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Sexuality and the Law

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Journal

Consent

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Law

The Incest Horrible: Delimiting The Lawrence V. Texas Right To Sexual Autonomy, Y. Carson Zhou Jan 2016

The Incest Horrible: Delimiting The Lawrence V. Texas Right To Sexual Autonomy, Y. Carson Zhou

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Is the criminalization of consensual sex between close relatives constitutional in the wake of Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges? Justice Scalia thought not. The substantive due process landscape has changed dramatically in response to the LGBTQ movement. Yet, when a girl in a sexual relationship with her father recently revealed in an anonymous interview with New York Magazine that they were planning to move to New Jersey, one of the only two states where incest was legal, the New Jersey legislature introduced with unprecedented speed a bill criminalizing incest. But who has the couple harmed? The very …


When Sixteen Ain't So Sweet: Rethinking The Regulation Of Adolescent Sexuality, Nicole Phillis Jan 2011

When Sixteen Ain't So Sweet: Rethinking The Regulation Of Adolescent Sexuality, Nicole Phillis

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Legally speaking, sexual maturity poses a significant enough liberty interest for a minor to make medical decisions regarding contraceptive medicine or to choose motherhood without parental involvement, but not quite enough for her to obtain an abortion independently. The law incentivizes teenage motherhood by only granting decisional autonomy to those minors who choose to have a child; the minor female's right to procreate vests regardless of her individual maturity. The law discourages teenage abortions by using the choice to terminate a pregnancy to trigger a presumption of immaturity; the minor female's abortion right is pitted against personal autonomy via parental …


Sex Education And Rape, Michelle J. Anderson Jan 2010

Sex Education And Rape, Michelle J. Anderson

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

In the law of rape, consent has been and remains a gendered concept. Consent presumes female acquiescence to male sexual initiation. It presumes a man desires to penetrate a woman sexually. It presumes the woman willingly yields to the man's desires. It does not presume, and of course does not require, female sexual desire. Consent is what the law calls it when he advances and she does not put up a fight. I have argued elsewhere that the kind of thin consent that the law focuses on is not enough ethically and it should not be enough legally to justify …


Rethinking Consent In A Big Love Way, Cheryl Hanna Jan 2010

Rethinking Consent In A Big Love Way, Cheryl Hanna

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

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 …


Regulating Sexual Relationships Between Faculty And Students, Margaret H. Mack Jan 1999

Regulating Sexual Relationships Between Faculty And Students, Margaret H. Mack

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Universities must create an effective learning environment for students; university policy should be directed at creating an atmosphere of mutual respect and trust. Whenever a faculty-student sexual relationship causes a student to drop a class, or a thesis, or school, that student has suffered a serious harm. Universities cannot simply answer that the student consented to the relationship and should handle the consequences. A university without a well-established and promulgated policy, one that at least acknowledges the risks involved in faculty-student sexual relationships and gives students a list of faculty and staff members to contact for support, seriously fails the …


Consensual Relationships And The Constitution: A Case Of Liberty Denied, Gary E. Elliot Jan 1999

Consensual Relationships And The Constitution: A Case Of Liberty Denied, Gary E. Elliot

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

On many university and college campuses, there exists an anti-civil-libertarian spirit reminiscent of the McCarthy period. During the 1940s and early 1950s, regents, trustees, academic administrations, and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), although each for a different reason, persuaded the Academy to repress personal liberty. It is difficult to pinpoint precisely when constitutionally and statutorily protected liberties and rights became secondary to insulating educational institutions from damage suits in their pursuit of a selective social and political agenda.