Reflecting on Dr. Gotell's Guest Lecture

Lise Gotell's guest lecture this week provided an interesting perspective from which to consider the pervasiveness of sexual assault in law as well as in our social perceptions. For me, it shed light on the ways that laws regarding sexuality are complex and often do not work in the ways that they are intended, especially when it comes to the lives and experiences of marginalized women. Dr. Gotell's lecture made clear the importance of explicitly considering the effects policy may have on the most marginalized bodies, within the process of law making, and how these people must be our lawmakers top priority. Further, this lecture served as a reminder of the relational nature of our cultural narratives. Just as the laws regarding HIV non-disclosure inform our cultural perceptions of sexual assault, as well as the laws surrounding them, we can see the ways that sexual social stigmas continue to reinforce these, as well as be enforced by these.

Throughout her talk, as well as in reflection, I have been thinking about how frequently a consideration of vulnerable people is entirely overlooked. In such cases, as Dr. Gotell notes, disadvantage becomes redefined as risk taking, causing the blame to become placed on the victims. This sort of responsiblization of victimization which occurs within the social/political landscape of neoliberalist perspectives of sexuality and risk is especially worrisome, as we have discussed in class, because this similarly targets the most marginalized people. In the case that Dr. Gotell was delineating, the laws which are intended to protect people from the unknowing transmission of HIV, in reality just serve to criminalize certain related behaviours, which are deemed risky within the neoliberalist praxis. This relates to our class conversations regarding the concept of “choice,” and whether this concept is applicable to all people and circumstances within the context of our pervasively unequal social structures. As Dr. Gotell notes, this is true of the case of the criminalization of non-disclosure, in that many women have a lessened capacity to disclose such information due to marginalization and the vulnerability that comes with occupying such social positions. This is especially true of women who are in relationships in which they are potentially at risk of violence, as well as of sex workers, who are inherently at similar risk.

 In addition to all this, what I found to be the most frustrating piece of information from Dr. Gotell's lecture was that non-disclosure is understood as aggravated sexual assault, which, considering the low conviction rates of true sexual assault, is glaringly frustrating. This is compounded by the knowledge that such policies target sex workers, for whom sexual assault is a perpetually minimized reality was especially disturbing, and has stuck with me in the past few days.