ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the way in which sexual harassment and acquaintance rape are constructed in the talk of a sexual harassment tribunal. Clearly, women's concern with issues such as date rape and sexual abuse is rendered ludicrous and misguided when date rape refers to any kind of sexual interaction and when sexual abuse is defined as overhearing a sibling refers to sex experimentation. The immediate step in this discursive strategy involves focusing on the complainants' actions, which the defence characterizes as inaction. The women are represented as having exercised some agency in or even having chosen to engage in the sexual activities. Rape trials will often protect the sexual prerogative of a man at the expense of a woman's sexual autonomy. According to the regulations of York University, sexual harassment is said as the unwanted attention of a sexually oriented nature made by a person who knows or ought reasonably to know that such attention is unwanted.
