Professor Chloë Kennedy has new book ‘Inducing Intimacy: Deception, Consent and the Law’ published

Edinburgh Law School’s Chloë Kennedy, Professor of Law and History, has had her book 'Inducing Intimacy: Deception, Consent and the Law', published by Cambridge University Press.

The publication is part of her research project, ‘Identity Deception: A Critical History' which was funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Leader Fellowship. The scheme provides funding for researchers to undertake research activities that can potentially generate a transformative impact on their subject area and beyond. 

The book examines how the law deals with deception in the context of sex and intimate relationships (i.e. sexual and / or romantic relationships), tracing the development of various civil and criminal laws related to this issue over the past 250 years.

It argues that the law's understanding and treatment of deceptively induced intimacy have been shaped by prevailing ideas about what makes intimacy valuable, including the role it plays in self-construction. These ideas have shaped and constrained the laws' operation. The book shows that over time, the law has tended to take deceptively induced sex more seriously while becoming less concerned with deceptively induced romantic relationships. The book concludes by proposing a new framework for deciding whether and how the law should regulate deceptively induced intimacy today.

Read more about the project

Identity Deception: A Critical History

Find out more about a panel discussion focussed on the book

Modern Criminal Law Review – Inducing Intimacy: International Perspectives on Sexual Fraud