A REFLECTIVE EXERCISE

A reflective exercise

A reflective exercise

What have you learned about the relationship between sex laws and the prohibition, regulation or permissions of sexualities and the ethics of sex and sexuality

This paper explores the relationship between sex laws and the prohibition regulations and the ethics of sex and sexuality.When a person consents to sexual activity, this means that he or she knowingly and willingly participates in the activity. The terms knowingly and willingly require that a person is aware of the decisions being made and is aware of the potential consequences of that decision. This means that for sexual activity to be consensual, one person cannot trick, coerce, or force another person into the activity. Trickery, coercion, and force can occur in many ways, including verbal intimidation, physical force, threatening to spread rumors, and getting someone drunk or high for the purpose of having sex. All of these actions violate the requirements of knowledge and willingness by removing a person's capacity to make the decision to participate or by not making refusal to participate an option(Polity Weeks, 1994).

Consent is often confused with the terms compliance and submission. Compliance means doing something even if a person does not agree with the action. For example, people comply with work policies even if they do not agree with them because there are likely consequences for violating the policy. Rape victims comply with a rapist's demands to prevent negative consequences such as physical injury. Submission means not having the power to stop an event from happening. An example of submission is a recruit at military boot camp training. The recruit must submit to the will of the drill instructors because he or she is powerless to refuse. Similarly, a rape victim's submission to a rapist's demands occurs when the victim is powerless to stop the rape. Sometimes a rape victim has to both comply and submit to what the rapist wants.

Rape is something more than just a forced sex. It is more of a disposition of the gender and power diachotomy.Frequently, rape victims who comply with or submit to the demands of their rapist are accused of having consented to the activity. This belief stems from society's expectations of how a person should respond while being raped. Society tends to believe that a person who is being raped should fight back with the utmost verbal and physical resistance in order to avoid an attack or at the very least to prove that the sexual activity was unwanted. A tendency exists for people to believe that if resistance does not occur, the event was not a rape. Several things must be considered regarding this societal expectation. First, it may not be possible for a victim to resist an attack verbally or physically. Victims who are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, whether they willingly or unwillingly used these substances, are unlikely to resist because of the impact of drugs and alcohol on a person's mental and physical ...