Grooming, ‘rough sex’ and coercive control in the criminal law: ‘Culturally mandated’ sex and violence against women

This chapter explores the scope of culturally mandated sex in the context of domestic violence by examining three factually and legally dissimilar cases from three different jurisdictions - New Zealand, England and Australia. The cases involve grooming, ‘rough sex’ and coercive control and engage different bodies of doctrinal law - the offences of sexual violence, physical assault and homicide, and the defence of compulsion/duress. However, there are similarities between the cases - they are all cases in which girls or women are subjected to violence by a man with whom they have a domestic relationship, and each victim-survivor is in a vulnerable social position and dependent in some way on her abuser. The cases demonstrate the extreme lengths the law can go to in upholding the theoretical possibility of women’s agency and consent to sex when being harmed or threatened with serious harm to themselves or others.