T his article critically assesses the main social policy responses to preventing rape following much feminist struggle to make sexual violence a public matter of legitimate concern. It considers the preventative potential of legal measures, anti-violence campaigns waged by feminist and men's groups in the US and Australia, public education campaigns in Schools and Universities, and public awareness campaigns sponsored by the state.We argue that sexual violence is not amenable to quick fix strategies that place responsibility for prevention entirely on individual men or women. While we recognise that responsibilising victims and individualising offenders is consistent with wider global shifts in social policy calling upon individuals to manage their own risk, we argue that the increasing reliance on such neo-Iiberal social policy is especially problematic in preventing rape. The paper suggests ways to resist this which place greater emphasis on the promotion of sexual ethics; the eroticisation of consent; the reinvention of the norms of romance to include both these, and the complete separation of the psycho-social-symbolic connections between sex and violence, and ultimately the re-evaluation of the cultural expectations of masculinity and femininity.

Violence against women remains a pressing and unresolved global issue which has proved resistant to over 30 years of feminist activism around prevention. This article argues that many prevention strategies have been shaped by unarticulated discourses about sexuality which have focused primarily on women managing the risk of the unethical behaviour of men. An alternative conception of sexual ethics is proposed based on Foucault's work on ethics, sexuality, governmentality and power as productive and in a constant state of negotiation. I argue that all sexual encounters, regardless of the gender of the people involved, invites the possibility of ethical sexual behaviour. Given the failure of prevention strategies in eradicating intimate sexual violence to date, there is a pressing need to consider how desire, acts and pleasure can be understood from an ethical perspective to create a greater possibility of realizing an erotics of consent. This would result in alternative ways of shaping violence prevention strategies and provide new directions for law, education and negotiating intimate sexual relationships of women and men of diverse sexualities.

This article argues that many anti-violence prevention strategies have been shaped by unarticulated discourses of sexuality that focus primarily on women managing the risk and danger of unethical behaviour of men. Sexual intimacy has therefore been dominated by discourses of fear and danger and women's pleasure is once again invisible. An alternative conception of sexual ethics is presented based on Foucault's work on ethics, and sexuality. The findings from in-depth qualitative interviews with 26 Australian women and men of diverse sexualities indicate that women and men regardless of erotic choice of partner have found multiple ways to explore sexual pleasure that is ethical, non-violent and where danger is reduced. This suggests a need to develop alternative ways of shaping violence prevention strategies that acknowledge both pleasure and danger.

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The idea that pleasure might form a part of sexuality education is no longer a 'new' idea in the field of sexuality studies. In this paper we examine how originally conceived notions of pleasure have been 'put to work' and theoretically 'taken up' in relation to sexuality and education. It is our contention that because of the nature of discourse and varying cultural and political contexts, pleasure has been operationalised in ways we did not intend or foresee. Throughout this discussion we seek to discern the discursive limits of visions of pleasure to illuminate their normalising potential. Drawing on Foucault's thoughts about pleasure as having 'no passport' and queer theoretical understandings of this concept, we argue for a re-conceptualisation of the potential of pleasure in sexuality education. In particular we identify the need for wedging open spaces for the possibility of ethical pleasures, in forms that are not heteronormatively pre-conceived or mandatory.