This study aims to investigate the field where law, sexuality and disability meet, with a particular focus on constitutional law. Through the use of comparative law and an interdisciplinary approach, the study will try to understand whether the law might have a role in overcoming social barriers affecting people with disabilities in the sphere of sexuality, and which are the criteria the State should follow when intervening in this complex field. Drawing on different notions of disability, we will sketch how law itself is slowly enacting a paradigm shift in disability law, while leaving outside some of the ultimate inquiries elaborated by disability theorists. It is the case of the issue of sexuality, which still remains a "silenced discourse" both on the international and domestic level. In spite of its relevant legal implications (e.g. forced sterilization and legal denial of sexual agency) and recent efforts to secure its negative aspects, the right to sexuality for people with disabilities has not been the object of positive measures, with few exceptions (e.g. Denmark). One of the most debated instruments in this field is currently sexual assistance: a controversial praxis, even in its definition and boundaries. It was observed, both at the domestic level and by comparative analysis, that the legal status and the factual development of this tool is strictly linked to the regulation on sex working. An alternative solution, namely framing sexual assistance as a form of personal assistance in Italy, will be theorized. Sexual assistance, however, is condemned to be ineffective if not surrounded by other tools (such as inclusive sexual education, sexual counselling etc.) aimed at fostering self-determination in the sexual sphere for people with disabilities. These policies need to be developed down the constitutional path already traced by the jurisprudence, starting from the experience and questions of people with disabilities and using flexible sources of law rather than hard law. In this way law could contribute to the social change needed to dismantle social barriers and discrimination experienced by people with disabilities in the field of sexuality and grant them full participation in all areas of life

Research has shown that both legal and extra-legal factors are used by the prosecutor in a sexual assault case when making the decision to file charges in the case. However, no study on sexual assault prosecutorial discretion, at this time, has examined the effect of prior consensual sex between the victim and the offender and the affect that it has on the prosecutor’s decision to file charges. Using data from a National Institute of Justice Study on sexual assault case processing, this study tests whether evidence of prior consensual sex between the victim and the offender plays a role in the prosecutor’s decision to file charges in sexual assault cases. This study also examines the effect of the interaction between extra-legal factors and prior consensual sex between the victim and the offender.

