It is commonly agreed on that if someone uses physical force to make another have sex with them, then it is a clear instance of rape. However, Conly’s approach to rape removes the traditional idea of force playing a key role in constituting rape, but instead focuses on what drove that person to allow sex to happen, despite there being no presence of violence and not wanting to have sex (Conly, 2004, p. 98). Igor Primoratz’s definition of sexual harassment is when person A uses threatening behaviour to Person B to get Person B to have sex with Person A. Primoratz’s definition of sexual harassment is what Conly considers rape, only if certain conditions are met. (Law, 2015, p. 137). I will outline Conly’s approach to rape, and highlight its …show more content…
The one who is coercing another must act intentionally. It is not that their actions happened to result in another wanting them to have sex with you, it is instead that the perpetrator has a “knowledge of wrongdoing” (Griffin, 2012, p. 135) due to a lack of genuine consent on behalf of the victim, or that the perpetrator should have had some insight into the dangers of the situation they are in (Conly, 2004, p. 104). The second condition is that there has to be a lack of choice for the person who is under the “coercive pressure” (Conly, 2004, p. 105) so that any choice they make is “between illegitimate options” (Conly, 2004, p. 105). The third condition for coercion is that the actions of the coercer cause a sufficient harm, where the person who is being coerced is placed under such great “psychological pain” (Conly, 2004, p. 106) that any decisions they make after that pain are affected. However, there can be situations involving lesser harms – for example the threat of someone not going on a date with you if you do not have sex with them – which do not act as a (Conly, 2004, p. 106) “coercive pressure” (Conly, 2004, p. 105). The final condition for coercion is the absence of legitimacy. People can have legitimate authority over another and can demand something of someone legitimately. In the same way that someone can “constrain the options of the chooser” (Conly, 2004, p. 107) illegitimately. To illustrate this, …show more content…
106) that they were reduced to a place where they had to make an impossible decision (Conly, 2004, p. 105). Thus, Conly would argue that the example involving the boss and the employee did not involve any choice as the employee was under such great pressure, that they did not have a choice, which in turn fulfills Conly’s second condition for coercion. Because of the lack of choice which was experienced by the employee, it questions the lack of intent from the boss. Conly may argue that the boss’ actions of presenting an offer to the employee is in itself an action that aims to undercut any legitimate decisions made by the employee, as the offer of gaining financial benefits in exchange for sex will only be accepted by someone who is having a financial struggle. Thus, the boss would have to ignore the clear reasons as to why the employee accepted the offer to be excused of having no intention. This is not the case since the boss originally made the offer to their employee (Conly, 2004, pp.
Even though the contract was properly formed, there was a misrepresentation in Perez’s offer when he said that plaintiff “would be managing the sizeable workload of the company rather than bringing in business.” Judge Scarpulla, ruling for the lower court, said that to claim for fraudulent inducement, a plaintiff must show
This essay will examine Susan Estrich’s and Lois Pineau’s discussion on rape. Both contribute insights on our society’s negligence when it comes to the protection and justice for women. Estrich provides a peak into the legal system on how it determines rape. We will see that the law is shaped in a way that continues to oppress women and leave them unprotected. Pineau furthers the conversation on placing responsibility on the victim to prove the crime. She narrows her focus on date rape and raises an objection to the model of consent that shapes our culture’s attitude and our country’s law. Pineau proposes a communicative model of sex. From this proposal, I will conclude my essay with an objection of her model and will ultimately defend her model against such an objection.
In “Sex and Violence: A Perspective,” MacKinnon turns her focus to the common definition of rape as a form of violence. The categorizations of rape, sexual harassment, and pornography as forms of violence are problematic in themselves because they do not capture the reality of sex. In fact, much of intercourse is about violence (MacKinnon p. 268), in the way that power and dominance are extremely eroticized, thus to say “rape is violence” is a misnomer. MacKinnon brings one’s attention to the construction of rape, which separates rape from intercourse based on the amount of force applied (p. 268). This definition is especially legitimate in the legal system, which derives solely from a male point of view: it is called rape when there is penetratio...
The vast amount of research has provided several explanations to account for the behavior of the offenders and the low rate in which sexual assault cases initiate criminal proceedings through a variety of theoretical perspectives. These include the classical approaches that focus on the individual who has committed sexual assault and the positivist approaches that aim to explain the social factors that influence the prosecution rates th...
