What is Wrong with the Criminal Law of Rape?
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- McGregor argues that consent has historically and popularly been judged in negative terms. In US court cases as recently as 1998, if a victim could not produce evidence that she resisted the rape sufficiently, consent to the act could be assumed. Likewise, if there is no evidence of legally recognized force, consent to the act could be assumed. She shows how different cultural norms and expectations affect what we understand as consent. Cultural norms in the “bedroom” place men in the role of "aggressors or initiators of sex and women are not supposed to be eager about sex, so they need to be persuaded or ‘forced’ into it” (7). In popular culture, female consent has been characterized as largely negative in popular culture. "No” is “yes.” For instance, in the famous scene from Gone with the Wind (1939), Scarlett does not consent to sexual intercourse with Rhett, however he forces himself upon her. The next morning Scarlett is portrayed as “radiant and happy woman"(8).
- McGregor asks why verbal consent is not enough? Why must a woman demonstrate extraordinary resistance to prove rape. McGregor argues that current notions of female consent are not sufficient to protect women nor properly account for the complexities of an expanding legal definition of rape.
