Anger, disgust and sexual crimes.

(from the chapter) It should be no surprise to readers of tabloid newspapers that emotions such as anger, disgust or shock often arise when people disapprove of other people's sexual behaviors. While many other emotions are relevant to the law of sexualityâ sympathy, fear, remorse and shame among themâ our purpose here is to focus on anger and disgust as two emotions that closely inform law-makers, their constituencies and law enforcers. In the English lexicon, 'anger' and 'disgust' are seen as close synonyms and many expressions of moral disapproval include both anger and disgust. However, in other ways, the two emotions are distinct; they have different facial expressions and physiological: responses. We think there are four main points of interest separating anger from disgust when people judge the sexual actions of others. 1. Focus on different content elicits anger as opposed to disgust. 2. Different thought processes precede and modify expressions of anger and disgust. 3. Feeling morally angry versus disgusted has different mental consequences for thought. 4. Anger and disgust prepare a person for different actions. In this chapter, we examine the four main points we have chosen to be of interest when people judge the sexual action of others and examine evidence from psychological studies supporting these four points. We bring our analysis to bear on the issue of rape and related crimes such as the violation of the age of sexual consent.