Paglia opens her article with the line “Rape is an outrage that cannot be tolerated in civilized society”(578). She talks about how feminists have forced rape to be
Sociological Analysis of Sexual Assault This essay will examine the social and cultural conditions, within the macro-diachronic and micro-synchronic theoretical models, that intensify or perpetuate sexual assault. I have chosen only one concept from each model because these are the only concepts that I feel that I can use to most accurately and comprehensively depict causes and reasons for why sexual assault is deeply entrenched in our social structure. I will thus explore, from these ideological viewpoints, some of the motivations and circumstances that lead offenders to sexual assault. I will also fuse some of the historical attitudes from which today's concepts have evolved into our contemporary understanding of these social phenomena. However, it’s important that we look beyond both offenders' motivations and history, and to the greater sociological view, if we are to correctly reconstruct acts of violence such as sexual assault.
According to RAINN, (2009) approximately 10 per cent of all victims of sexual assault and abuse are adult and juvenile males. In terms of the nature of assault, real figures include a compendium of reported incidents ranging from unwanted sexual touching to forced penetration. To qualify this statement, it must be understood that the percentage does not reflect a vast number of crimes that go unreported due to issues that will be discussed in the present paper.
To comprehend the underlying levels of conviction, there are unfortunate factors from the police, the criminal justice system, the probability of evidence and issue of consent that make convictions immensely difficult to prove. This essay will investigate those measures showing the contrasts of rape and why it is tricky to prove rape occurred without consent, without any corroborative evidence, attitudes of police towards rape victims, the victims withdrawing their report due to personal circumstances and the handling of victims in court, that lead to many offenders having a non-custodial sentence or being acquitted of a rape charge. In the first paragraph, I will explain what constitutes rape and the variations of relationships in which rape is committed. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 (the Act) came into force on the 1st May 2004. The purpose of the Act was to strengthen and modernise the law on sexual offences, whilst improving preventative measures and the protection of individuals from sexual offenders.
Man charged with the rape of 31 women in New York! Ever caught the headline of a crime that occurred and wondered how a person could possibly commit such a heinous act against another person? This is the job of a criminologist. To study crimes, criminals, victims, environmental and social factors, etc. in order to come up with theories and reasons as to why people commit acts against others (Brotherton). Criminology is not a new concept, but it is an evolving one. For this reason many theories have derived from sociologist and psychologist as to why crimes are committed, who commits them, and other the factors that played a role. Take for instance the crime rape. Rape is an unwanted sexual act performed upon another individual by force, deception or while under the influence of a substance. While most rape victims are known to be women, this crime has been expanded to include rape against a man or a person of the same sex. Rape is not an easy concept to deal with, nor is dealing with a rapist. For the purpose of this paper, rape will be explained by three theories, biological, psychological and rational choice theory, all of which criminologist have deemed are fitting of the crime.
The Merriam Webster dictionary Defines rape as “unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent because of mental illness, mental deficiency, intoxication, unconsciousness, or deception”. Rape seems like an act that an individual would never think of committing. However, rape happens every day in many different instances, and what's worse, the excuse for certain rape cases. In my paper I'll be breaking down the social issue of rape through the structural functionalism theory, the conflict theory, and the symbolic interactionism theory. With the conflict theory I'll be examining
Rape is non-consensual sexual intercourse that a male performs against a woman whom he is neither married to or cohabiting with. The definition of rape changes by geographic location. In some countries a woman must prove she is pure in order to find the perpetrator guilty. Rape used to be more of a violation to the man than to the women. It was a violation of the man’s rights if his wife or girlfriend was raped. When a woman is raped her devotion to her family is questioned. Rape is a violent act, an act of possession, not a sexual act. The myth that men who rape women are sexually pathological has begun to be dispelled and replaced with an understanding that rape is an act of anger, power and control rather than lust.
A question among researchers is what type of force is required to constitute sexual assault. Does non-physical sexual coercion count as sexual assault? Russell (1982) found that women described sexual coercion as different than sexual assault, showing that there is a major distinction in their minds of these types of sexual violence. Thus, her research team distinguished between use of physical force and non-physical coercion, even to the point of determining which actions constitute physical force. Their criteria for use of force included “such acts as pushing, pinning, and being held down by a husband’s weight so that the woman couldn’t move,” (p. 48). In chapter five of their seminal work License to Rape (1985), Finkellhor & Yllo present
A man that worked for Ford offered him 1 million than 30 million, and he turned down both. Another risk he did was committing something illegal. He choice to steal the motor of the windshield wipers from a man’s car. Lucky he didn’t get in trouble but it’s still wasn’t a smart decision. Both of those risks I wouldn’t have choice.
“Rape and Sexual Violence Are Serious Problems.” Opposing Viewpoints in Context. 2008. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.
The element of sextortion includes sexual corruption, quid pro quo and psychological coercion rather than physical (IAWJ, 2009).