Chinese Rape Law in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

The offense of rape lends itself to examination of the relationship between law, politics and sexual morality. The task of defining what sort of behaviour, directed against what sort of woman, constitutes rape involves the law directly in issues of sexual morality. As will be shown below, both American and Chinese law defined rape similarly in the 1980s and early 1990s. However, differences in the social and legal contexts and in understanding the causes of rape meant that two similar legal definitons of the offense functioned to quite different ends.