Blackwell Reference Online

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Transgression, violating a formal rule and/or moral principle, crossing a boundary of acceptable conduct, or exceeding a social limit, is central to understanding social life in general and deviance in particular ( Jenks 2003 ). Although there is no clear-cut distinction between the criminal and moral, few societies ignore theft while publicly breaking wind or picking one's nose is not usually punished as a criminal offense. At various moments, insanity, masturbation, homosexuality, and adultery have been considered transgressions that have been deemed criminal and/or pathological. At some times, imputed transgressions such as witchcraft were harshly punished. A great deal of social history has concerned the attempts of competing groups to legislate morality – and most of these have been futile. There are dialectical relations between what is deemed “normal” and what is “pathological” and hence constrained or isolated. Normative standards of right and wrong or good and evil are typically “contested terrains” with “policed boundaries” where powerful actors attempt to define “acceptable” action, thought, and belief. Yet indeed, establishing limits may itself foster the desire to transgress those limits because transgression can be “fun.” How does society attempt to thwart transgression, and if that fails, how are transgressions punished? At the same time, how and why are some people ... log in or subscribe to read full text