Unwanted sex

About this book

With this volume, Stephen J. Schulhofer, Julius Kreeger Professor of Law and Criminology and Director of the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice at the University of Chicago Law School, joins the energetic debate over the legal treatment of sexual assault and abuse. Schulhofer distinguishes his work from that of other scholars by asserting a new entitlement, the right to sexual autonomy: that is, "the freedom of every person to decide whether or when to engage in sexual relations," without coercion or constraint (p. 99). In his construction, sexual autonomy has three components: "an internal capacity to make mature and rational choices, . . . an external freedom from impermissible pressures and constraints, [and] the bodily integrity of the individual" (p.111). This right to bodily integrity requires that the burden rests on he who seeks consent for sex, not on the other party to demonstrate that she declined. Thus, he maintains, "[e]ven without making threats that restrict the exercise of free choice, an individual violates a woman's autonomy when he engages in sexual conduct without ensuring that he has her valid consent" (p. 111).