Consensual Violence

Sexual victimization against transgender women in prison: Consent and coercion in context

“…In contrast, other feminists have focused on women as free and autonomous individuals who can, and indeed do, engage in consensual exchanges, sexual and otherwise, albeit on an uneven playing field (Walby, ; cf. Weinberg, ). They have posited that women have the capacity to consent, and by exercising this capacity, they can, in some circumstances, resist patriarchal structures.…”

“…These kinds of debates are central to any discussion of sexual victimization insofar as what distinguishes sexual victimization, including rape, from other forms of sexual exchange is consent (for a recent work along these lines, see Weinberg, , p. 119, on “a new kind of sociology of consent”). This is reflected in the law and in larger cultural understandings of sexual victimization, including the BJS's approach to collecting official data (Rantala, ) and the National Standards to Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Prison Rape Under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) (Department of Justice, ).…”

“…As a unique population in a total institution (Goffman, ), transgender women behind bars endure many “pains of imprisonment” similar to those experienced by their male counterparts: loss of liberty, the deprivation of goods and services of choice, the imposition of a rule‐bound regime, and other universal characteristics of carceral environments (Sykes, ). At the same time, the findings reported in a growing body of literature reveal that transgender women in prisons for men also face unique challenges born of three institutionalized cultural logics and attendant socially recognizable binaries: 1) a gender binary in which two (and only two) sex categories (i.e., male and female) and two (and only two) genders (i.e., men and women) exist and in which transgender women are not generally recognized as women (Sumner & Sexton, ); 2) a carceral state in which sex‐segregation is heavily relied on in the form of men's prisons and women's prisons (Britton, ; Rafter, ), and in which a genital‐based assignment to each type of facility is privileged (Sumner & Jenness, ); and 3) relevant to sexual assault, that there is a neat binary between consensual, wanted sex and forced, unwanted sex (Muehlenhard, Humphreys, Jozkowski, & Peterson, ; Weinberg, ).…”

Masochist or Murderer? A Discourse Analytic Study Exploring Social Constructions of Sexually Violent Male Perpetrators, Female Victims-Survivors and the Rough Sex Defense on Twitter

“…This deems it acceptable to agree to (intended) bodily harm during these activities, but not sexually transgressive practices. Although this provides some understanding of how the rough sex defense can be steered via intent to harm, to reduce sentencing or culpability, it is also important to note that not all rough sex activities result in bodily harm and are mostly permissible in court ( Weinberg, 2016 ). Importantly, as British legislation around consent and intent during “rough sex” is currently unclear, and ambiguous, perpetrators and defense lawyers may be more likely to advance narratives which endorse victim blaming, rape mythology and minimize sexual violence, when in pursuit of a lesser criminal charge, making the constructions around this defense plea worthy of further exploration.…”