ABSTRACT
This is the second of two chapters on substantive areas of the law. Unlike the law surrounding murder and manslaughter, English law offers relatively tidy and comprehensive, if complex, legislation containing all the relevant offences (the Sexual Offences Act 2003), and parts of this merit philosophical scrutiny. We start by discussing why sexual offences are a special part of the law, meriting special legislation. We then focus on the central defining element — the victim's lack of consent to the assault, combined with the question about how much the defendant knew or should have known about the lack of consent. Sexual assault can also involve different kinds of coercion and deception, and these are spelled out in the Act; but some of the Act's provisions are confusing, some of them seem overly limited.