There are many ways in which gender diversity and sexualness are experienced, spoken of and transacted in India. Recent activism against marginalisation related to sexual and gender nonconformity has led to transformation of some of these idioms into objects that circulate in particular registers of governmentality. In the process, something quite else is created, and this something else portends to speak the truth of 'sexuality in India'. Based on fieldwork carried out between 2005 and 2007 in cities, towns and villages around India, this thesis tells a story of this emergence of 'sexuality' as an aspect of personhood, a political object, a basis for social mobility, a mode of connectedness between people and as a legitimate cause for a movement. The term 'Queer', used variously in India, is a shorthand in some contexts for people who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and with South Asian identities such as Hijra, Kothi and Aravani. In others, it refers to a political project challenging norms of heterosexual monogamy, marking a conscious move away from identity-based politics premised on a bio-medical presumption that desire defines personhood. Evoking both these meanings, I examine queer activism as the negotiation of terms of entry of Queer bodies into epidemiological and juridical registers. In relation to the first, I examine interventions of the transnational HIV/AIDS industry that target 'men who have sex with men' – or 'MSM' – the category through which the industry apprehends sexualness between male subjects. I focus on the political-economic conditions of epidemiological knowledge, and on the transformation of idioms of gender and sexualness that its production draws upon. The industry, I argue, is involved in establishing availability of socio-economically marginalised bodies for intervention and research. These relationships of availability are possible because of their promise of social mobility and respectability for queer folk, hitherto despised in masculinist political economies. This mobility is contingent upon the creation and adoption of epidemiologically overdetermined identities which ironically find political significance in being seen as timeless and 'traditional'. The dichotomous being of the 'MSM' - simultaneously the producer and the object of this epidemiological knowledge, implies that the production of this knowledge is predicated upon the ability of queer folk to perform their place in the 'community'. The relationships in the 'field' are already written into the data, and thus the knowledge. Epidemiological knowledge, and the subjects it speaks of, I thus argue, are best understood as articulations of the conditions of their production. The second theme, of Law and the juridical register, opens with an examination of the tensions involved in the production of 'homophobia' as a political object. The disavowal of erotic dimensions in the naming of experiences as 'homophobic violence' is situated in the context of a popular imagination of a worthy juridical subject, and in broader imaginings of power. I then turn to the conditions under which the law, and in particular, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, a Victorian anti-sodomy law under which homosexuality is seen to be criminalised, comes to be central to the Queer movement in India. Activism has given Section 377 a 'social life', an awareness of the law in public spheres, amongst law enforcers and branches of the State. Simultaneously, the Law has been inaugurated as a space for the articulation of more diffuse tensions. It has given a tangibility and intelligibility to experiences of exclusion, marginalisation and violence. I then examine a litigation at the High Court of Delhi challenging this law on grounds that it violates Fundamental Rights, focussing on the constitution of a coherent Queer body, cast simultaneously as enumerable, drawing on epidemiological knowledge; and, as capable of instantiation through individual narratives of violation. This project, where a sexuality is ascribed to the citizen-subject, is then juxtaposed with instances where activists actively strip sexualness off of the Queer body in order to make claims to citizenship. This is a cleavage in the Queer movement, an effect of the diversity of bodies it claims to speak of, as, and for, and the conditions under which these diverse bodies seek articulation. Between these projects lies ambiguity, which, I argue, is a precious resource for Queer folk, and for the movement. I suggest a conceptual shift from 'sexuality', (as personhood), to 'sexualness' (where desire flows through subjects without constituting them), argue that the Subject found in registers of governmentality may best be understood in terms of its political economy and distinct from psychic formations, and finally, offer up thoughts for a politics of ambiguity.

During the information sessions that the Scripps Mock Trial Team hosts at the beginning of the school year for those interested in mock trial, it's customary for all the returning team members to talk about why we decided to join mock trial in college. We had no team at my high school, but at the end of my senior year, my AP American Government teacher decided that having a mock trial in class would give us valuable insight into the American legal system. I was chosen to give the closing statement for the defense, and I found my calling. My competitive spirit had found an outlet where it was not hampered by the unathletic body that housed it: competitive arguing. I have not been able to find any scholarly text that examines the ways in which mock trial teams themselves adhere to gender-normative patterns. I believe that this thesiswill be invaluable to an understanding of how gender roles are performed in the legal profession

Recently, expert testimony in sexual assault trials shifted from an emphasis on Rape Trauma Syndrome (RTS) to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and experts have tied these diagnoses either loosely or tightly to the victim’s condition following sexual assault. In the current study, 326 jury-eligible adults completed a survey on Amazon Mechanical Turk in which they read a synopsis of a sexual assault trial and an expert testimony with either RTS, PTSD or neither; along with either no, loose, or tight links made between the diagnosis and the victim’s condition. There was no main effect of diagnosis label but testimony linkage did have an effect on verdicts. Women gave more guilty verdicts due to their lower levels of Rape Myth Acceptance (RMA), and the effect of gender partially depended on RMA. Implications for how expert testimony can affect defendants’ and plaintiffs’ credibility are discussed.

During the information sessions that the Scripps Mock Trial Team hosts at the beginning of the school year for those interested in mock trial, it's customary for all the returning team members to talk about why we decided to join mock trial in college. We had no team at my high school, but at the end of my senior year, my AP American Government teacher decided that having a mock trial in class would give us valuable insight into the American legal system. I was chosen to give the closing statement for the defense, and I found my calling. My competitive spirit had found an outlet where it was not hampered by the unathletic body that housed it: competitive arguing. I have not been able to find any scholarly text that examines the ways in which mock trial teams themselves adhere to gender-normative patterns. I believe that this thesiswill be invaluable to an understanding of how gender roles are performed in the legal profession

