NCJ Number
93505
Journal
Victimology Volume: 8 Issue: 3-4 Dated: (1983) Pages: 113-130
Date Published
1983
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This paper seeks to explore the legal organization of sexuality in operation in the law, and the legal process as it relates to sexual offenses and to rape in particular, with a view to revealing the reflexive nature of both law and the legal process, insofar as beliefs relating to sexuality are both accommodated and reproduced.
Abstract
The female complainant constitutes the legal subject for this unfolding. First, the discussion will be concerned to expose the problematic nature of theorizing of law to sexuality, rendering any unilinear implacable relationship erroneous. This will be supported in the revealing of the existence of a contradictory model of female sexuality -- of passivity and precipitation -- within different levels of law and administration of legal procedure. Second, the aim will be to discern how concepts of, in this instance women as victims of sexual assault, are located within a social reality and mobilized within a legal reality according to its rules and conventions. And, since provinces of meaning are not finite, it is necessary to challenge definitions within the social reality and social institute to which they are linked and which sustain them. Third, the endeavor will be one of exploring the presence and persistence of the invocation and application of 'contributory fault,' negligence, and blame both within and outside the criminal justice system, even in the face of the women's liberation movement. (Author abstract)