False Beliefs and Consent to Sex

Abstract

When, if ever, do mistaken beliefs render sexual activity non-consensual despite a person's seeming consent? I suggest that existing answers can be improved upon by paying due attention to two things, (1) that valid consent is often given through exercises of sexual autonomy that are, to different extents, unreflective rather than considered; and (2) that a belief can define both the object of consent, and a precondition for it. I propose that where V putatively consents to sexual activity with D, the falseness of a belief that V holds renders the sexual activity non-consensual when it means either that what happened to V fell outside the (consideredly or unreflectively selected) boundaries of the object of V's consent, or that a precondition that V consideredly set for her consent, had not been met.

Trafficking, Rape, or Deceptive Sex? A Historical Examination of Procurement Offences in England

“…By the 21 st century these offences were very rarely used (Home Office, 2000) and they were repealed, without replacement, when the Sexual Offences Act 2003, the current framework for sexual offences came into force. The issue of procurement is, however, of wider importance as while procurement offences no longer form part of sexual offences law, deception – and when deception vitiates consent to sexual activity – remains one of the most contested issues in modern sexual offences law (Clement, 2019; Dsouza, 2022; Kennedy, 2021). Furthermore, this is timely due to the increasing complexity in cases of deceptive sex ( R v Lawrance [2020] EWCA Crim 971; R (Monica) v Director of Public Prosecutions [2018] EWHC 3508 (Admin)) and the ongoing consultations on how to reform this area of law, which potentially includes the reintroduction of a revised procurement offence (Criminal Law Reform Now, 2021).…”