SEX BEFORE VIOLENCE: GIRLS, DATING VIOLENCE, AND (PERCEIVED) SEXUAL AUTONOMY

This article explores the phenomenon of girl violence by examining teen dating violence and girls\u27 experiences with intimate abuse both as victims and as perpetrators. While there is a tendency to view women\u27s experiences as victims of violence as separate and distinct from their experiences as victims of violence, the two phenomena are interrelated. A girl\u27s violent victimization can lead her to victimize someone else, just as her own violence can lead her to violent victimization. These conversations about young women and sexual behavior are especially important for lawyers and advocates. While the implementation of legal strategies such as civil restraining orders and more aggressive criminal prosecutions provide victims of intimate violence greater legal options, there have been no studies which suggest that these strategies help prevent violence among teens. It is necessary to explore more proactive strategies, such as programs geared to reducing dating violence and sex education classes that fully inform adolescents of the risks of early sexual activity

SEX BEFORE VIOLENCE: GIRLS, DATING VIOLENCE, AND (PERCEIVED) SEXUAL AUTONOMY

This article explores the phenomenon of girl violence by examining teen dating violence and girls\u27 experiences with intimate abuse both as victims and as perpetrators. While there is a tendency to view women\u27s experiences as victims of violence as separate and distinct from their experiences as victims of violence, the two phenomena are interrelated. A girl\u27s violent victimization can lead her to victimize someone else, just as her own violence can lead her to violent victimization. These conversations about young women and sexual behavior are especially important for lawyers and advocates. While the implementation of legal strategies such as civil restraining orders and more aggressive criminal prosecutions provide victims of intimate violence greater legal options, there have been no studies which suggest that these strategies help prevent violence among teens. It is necessary to explore more proactive strategies, such as programs geared to reducing dating violence and sex education classes that fully inform adolescents of the risks of early sexual activity

Sex is Not a Sport: Consent and Violence in Criminal Law

Does consent excuse violence against another? Generally, it does not. Recently, however, criminal defendants charged with violence against their sexual partners have asked courts to treat violent sex or sadomasochism (S/M) as a sport, like prize fighting and hockey. While Most courts have refused to do so, a recent New York case, People v. jovanovic, let stand a ruling that effectively permits a defendant to argue consent as a defense. This Article argues that the liberal argument treating S/M as a matter of sexual autonomy fails to account adequately for the history and practical application of the doctrine of violent consent. It concludes that by recognizing consent in the S/M context, the law is evolving in a direction that could lead to the glorification of sexual violence, rather than the sexual liberation of consenting adults

Health, Human Rights, and Violence against Women and Girls: Broadly Redefining Affirmative State Duties after Opuz v. Turkey

This Paper was initially presented at the Hastings International & Comparative Law Review symposium Heath as a Human Right: The Global Option. The symposium was held in memory of Professor Virginia Leary, a leader in international law. Professor Hanna takes this theme and applies it to global problem of violence against women and girls and makes two assertions. First, while there has been tremendous progress in our understanding of how male violence against women and girls undermines gender equality and impacts their right to autonomy and full citizenship, the most fundamental and basic consequence of such violence - physical and mental injury - is often overlooked. Second, while few would question that states have an affirmative duty to implement policies geared at ending male violence against females, many would question whether such policies should include mandated interventions that are contrary to a woman\u27s choice to preference her privacy over her health or safety. Advocates for abused women have been debating where the line between the right to health and the right to family autonomy and privacy ought to be drawn for nearly two decades, just as health advocates have struggled with the question of when mandatory public health interventions should yield to privacy concerns. To rethink this conflict, the author examines Opuz v. Turkey, recently decided by the European Court of Human Rights, which articulates a clear and simple standard to guide state actors in deciding whether mandatory interventions into specific relationships promote or compromise human rights. Opuz shows the Court\u27s willingness to err on the side of ensuring physical and mental integrity rather than the more conceptually amorphous concept of privacy. She urges policy makers in the United States and beyond to use Opuz as a guide in meeting their affirmative duties to end gendered violence

Rethinking Consent in a Big Love Way

This Article is based on a presentation at the Michigan Journal of Gender and Law as part of their symposium Rhetoric & Relevance: An Investigation into the Present & Future of Feminist Legal Theory. In it, I explore the problem of categorical exclusions to the consent doctrine in private intimate relationships through the lens of the HBO series Big Love, which is about modern polygamy. There remains the normative question both after Lawrence v. Texas and in feminist legal theory of under what circumstances individuals should be able to consent to activity that takes place within the context of a private, intimate relationship. The tensions between individual autonomy and state interests are beautifully explored in Big Love. Drawing on themes presented in the series, this Article asks if there is any principled way to make the distinction between those relationships in which there is some physical or psychological harm inflicted and those in which the state has proscribed a relationship because of some moral or social harm it allegedly causes. Four case studies are presented to prompt readers to try to answer the question of when consent should be a defense to otherwise proscribed activity. I conclude that the future of feminist legal theory depends on its ability to remain ambivalent about the tensions presented in the consent doctrine as applied to contexts such as polygamy, prostitution, sadomasochistic sex, obscenity, and domestic violence. Big Love seeks to persuade us to accept ambivalence and to be open to changing our minds because of the complicated nature of women\u27s (and men\u27s) lives; feminist legal theory ought to persuade us to do the same