Central to the morality of any culture are its norms and values on gender, especially on sexual affairs and personal relations. In most Western societies over the last half-century, there has emerged, for example, a wide acceptance of homosexual relations. There is also agreement on the absolute right of self-determination for women. Although there might be a discrepancy between values and reality, this constitutional equality is absent in other parts of the world. Nor has it always been the case in the West. In this chapter, I focus on the changing views on sexual violence and harassment – especially over the last half-century – and the consequences for sexual violence.

Studying historical development in sexuality reveals a lot about the morality of a culture. Central to these analyses is the shift from external norms to the idea of mutual consent. It is the only criterion that fits in a secular and liberal context, in which people are autonomous and self-determining. Moral standards in sexuality seem to be the effect of how relations are experienced from within, instead of a result of how relations are defined from the outside. This is at the same time liberating and insecure.

According to Dutch studies, over 50% of young women have experienced sexual behaviour against their will (Dukers-Muijrers et al, 2015). Although sexual violence is a phenomenon common to all ages, it is also very much an issue of contemporary life.

Bringing sex into the open

A headline on 13 December 2014 in the Dutch quality newspaper NRC Handelsblad read, ‘British protest for face sitting’. The press report is about a ‘porn protest’ against an announced ban on ten acts that were no longer allowed to be portrayed in adult films, such as female ejaculation, strangulation, golden shower, and all that jazz. The protesters point out that in these actions, women are dominant: ‘face sitting is liberating’.

This press report is remarkable in several ways. First, we are talking about a first-class quality newspaper – it reports about pornography without trepidation. Second, the intention of the British Board of Film Classification to bring in these restrictions seems unachievable. On the internet, pornography is everywhere, in terms of both production and consumption.