In States of Passion: Law, Identity and the Social Construction of Desire, Professor Yvonne Zylan explores the role of legal discourse in shaping sexual experience, sexual expression, and sexual identity. The book focuses on three topics: anti-gay hate crime laws, same-sex sexual harassment, and same-sex marriage, examining how sexuality is socially constructed through the institutionally-specific production of legal discourse.

States of Passion argues that law's power...