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102 Yale L.J. 333 (1992-1993)
A Social Constructionist Critique of Posner's Sex and Reason: Steps toward a Gaylegal Agenda

handle is hein.journals/ylr102 and id is 345 raw text is: Review Essay
A Social Constructionist Critique of Posner's
Sex andReason: Steps Toward a Gaylegal Agenda
Sex and Reason. By Richard A. Posner.* Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1992. Pp. 458. $29.95.
William N. Eskridge, Jr.t
Richard A. Posner is law's most successful agenda entrepreneur since
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.' He has already earned a place in the history of
legal studies as a parent of the law and economics movemene and as an
important contributor to the renaissance of academic interest in statutory
* Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit; Senior Lecturer in Law, University
of Chicago Law School.
t Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center. This review essay is something of a group
project, since many of the ideas were formulated in discussions of SEX AND REASON and other books in
the Law and Sexuality reading group sponsored by the Gay & Lesbian Attorneys of Washington, D.C.
(GAYLAW). I presented an earlier version of this essay to a faculty workshop at the Brooklyn Law School,
where I received many very helpful comments. I am particularly grateful to Len Becker, Chai Feldblum,
Sarah Goodfriend, Bruce Hay, Nan Hunter, Larry Lessig, Jeff Stempel, and Robin West for their comments
on various drafts.
1. Like Holmes, Posner is an agenda entrepreneur in the sense that he has been unusually successful
in spotting intellectual market opportunities in law. Both Holmes and Posner were early and perceptive
critics of legal theories that prevailed when they started to write about law, and both set forth strongly
articulated positive visions of law that over time have won impressive market shares.
2. See, e.g., RICHARD A. POSNER, EcONOMIc ANALYSIS OF LAW (1st ed. 1972) (synthesizing Posner's
early work, updated in two subsequent editions).

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