The Discourse of Violence, Persecution of Sexual Culture and Criminal Convictions of Sadomasochism

Abstract: How sexual consent is evidence and operationalised in criminal courts affect not only sexual rights but also the implementation of social justice. While sexual consent is regarded as a protocol of agreement in vernacular practices, the legal definition is seemingly more complicated than a mutual agreement. There is very little research looking into the limits of sexual consent imposed by legal authorities, leaving a large gap in the understanding of the politics of consent and the sexual ideologies behind the limitations. To this end, this thesis proposes the theory of cognitive limits on sexual consent to examine how normative cognition of sex shapes the politics and jurisprudence of sexual consent and affects the implementation of social justice. Through a socio-cognitive approach to critical discourse analysis to the verdict R v Brown (1993), the results suggest that sexual consent can be a discursive tool to manipulate sexual ideologies by prohibiting non-normative sexual practices. This study contributes to the legal discussion between “sex” and “violence”, theoretical discussion on consent, and promotes sexual rights by reflecting how a well-negotiated culture on sexual consent can combat rape culture.