The legal and criminal justice systems proceed on the masculine assumption that a woman's body communicates her lack of consent to sexual intercourse and that a woman will offer strong physical resistance to sexual assault. Recent changes to the legal definition of nonconsent as a positive action provide women with greater protection under the rape laws. However, women are unlikely to be protected by the law if their physical resistance to sexual assault results in death or serious injury to the perpetrator. Thus, the legal and criminal justice systems have severely limited women's freedom to exercise autonomy in defending themselves against sexual assault. They are legally immobilized by the contradictory expectations that they resist with force but defend themselves without deadly force. Therefore, law reforms are needed. Note and 47 references