Can sexual digital violence be sexual violence?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl.2778Keywords:
Sexual violence, digital violence, criminal law, sexual freedom, gender stereotypesAbstract
This article examines whether sexual digital violence should be legally recognized as sexual violence. After examining the most frequent different forms of sexual digital violence on the Internet and social platforms, it argues that sexual digital violence satisfies the core normative and legal elements of sexual violence: absence of consent, violation of sexual autonomy and sexualized harm. Moreover, this debate leads to analyse which is the legal interest protected when sexual digital violence becomes a crime: sexual freedom, sexual liberty or sexual autonomy. The article concludes that excluding digital sexual violence as a form of sexual violence reflects an outdated physicalist conception of harm and undermines both doctrinal coherence and substantive equality.
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