Contemporary sexual practice is in crisis. In this session I explore how this crisis emerges, in part through on ongoing tension within the English and Welsh criminal justice system's relationship with consensual sexual violence, risk, and criminality. By analysing a series of criminal cases from the past ten years, the paper will explore the approach that the courts take to policing non-normative, or deviant, sexualities alongside the imperative to act against gendered and sexualised violence. The cases concern incidents where women have been injured or killed during a sexual encounter with a man, and where that sexual encounter is held to be consensual. Consent is held as key in these debates and yet the very conceptualisation of consent itself can cause trouble in this crisis. In this paper, I argue that consent should be thought as a cultural artefact – a product of a socio-cultural present – that reflects contemporary sexual ethics. I examine how consent is operationalised and iterated in these crown court cases and how this interacts with contemporary sexual cultures, rape myths, and minoritised sexuality rights. By analysing consent in this way, we open the door to better understanding what consent can do, the limits of consent, and how thinking critically about consent can help us to navigate sex crises.

The number of women in UK policing is at the highest ever level. Thanks to the Police Uplift, we now have more than 50,000 police officers and staff, making up 34% of the total workforce. Women’s problematic integration and acceptance in policing over the last 100 years is well documented in a large scholarly body of work. While equality, diversity and inclusion strategies have ensured things have improved (with arguably varying degrees of success), there are still barriers to their inclusion; one such example is providing them with ill-fitting, inappropriate uniforms and personal protective equipment. Often these clothes and equipment have been designed on the normative masculine physique, and whilst uniforms have become more ‘gender-neutral’ over the last few decades, many items with their inappropriate designs continue to significantly hamper women’s day-to-day policing experiences. “When the uniform doesn’t fit” was born in Summer 2023 – a project designed to provide a rich evidence base to encourage police force investment in redesigns and new prototypes (co-production with women who actually experience these clothes) – Afterall, wearing a work uniform that is fit for purpose, doesn’t cause miserable medical issues, and affect morale and well-being, is vital. Women’s voices cannot be silenced, or experiences stigmatised as ‘trivial women’s issues’ if EDI is claimed to be a strategic priority in every police force. This presentation discusses the preliminary findings from data collected at six police forces in England and Wales through focus groups, interviews, and visual methods.

When infanticide is discussed there are often two different camps that can be identified – one that sees infanticide as the result of mental health issues and one that sees it as murder. When seen as the result of mental ill health the discussion is often not around whether infanticide is a mitigated homicide in these circumstances but instead around whether a specific infanticide regulation is needed and whether or not general rules regarding mitigation can be applied. When infanticide is seen as murder, the argument is that women ‘get away’ with premeditated killings of their children by claiming they were insane.
This paper builds on an analysis of the verdicts in six cases of infanticide and one case of attempted infanticide in Sweden in the years 2000-2023 and attempts to bring in the individual cases and women to give them voice. There were cases of both neonaticide (the killing of a child within 24 hours of its birth) and infanticide (the killing of a child up to one year). In most cases the women were given different post-natal psychological diagnoses and there was little planning or cunning involved. In two cases mental illness was not diagnosed and here the court found it more difficult to decide whether the cases were to be labelled infanticide or manslaughter/murder. By taking the circumstances of the women into account, signs of premeditation and planning can be identified, but not necessarily to the extent that the women are to be seen as having committed murder. This paper therefore concludes that these women committed infanticide and not murder, and that the psychological element was such that they did not get away with murder.

“’Breast is Best’ is often a phrase that is used by medical, or healthcare professionals when trying to influence families and their decisions to breastfeed exclusively for the recommended 6 months to a year. However, many women and families find breastfeeding is not an option for them, even though they want it and deem it the best themselves. So, what does one do when they’re unable to give their child the “best”? Rather than face the stigma of failure or formula feeding, many go online.

There is a growing phenomenon of exchanging human milk online via social media sites. These exchanges, and their donors, are unregulated and unscreened leading to medical, legal, and social taboos surrounding their existence. This study investigates the social pressures and stigmas which may lead families to engage in these types of exchanges online and whether there is a shared concept of risk which may affect the families’ choices at an individual level. Utilising both netnographic content analysis and in depth interviews with community members and healthcare professionals, it is hoped that this research project will add unique insight into why these online communities thrive when conventional alternatives to breastmilk, such as infant formula, or breastmilk banks, already exist.

Early findings suggest that these communities focus heavily on the diets and health regimes of their donors, and sometime sellers, and their COVID-19 vaccine status. Alongside this, there are interesting discussions had surrounding ‘Breast is Best’ culture. Risk discourse was discussed by both community members and professionals, but the differences in risks highlighted was unique to each group. Stigma was also important to the community members”.