Taking sexual violence in the form of rape and hetero-psychological/physical abuse, trafficking, and harassment as a point of departure, the authors of this volume take up questions about the relationship between sex, sexuality and violence in order to better understand the terms on which women's sexual suffering is perpetuated, thereby undermining her capacity for personhood and autonomy. This volume perceives that while sexual violence as a phenomenon is heavily researched, it remains under-theorized. The behavioral research done about sexual violence from medical, psychological and criminological perspectives does not move beyond a dominance/submission model with its attendant assumptions about the fixed subjectivity of men and women.The essays in this volume take up anti-essentialist views of gender identity, of subjectivity and agency, and of rationality and consent, as they study the dynamics and consequences of sexual violence. For the most part the authors assume that the deconstruction of naturalized binaries, the proliferation of sites identified as political, and anti-essentialist approaches to subjectivity are progressive, if not entirely unproblematic, moves within feminism. The authors take up the insights of postmodern critique with the common goal of theorizing and acting effectively against the material and psychic suffering perpetuated by the rigid rituals of gendered and sexed life.