Sex and sexuality are an integral part of human life and vital for the survival of the human race, but sexual freedoms in many countries have yet to be enshrined as constitutional rights. Focusing primarily on Japan, Sex, Sexuality, and the Constitution critically reconsiders the relationship between individual sexual freedoms and a constitutionally entrenched right to sexual autonomy. Shigenori Matsui explores the extent to which governments should be allowed to restrict or influence sexual autonomy to support desired population policy outcomes. Should the constitution encompass the following rights: an individual’s right to decide or change sexual or gender identity; to have sex or to refuse to have sex; to have children, through natural birth or through access to medically assisted reproduction; or to not have children, through access to abortion? This rigorously detailed legal analysis has implications for government policy in all countries facing similar population and constitutional rights challenges.

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Shigenori Matsui is a professor in the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia and an internationally renowned expert in Japanese constitutional law, mass media law, and internet law. He has served as a member of Japan’s National Freedom of Information Review Board and as an examiner for its National Bar Examination Commission. Dr. Matsui has published more than forty books in Japan and is the author of Law and Disaster: Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Meltdown in Japan and The Constitution of Japan: A Contextual Analysis. He lives in Vancouver.