Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The Lore of Sexual Difference in Social & Legal Discourse on 'Date Rape'.
AU - Bryan, Ian
AU - Wallbank, Julie
N1 - Bryan 50% Wallbank 50% RAE_import_type : Journal article RAE_uoa_type : Law
PY - 2004/5
Y1 - 2004/5
N2 - Using a framework informed by Foucauldian discourse theory and feminist accounts of sexual difference, this paper investigates the process of attrition in cases initially recorded as rape and in which complainant and suspect are known to each other. Having particular regard to police and prosecutor decision-making in the processing of such cases, the authors consider discourses that utilise conceptions of sexual difference, which work to normalise and privilege cultural assumptions about male desires and conduct in sexual relations. In illuminating the manner in which the traditional binary categories of sexual difference is put to work, the authors argue that socio-legal debates over the phenomenon commonly described as ‘date rape’ have over-simplistically inverted these categories. The authors further argue that this inversion operates to women's detriment and fails to advance a sufficiently nuanced understanding of complex issues implicated in rapes committed against women by men they know.
AB - Using a framework informed by Foucauldian discourse theory and feminist accounts of sexual difference, this paper investigates the process of attrition in cases initially recorded as rape and in which complainant and suspect are known to each other. Having particular regard to police and prosecutor decision-making in the processing of such cases, the authors consider discourses that utilise conceptions of sexual difference, which work to normalise and privilege cultural assumptions about male desires and conduct in sexual relations. In illuminating the manner in which the traditional binary categories of sexual difference is put to work, the authors argue that socio-legal debates over the phenomenon commonly described as ‘date rape’ have over-simplistically inverted these categories. The authors further argue that this inversion operates to women's detriment and fails to advance a sufficiently nuanced understanding of complex issues implicated in rapes committed against women by men they know.
KW - adversarial justice - attrition - consent - `date rape' - discourse - gendered binary divisions - normalisation - seduction - sexual difference
U2 - 10.1023/B:LACQ.0000035033.82571.4a
DO - 10.1023/B:LACQ.0000035033.82571.4a
M3 - Journal article
VL - 15
SP - 183
EP - 206
JO - Law and Critique
JF - Law and Critique
SN - 0957-8536
IS - 2
ER -