The Yale Law Journal

Gowri Ramachandran

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Delineating the Heinous: Rape, Sex, and Self-Possession

Gowri Ramachandran

In this Essay, Professor Ramachandran examines Professor Rubenfeld’s concept of self-possession, which Rubenfeld presents as a helpful way to define the harm of rape. She argues that if the concept represents exclusive physical control over one’s body, it is an elusive and undesirable ideal, and as …