`A Kiss is Just a Kiss': Date Rape, Gender and Subjectivity

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
In this paper, we problematize the issues of coercion and consent in legal discourse through analysing a British `date rape' court case involving two students. Drawing on the extensive newspaper coverage of the trial, we deconstruct these media accounts, exploring the dominant explanatory frameworks. We propose a reading which combines discursive and psychodynamic analysis in addressing unanswered questions and contradictory evidence. This moves beyond the either/or-ism of guilty and innocent, towards the complex and contradictory gendered identities involved in heterosexual relating in this case. Concluding comments summarize the implications both for a theory of subjectivity and for a contemporary feminist politics of date rape.

This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit: