ABSTRACT
Legal consent by a subject S to conduct by an actor A is acquiescence by S , whether actual or imputed, that changes S’s criminal relationship to A from that of a victim to a non-victim and, hence, satisfies whatever the criminal law requires to bring about such changes. Legal consent in the context of rape, in turn, transforms S’s act of sexual intercourse with A from an act of criminal sexual assault into a non-criminal act. To clarify these requirements of criminal law, we shall discuss, (A) why acquiescence by S, whether actual or imputed, is a defense to the crime of rape against S and, yet, is not a defense to other criminal offenses against S; (B) why, among the many offenses to which acquiescence by S is not a defense, some can be defined without reference to consent, while others cannot; (C) why the requisites of legal consent are contestable in ways that the requirements of factual consent are not; and (D) how the requisites of legal consent render it variable in ways that factual consent is not.
