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In the 1988 film The Accused, a young woman named Sarah Tobias is gang raped on a pinball machine by three men while a crowded bar watches. The rapists cut a deal with the prosecutor. Sarah's outrage at the deal convinces the assistant district attorney to prosecute members of the crowd that cheered on and encouraged the rape. This film shows how Sarah Tobias, a woman with little means and less experience, intuits that according to the law rape victims are incredible witnesses to their own victimization. The film goes on to critique what the “right” kind of witness would be. The Accused, therefore, is also about the relationship between witnessing and testimony, between seeing and the representation of that which was seen. It is about the power and responsibility of being a witness in law – one who sees and credibly attests to the truth of their vision – as it is also about what it means to bear witness to film – what can we know from watching movies.

This paper evaluates the modern baseline presumption of nonconsent in sexual assault (rape) cases in light of different theories of sexuality (feminism on the one hand and sex positivism/queer theory on the other) and in light of how sexuality manifests itself in the lives of contemporary young women. The authors analyze social science literature on contemporary heterosexual practices such as sexting and hook-ups, as well as contemporary media imagery, to inform a contemporary understanding of the ways in which young people perceive and experience sex. Using this evidence as a foundation, the authors reconsider the ongoing utility of a baseline presumption of nonconsent in sexual assault cases. This paper demonstrates the complex relationship between women’s sexual autonomy, the contemporary culture’s encouragement of women’s celebration of their own sexual objectification and the persistence of high rates of unwanted sex. In the end, it demonstrates why a legal presumption against consent may neither reduce the rate of nonconsensual sex, nor raise the rate of reported rapes. At the same time, it shows how the presumption itself is unlikely to generate harmful consequences: if it deters anything, it likely deters unwanted sex, whether consented to or not.

On 20 March 2020, the four adult convicts of the 2012 Delhi rape case were executed after a long debate regarding the punishment for their crime. The Delhi rape case, unlike others, was also given to the fast track court because of the worldwide outrage India received in its aftermath. Otherwise, most rape survivors rarely speak out and if they do, their lives are often endangered and threatened, depending on the severity of the case itself and the perpetrator's rank in the society. Through the analysis of Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury's, 2016 film Pink, and Ajay Bahl's film Section 375 (2019), this chapter explores the different ways in which mainstream Hindi cinema deals with such questions, especially in its depictions of courts. Both these films foreground India's contemporary cultural systems of fear that silence the rape survivors. They also imply that in the court cases, unless the specific court case faces intense global publicity, as was the case of the Delhi gang rape, rape survivors will never want to speak out. Moreover, the rape survivors will also hesitate to file a First Information Report (FIR) – a document that records crimes by the police against their perpetrators – limiting any possibility for justice for them. The laws surrounding rape cases are obscure and complex and finding justice for a rape victim (unless it is on a global level) is not an easy venture in India. At the time of the #metoo movement, the rape laws in India are not designed in such a way to arguably encourage victim-survivors to speak up. Instead, if rape survivors do decide to confront their perpetrators, they not only face ostracisation from society but also the danger of losing loved ones and endanger their lives as well.

I intend to provide an understanding of the possibilities that exist for the judgment of wartime rape at the international, domestic and in-between levels.

What is required is an examination of prosecutions and judgments of the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia), the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda), the SCSL (Special Court for Sierra Leone) and the ICC (International Criminal Court). I employ an international law and gender studies approach.

To count as a crime against humanity, war rape must have been committed as part of a widespread attack on a civilian population. This reflects the idea that war rape is not based solely in the violation of a woman’s body. The problem is that war rapes occur absent the explicit purpose to destroy a community. This chapter provides insight to the historical background of wartime rape to scholars, feminist legal theorists, sociologists, NGOs and lawyers.

By alerting us to the fact that the international community appears to elevate violations of groups or communities over the violation of individual women during conflict, the chapter suggests that the human rights of women may not be fully protected.

This chapter explores the challenges associated with proving an absence of consent in rape cases involving non-violent sexual coercion. It is argued that the continuing influence of the ‘real rape’ stereotype perpetuates an expectation in jurors’ minds that a ‘real rape’ will be attended by significant levels of physical violence and/or serious injury. The chapter considers rape law in Ireland and England and Wales to examine how existing law might be reformed to improve the potential of appropriately punishing experiences of non-consensual sexual intercourse which might be categorized as sexual coercion.

The need to revisit the current law in this area is particularly pronounced now that domestic abuse law has been reformed to recognize coercive control. This leads to the incongruous situation where coercive and controlling behaviour is recognized in the context of domestic abuse but it remains very difficult to successfully prosecute offences involving sexual coercion. The chapter discusses a number of reforms which would improve the prevailing law in this area and better align the approach to coercion in domestic abuse and sexual abuse contexts. Reforms proposed include: further developing legislative and non-legislative guidance on consent, introducing a specific offence of sexual coercion, and exploring the potential of prosecuting sexual coercion within intimate partner relationships as domestic abuse, rather than as a sexual offence.

This chapter critically evaluates the use of the so-called ‘rough sex defence’ in Australian rape cases. We argue that the ‘rough sex defence’ in this context is an example of ‘implied consent’, specifically in that it relies on evidence that the defendant and victim-survivor had engaged in (or had even simply discussed) ‘rough’ sexual activity on a previous occasion(s). This narrative of implied consent to rough sex is used to establish either of two things. The first is that the victim-survivor actually did consent to ‘rough’ sexual activity on the occasion in question. The second is that the defendant mistakenly believed in consent, since roughness had been a feature of previous sexual discussions or activities. We argue that the use of the rough sex defence in rape trials is problematic for at least two reasons. First, the defence allows defendants to rely upon false and harmful ‘rape myths’ to avoid accountability for their actions. Second, a reliance on the rough sex defence also contradicts moves to adopt an affirmative consent standard as part of Australian rape law. We conclude by recommending reforms to the legal framework that would help reduce the reliance on the argument that a rape allegation can be explained away as ‘rough sex gone wrong’.