ABSTRACT
The arrival of the new millennium is an appropriate time to examine the fruits of 40 years of feminist striving for sexual autonomy and the demand that this be protected by the criminal law. The story is one of achievement and failure, of new understandings, new possibilities and new threats. This chapter will briefly consider the substantive law of rape in England and Wales at its present state of evolution and the issues which still confront it. It will also sketch both the progress which has been made, and the problems and controversies which continue to exist in the evidential rules surrounding it. Finally, some recent procedural initiatives will be mentioned.
