Eric Berkowitz – The Boundaries of Desire: Book Review & Audio Summary

Book Info

• Book name: The Boundaries of Desire: A Century of Good Sex, Bad Laws, and Changing Identities
• Author: Eric Berkowitz
• Genre: Non-fiction, Legal History, Social Commentary
• Pages: 468
• Published Year: 2015
• Publisher: Counterpoint Press
• Language: English
• Awards: No specific literary awards mentioned; received notable endorsements from Richard A. Posner and Christopher Ryan; recognized as Book of the Week with a starred review by Publishers Weekly.

Audio Summary

Synopsis

Here’s the deal: for most of modern history, the law has been written by men, for men-especially when it comes to sex, marriage, and bodily autonomy. Eric Berkowitz, a lawyer-turned-journalist with a knack for digging up uncomfortable truths, takes us on a tour through a century of legal disasters. We’re talking marital rape exemptions that lasted until the 1990s. Courts that shrugged at domestic violence. Systems designed to protect the powerful while everyone else-women, LGBTQ+ folks, children, minorities-got thrown under the bus. It’s not a comfortable read. But it’s a necessary one. Berkowitz isn’t here to make you feel good. He’s here to make you angry enough to pay attention.

Key Takeaways

• The Big Idea: Sex laws have historically been tools of control, not protection-and we’re still dealing with the fallout.
• The Controversial Point: The legal system’s treatment of sexual violence was (and sometimes still is) shockingly designed to protect perpetrators, not victims.
• The Actionable Part: Understanding how we got here is step one to demanding better laws and holding institutions accountable.
• The Hidden Gem: The evolution of birth control didn’t just change sex-it fundamentally rewrote the power dynamics of marriage and employment for women.

My Summary

So Here’s the Thing About Sex and the Law

I picked this one up because I’m a sucker for books that make me uncomfortable. And boy, did Berkowitz deliver. The Boundaries of Desire isn’t some dry legal textbook-it’s a 468-page indictment of how spectacularly the American (and British) legal systems have failed when it comes to sex, bodies, and basic human dignity.

Let me hit you with one fact early: marital rape wasn’t fully criminalized in the US until 1993. Nineteen. Ninety. Three. That’s not ancient history. That’s the year Jurassic Park came out. We had dinosaur CGI before we had laws saying husbands couldn’t assault their wives. Let that sink in.

The Writing: Sharp, But Sometimes Sprawling

Berkowitz writes like a journalist who went to law school-which, well, he is. The prose is accessible, occasionally punchy, and he’s got a talent for making legal history feel urgent. He’s not trying to impress you with jargon. He’s trying to piss you off. And it works.

But-and this is where I gotta be honest-the book’s scope is massive. We’re covering marriage, homosexuality, race, children, pornography, and about a dozen other topics across a full century. Sometimes it feels like Berkowitz is sprinting through a museum, pointing at exhibits and yelling “Look at this! And this! And THIS!” You kinda wish he’d slow down in places. Some chapters feel rushed while others drag a bit. (The section on obscenity law? Could’ve used a trim.)

That said, the unevenness is forgivable because when he hits, he hits. The case studies are infuriating in the best way. A man whips his wife over bacon and gets fined ten bucks? Courts protecting their own in sexual assault cases? It’s the kind of stuff that makes you want to throw the book across the room-then pick it back up because you need to know what happens next.

What’s Actually In Here

The book covers roughly a century of American sex law, broken into thematic chunks:

• Marriage and domestic abuse: How the law treated wives as property well into living memory.
• Sexual assault: The long, ugly history of victim-blaming baked into the legal system.
• LGBTQ+ rights: From criminalization to (slow, incomplete) progress.
• Race and sex: How interracial relationships were policed and punished.
• Children and consent: The evolving-and often failing-legal protections for minors.

Berkowitz doesn’t just list horrors. He connects dots. He shows how these laws weren’t accidents-they were systems designed to maintain power structures. Men over women. Straight over gay. White over everyone else.

The Western Blind Spot

Here’s my one real gripe: the book is almost entirely focused on the US and UK. Now, I get it-Berkowitz is American, he’s writing for an American audience, and you can only do so much in one book. But when you’re making sweeping claims about “desire” and “identity,” the Western-centric lens feels limiting. Other cultures have their own complicated histories with sex law, and I would’ve loved even a chapter acknowledging that wider context.

(But hey, maybe that’s another book. I’d read it.)

Real-World Applications

This isn’t a self-help book. There’s no “5 Steps to Fix Sexual Injustice” appendix. But here’s what it does give you: context. If you’ve ever wondered why certain debates around consent, marriage equality, or reproductive rights feel so charged-this book shows you the receipts. It’s ammunition for arguments. It’s the historical backup for why people are still angry.

And honestly? In an era where reproductive rights are being rolled back and LGBTQ+ protections are under attack, understanding how we got here feels more relevant than ever.

The Verdict

Look, The Boundaries of Desire isn’t perfect. It’s too broad in places, too Western in focus, and occasionally loses momentum. But it’s important. Berkowitz has done the homework, dug through the case files, and presented a century of legal failures with the appropriate level of outrage.

If you care about gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights, or just how the law shapes our most intimate lives-read this. It’ll make you mad. It should.