Adoption by Homosexuals: The Legal Discourse

Abstract

An important factor in the transformations of sexuality in contemporary society was, no doubt, the possibilities for contraception created in the second half of last century.1 They promoted a dissociation between sex and reproduction, allowing a new space for sexual pleasure in people´s life, disconnected from concerns about reproductive and family bounds. “This change led to the possibility of seeing homosexual relationships in new ways – that have been stigmatized, partly because of its unfertility. If heterosexual relationships for their own sake (i.e., without the finality of reproduction) were accepted, why not relationships between people of the same sex?”[1] 1 “The plastic sexuality is a decentralized sexuality, free of reproduction need. Its origins is the trend, that begun in the end of eighteenth century , to the limitation of the family but develops later as a result of the diffusion of new contraceptive technologies” GIDDENS, Anthony. A transformação da intimidade: sexualidade, amor e erotismo nas sociedades modernas. São Paulo: Unesp, 1993, p. 10. [1] LOPES, José Reinaldo de Lima.Liberdade e direitos sexuais – o problema a partir da moral moderna. In RIOS, Roger Raupp. Em defesa dos direitos sexuais. Porto Alegre: Livraria do Advogado, 2007, p. 56.