Dude Looks Like a Lady: Gender Deception, Consent and Ethics

Finding the answer to whether consent is present within a sexual encounter has become increasingly difficult for the courts. We argue that this is due to the focus placed on entrenching gender binaries, a conservative sexual ethic and clear offender/victim roles. It should be the case that the court’s task is to find the truth of the encounter in coming to a judgment as to the ethical balance, rather than judging the parties’ conformity to cisnormative and heteronormative roles. This endeavour is obscured by the court’s need to exclude ‘sex talk’, or otherwise testimony as to the messy reality of the encounter, in favour of asserting gender identity and a procreative understanding of sex. We are, therefore, left in the position where the required information necessary for valid consent is obscured by the courts. We draw on an analysis of cases involving issues relating to consent to sex in order to argue for a judicial approach that is informed by a more flexible understanding of sexual autonomy.

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Consensual Adult Incest

New Criminal Law Review An International and Interdisciplinary Journal ◽

10.1525/nclr.2014.17.1.76 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 17 (1) ◽

pp. 76-102 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Tatjana Hörnle

Keyword(s):

Criminal Law ◽

Critical Analysis ◽

Constitutional Court ◽

Sexual Encounter ◽

Individual Liberty ◽

European Court ◽

Valid Consent ◽

Federal Constitutional ◽

German Federal Constitutional Court ◽

German Federal Constitutional

Criminal prohibitions against incestuous acts, including sexual acts between adults, can be found in many, albeit not all, legal systems. But are such restrictions of individual liberty justifiable from the perspective of criminal law theory? The article starts with describing a prominent case (the Stuebing case) that gave rise to arguments put forward by the German Federal Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights in defense of criminal norms that prohibit adult siblings from having sexual intercourse. However, these rulings are not convincing in the light of a consent-based approach to the criminalization of sexual conduct; such a consent-based model is advocated in the article. One can conceive of circumstances that shed doubt on the validity of consent even when both participants in an incestuous relationship are adults (if one person is the child of the other, or if sexual abuse is carried on that started during the childhood of one person). However, aside from such constellations, if both partners in a sexual encounter have given valid consent, a critical analysis must lead to the conclusion that criminal prohibitions are not bolstered by convincing reasons. Neither eugenic considerations, nor arguments pointing to the protection of families, nor the idea that morality or taboos ought to be protected survive critical analysis. Therefore, legislatures should consider redrafting too far-reaching incest prohibitions.

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Effects of Gender, Parental Role, and Time on Infant- and Adult-Directed Read and Spontaneous Speech

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2019_jslhr-s-19-0047 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 62 (11) ◽

pp. 4001-4014

Author(s):

Melanie Weirich ◽

Adrian Simpson

Keyword(s):

Parental Involvement ◽

Gender Identity ◽

Spontaneous Speech ◽

First Year ◽

Space Size ◽

Vowel Space ◽

Potential Impact ◽

Phonetic Features ◽

And Gender ◽

Description Task

Purpose The study sets out to investigate inter- and intraspeaker variation in German infant-directed speech (IDS) and considers the potential impact that the factors gender, parental involvement, and speech material (read vs. spontaneous speech) may have. In addition, we analyze data from 3 time points prior to and after the birth of the child to examine potential changes in the features of IDS and, particularly also, of adult-directed speech (ADS). Here, the gender identity of a speaker is considered as an additional factor. Method IDS and ADS data from 34 participants (15 mothers, 19 fathers) is gathered by means of a reading and a picture description task. For IDS, 2 recordings were made when the baby was approximately 6 and 9 months old, respectively. For ADS, an additional recording was made before the baby was born. Phonetic analyses comprise mean fundamental frequency (f0), variation in f0, the 1st 2 formants measured in /i: ɛ a u:/, and the vowel space size. Moreover, social and behavioral data were gathered regarding parental involvement and gender identity. Results German IDS is characterized by an increase in mean f0, a larger variation in f0, vowel- and formant-specific differences, and a larger acoustic vowel space. No effect of gender or parental involvement was found. Also, the phonetic features of IDS were found in both spontaneous and read speech. Regarding ADS, changes in vowel space size in some of the fathers and in mean f0 in mothers were found. Conclusion Phonetic features of German IDS are robust with respect to the factors gender, parental involvement, speech material (read vs. spontaneous speech), and time. Some phonetic features of ADS changed within the child's first year depending on gender and parental involvement/gender identity. Thus, further research on IDS needs to address also potential changes in ADS.

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