Compromised Consent

A Feminist Justification for Sex Purchase Ban Laws
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-1-5099-9674-2
Verlag: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Buch, Englisch, 208 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 471 g

Reihe: Hart Publishing

This book offers a fresh feminist perspective on prostitution. It challenges the 'sex work' perspective, drawing on experience from rape law and #MeToo campaigns in Ireland and elsewhere to develop a new legal concept of 'compromised consent'.

This concept justifies the introduction of Nordic Model laws banning the purchase of sex. It recognises that an individual consent to sell sex is necessarily compromised by structural exploitation within the vastly profitable global sex industry.

While 'sex work' proponents increasingly dominate academic discourse on prostitution, this book asserts that they have co-opted the language of feminism to mask the immense power and patriarchal control exerted by the industry. Their view of 'consent' is based on a dangerous premise. They cannot say that those who sell sex do so out of mutual desire; rather consent is portrayed as an expression of individual choice, thus ignoring the intersectional gendered collective context within which commercial sex transactions take place worldwide.

By contrast, this book argues that presumptions of 'consent' in prostitution directly undermine the legal principles of affirmative consent and contemporary law reforms hard-won by feminist activists on rape and gender-based violence. A view of consent as 'compromised' within the sex trade derives from socialist theorising, as well as from legal re-conceptualisations of consent in other settings. It also reflects the reality of conditions within the sex industry.

This book will be of great interest to students, academics, policy makers and feminist activists. It makes a significant contribution in challenging the dominant thinking within a highly polarised literature.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bacik, Ivana

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Ausländisches Recht Common Law (UK, USA, Australien u.a.)
• Rechtswissenschaften Recht, Rechtswissenschaft Allgemein Rechtssoziologie, Rechtspsychologie, Rechtslinguistik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction

1. Consent and Prostitution

2. Feminist Debates on Prostitution
3. Framing Laws And Policies On Prostitution
4. Gender And Consent in Irish Law
5. Prostitution Law in Ireland

6. Prostitution Law Reform in Ireland

7. Compromised Consent

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Bacik, Ivana
Ivana Bacik is Former Reid Professor of Criminal Law, Criminology and Penology, Trinity College Dublin (1994-2021) and Senator (2007-2021); now TD (Member of Parliament) for Dublin Bay South (since 2021) and Leader of the Labour Party, Ireland (since 2022).