If we [women] have not stopped rape, we have redefined it, we have faced it, and we have set up the structures to deal with it for ourselves.

[T]he definition of rape, which has in the past always been understood to mean the use of violence or the threat of it to force sex upon an unwilling woman, is now being broadened to include a whole range of sexual relations that have never before in all of human experience been regarded as rape.

The object of the statute is to protect the virtuous maidens and the undefiled virgins of the State and not the unchaste female.

To deny exculpating effect to B’s fully voluntary hence valid consent to A’s conduct is not only unjust to A; it is also an objectionably paternalistic interference with the autonomy of B—even if B is a child. Insofar as children are (or would be) capable of consenting voluntarily [to sexual conduct, including intercourse], it is indefensible paternalism to prevent them from doing so.

Power is a prerequisite of responsibility, and the primary justification for statutory rape laws is that women in our society do not have enough power to resist coercive male initiative in sex. To the extent that statutory rape laws enable women to resist aggression, they increase women's sense of personal responsibility. I believe that we should acknowledge the present reality of pervasive male sexual aggression in our society and devise ways to change it rather than deny it as an “outmoded stereotype.”