Legal Issues
Except for serious crimes like pedophilia and rape there are no universal laws against sexually deviant behaviors because of the blurred boundaries between typical and atypical sexual behaviors.
For example homosexuality is socially accepted as a sexual preference among consenting adults in many developed countries while in countries like India gay sex is bracketed along with bestiality and pedophilia as an “unnatural act” and can draw a punishment of up to ten years in prison. More recently there seems to be better tolerance for such behavior and it is possible that it maybe legalized.
Exhibitionism, voyeurism and frotteurism are usually treated as “nuisance” cases and not as serious crimes in many jurisdictions across the globe.
Sadomasochistic sexual practices can attract punishment if a participant reports being bodily harmed or coerced into participating in the act by another. If BDSM practices are reported by an unwilling partner, the practice can attract penalty under sections of criminal code that include sexual assault, sexual abuse, insult, battery, false imprisonment and coercion.
Rape is legally a crime but it often becomes difficult to convict a person for the crime because the victim rarely comes forward to reveal the act due to the potential publicity and damage to their reputation that it may cause.. For most part in history there were no strong legal sanctions that criminalized wartime rape. In 1996, for the first time sexual assault was treated as a war crime when the United Nations’ International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia decreed that wartime rape is a crime that can attract severe criminal sanctions.
A person who has tested positive for HIV and willfully suppresses the information and engages in unprotected sex with partners who are unaware of the HIV positive status are liable to invite severe legal sanctions in many developed countries.
Pedophilia that prompts child sexual abuse is another deviant sexual behavior that is a serious crime in all jurisdictions all over the world. The deviance encourages child trafficking that is a current menace challenging legal systems everywhere. Cyberspace pedophilia is on the increase with predators luring innocent children through popular ‘Networking websites.’ In the absence of foolproof safeguards in the ‘Net space,’ the onus is on parents and responsible adults to protect children from pedophiles.
