Rights 2] [Sexual Rights 3] [History] [Two Examples] [Sexual Minorities: Intro] [Prohibited Behavior] [Additional Reading] [Examination]