The Age of Consent and Female Under-Age Sexual Autonomy

正如标题所示，我的学术兴趣主题植根于同意年龄法及其对未成年人性自主权的影响。本提案旨在概述我的主要和额外的研究生研究目标，这些目标是我在这个领域的兴趣所形成的。正如我在申请中提到的，我将主要集中研究历史和社会对性行为的态度（尤其是对年轻女性的态度）是如何导致同意年龄法的引入的，以及这些法律是如何继续实施的。福柯（1928-1984）的著作，尤其是《性史》卷中的文本，显然有助于我们理解这种规则是如何形成的。这些著作解释了一种向新形式的软权力（例如，纪律和生物权力（福柯1998:135））的转变，这种权力试图控制人们生活中最个人和最私人的方面。福柯认为，性行为尤其成为“权力关系的密集转移点：在男人和女人、年轻人和老年人、父母和子女以及老师和学生之间”（福柯1998:103）。在人们普遍认为儿童性行为会带来“身体和道德、个人和集体的危险”之后，年轻人的性行为特别成为（并且仍然是）一个高度管制的领域（福柯1998:103）。我最近读了马修•韦茨的《同意的年龄》（The Age of Consent, 2005），我相信这本书将为应对权力和社会态度的这种变化提供一个相当全面的法律指南。Waites提供了“对同意年龄法的历史出现的介绍，[这些法律是]在法律更广泛变化的背景下概念化的”（Waites 2005:60），从19世纪开始，奇怪的是，同意年龄在十年内从13岁提高到16岁。（这一变化是关于法定同意年龄的法律发展的一个完美例子，我将通过考虑当时更广泛的社会事件和对年轻人性行为的态度来分析和解释。）利用福柯关于权力的思想，我们还可以考虑对未成年性行为的控制是如何在非法律的纪律体系中表现出来的，比如性教育。例如，杰西卡·瓦伦蒂（Jessica Valenti）的《纯洁神话》（2009），对基督教会领导的纯禁欲性教育运动所提供的反对和厌恶女性的话语进行了强烈的批评，这种运动在整个西方（尤其是美国）迅速发展。

My topic of academic interest, as the title suggests, is rooted in age of consent laws and theirimpact on underage sexual autonomy. This proposal seeks to give an overview of both my main,and additional postgraduate research aims, which have formed from my interest in this area.As mentioned in my application, I will mainly focus my research on how historical, societal attitudestowards sexual activity (especially those towards young women) resulted in the introduction of ageof consent laws, and how said laws continue to be implemented. The work of Foucault(1928-1984), especially the texts in The History of Sexuality volume, are an obvious aid to help usunderstand how regulations of this kind came into being. These works explain a shift to new formsof power (disclipinary and bio power, for example (Foucault 1998: 135)) which seek to control themost personal and private aspects of the population's lives. Foucault argues that sexuality inparticular became a 'dense transfer point for relations of power: between men and women, youngpeople and old people, parents and offspring [and] teachers and students' (Foucault 1998: 103).Young people's sexuality specifically became (and remains) a highly regulated area, after itbecame a common belief that child sexuality poses 'physical and moral, individual and collectivedangers' (Foucault 1998: 103). I have recently come across Matthew Waites's The Age of Consent(2005), and believe it will provide a fairly comprehensive guide to the legal responses to suchchanges in power and social attitude. Waites provides an 'introduction to the historical emergenceof age of consent laws [which are] conceptualised in the context of broader shifts in thelaw' (Waites 2005 :60), starting in the nineteenth century when curiously, the age of consent wasupped from 13 to 16 years of age within a ten year period. (This change is a perfect example of thelegal developments surrounding the age of consent that I will analyse and explain, by consideringwider social happenings and attitudes towards young people's sexuality during that time.) UsingFoucault's ideas surrounding power, we can also consider how the control of under age sexualityhas manifested itself in non-legal disciplinary systems, such as sex education. The Purity Myth(2009) by Jessica Valenti for instance, provides a strong critique of the agist and misogynisticdiscourse offered by the Christian Church-led abstinence-only sex education movement that'sgrowing rapidly throughout the West (the States especially).