St. Thomas, United States Virgin Islands, is similar to other tourism dependent Caribbean nations where the tourism industry is dependent upon the `4 S's'- sun, sand, sea, and sex. This researcher posited that the phenomenon of sex tourism exists in St. Thomas as it does in other tourist destinations in the Caribbean like Jamaica, Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and Barbados (Bailey and Ricketts, 2003; de Albuquerque, 1998; Munshi, 2006; Ryan and Kinder, 1996). The lacuna of any U.S. Virgin Islands sex tourism literature prompted this researcher to conduct an exploratory case study in St. Thomas to learn whether or not sex tourism exists in the U.S. territory. Using a qualitative approach, this study finds that sex tourism does exist in St. Thomas. This information is pertinent to Conflict Analysis and Resolution because of sex tourism's strong involvement with the spread of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS, human rights violations, gender based violence, human trafficking, and other social challenges. Examining sex tourism from three different sources, this researcher uses Human Needs theory and feminism to frame the research. The findings of this study are of interest to academia, government agencies, non-profit organizations, and tourism industries.

Researchers vary on their definitions of paraphilia. A difference exists between an individual possessing a paraphilia versus an individual possessing a paraphilic disorder. Hanson (2010) proposed a dimensional model of sexual deviance that includes a measure of intensity. However, research on sexual intensity has been lacking. A majority of existing research focuses on the potential risk factors of possessing a paraphilia or paraphilic disorder (e.g., criminality). There is less focus on whom in the population has the potential to develop a paraphilia; or which factors predict paraphilic behavior. The Big Five personality factors (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), obsessive-compulsive behavior, and sexual fantasy (exploratory, intimacy, impersonal, and sadomasochism) were used to predict paraphilic intensity using the Edwards Paraphilic Inventory (EPI). Surveys were placed on Amazon Mechanical Turk (n = 100), the Celebrity Feet in the Pose website (via https://celebrityfeetinthepose.com), and its social media (n = 163) to reach a total of 263 participants. Results indicated that obsessive-compulsive behavior, sadomasochism, and agreeableness significantly predicted the level of paraphilic intensity. Such findings support that paraphilic disorders are likely obsessive-compulsive in nature. Furthermore, agreeableness and paraphilic intensity were negatively correlated. This suggests that the lower the individual is in agreeableness, the higher the likelihood he or she falls on the paraphilic spectrum. Lastly, those who practice sadomasochistic roleplay in the bedroom are likely to report higher levels of paraphilic intensity. According to the United States sample, 1 out of every 10 participants reported some type of paraphilic activity. Individuals who participated in the survey from the website self-reported higher levels of paraphilic behavior than those who completed the survey from Amazon Mechanical Turk. In addition, these individuals are represented in more than one paraphilic category. It remains unclear how large of a role pleasure plays in an individual seeking therapeutic or pharmacological help with paraphilic disorders. Pedophilic disorder was not examined due to ethical concerns with the United States and other various countries. Future research should examine education level and sexual orientation as predictors of paraphilic intensity.

Rape and other forms of sexual violence have been used against civilian populations since the advent of armed conflict. However, recent scholarship within the last few decades proves that rape is not a byproduct of war or a result of transgressions by a few “bad apples,” rather, rape and sexual violence are used as strategic, systematic, and calculated tools of war, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Rape has also been used as a means of preventing future generations of children of “undesirable” groups from being born. Rape and sexual violence are also used with the purpose of intimidating women and their communities, destroying the social fabric and cohesion of specific groups, and even as a final act of humiliation before killing the victim. In each conflict that is examined in this thesis, sexual violence is used against civilian populations for the specific purpose of genocide.

Treaties and international organizations work together to create a global environment that protects the rights of a person and actively promotes the well-being of society. However, they do not necessarily guarantee the rights of everyone. Since women are not explicitly named in human rights documents, they are often not granted equal human rights. Therefore, it takes more than just international legal instruments to guarantee women's rights as human rights. A combination of civil society (NGOs), International organizations (IOs), and domestic government creates a perfect coalition to beat the barriers that must be overcome to fully protect women from violence.