Editing Sexual consent (section)

=== Coercion-based versus consent-based laws ===
In legal theory, there are two main models in legislation against rape and other forms of sexual violence:
# The '''coercion-based model''' 'requires that the sexual act was done by coercion, violence, physical force or threat of violence or physical force in order for the act to amount to rape';<ref name="Koljonen">{{Cite journal |last=Koljonen |first=Camilla |date=15 July 2019 |title=How is consent-based legislation on rape providing more protection for individuals in comparison to coercion-based legislation? - Comparison between Finland and Sweden |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335397291_How_is_consent-based_legislation_on_rape_providing_more_protection_for_individuals_in_comparison_to_coercion-based_legislation_-_Comparison_between_Finland_and_Sweden |journal= |publisher=[[Maastricht University]] |accessdate=29 April 2020}}</ref>
# The '''consent-based model''' 'requires that for the act to qualify as rape there must be a sexual act that the other one did not consent to'.<ref name="Koljonen"/>

The primary advantage of the coercion-based model is that it makes it difficult to make a [[false accusation of rape|false accusation of rape or assault]], and thus provides decent protection to the legal position and social reputation of suspects who are innocent.<ref name="Koljonen"/> This line of reasoning stems from a time (dating at least as far back as the 18th century) when sex was regarded as a private matter that the state and society should mostly not interfere with, and concerns about sexual violence were mostly limited to male-on-female rape, which was firstly regarded as an offence to public morality, especially the female victim's family (her father, husband or master).<ref name="Koljonen"/> In the decades of the later 20th and early 21st century, the focus of sexual violence has shifted towards individual sexual autonomy, the scope has broadened beyond the act of intercourse, the set of potential victims and perpetrators has been expanded to include all genders, strangers as well as acquaintances and people close to the victims including intimate partners and even spouses, while social and legal attitudes have changed in favour of more active societal and state intervention in sexual violence and the attainment of justice.<ref name="Koljonen"/> Individuals and human rights organisations increasingly criticised the coercion-based model for a variety of reasons, such as the requirement for the victim to actively resist an assault (thereby failing to address cases where victims are unconscious, intoxicated, asleep or suffer from involuntary paralysis – also known as "freezing"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Daniels |first=Sue J. |date=2016 |title=Working with the Trauma of Rape and Sexual Violence: A Guide for Professionals |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7XU8DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA26 |location=London/Philadelphia |publisher=Jessica Kingsley Publishers |page=26–28 |isbn=9781784503758 |accessdate=30 April 2020}}</ref> – due to fear or other state of helplessness, and thus unable to resist an assault) or not wear certain kinds of clothes to not 'provoke' an assault (shifting the responsibility for the crime from the perpetrator unto the victim), or the focus on physical violence (thereby failing to consider that a perpetrator sometimes needs to use little to no physical violence in order to conduct an assault, e.g. when the victim is unconscious, intoxicated, asleep or involuntarily paralysed; and also failing to address mental and psychological harm caused by rape and assault).<ref name="Koljonen"/> The consent-based model has been advocated as a better alternative for enhanced legal protection of victims, and to place a larger responsibility on potential perpetrators to actively verify or falsify before initiating sex whether a potential victim actually consents to initiating sex or not, and abstaining from it as long as they do not.<ref name="Koljonen"/>