39-13-501 - Definitions. - Tennessee Statutes

39-13-501. Definitions.

As used in §§ 39-13-501 39-13-511, except as specifically provided in § 39-13-505, unless the context otherwise requires:

     (1)  “Coercion” means threat of kidnapping, extortion, force or violence to be performed immediately or in the future or the use of parental, custodial, or official authority over a child less than fifteen (15) years of age;

     (2)  “Intimate parts” includes the primary genital area, groin, inner thigh, buttock or breast of a human being;

     (3)  “Mentally defective” means that a person suffers from a mental disease or defect which renders that person temporarily or permanently incapable of appraising the nature of the person's conduct;

     (4)  “Mentally incapacitated” means that a person is rendered temporarily incapable of appraising or controlling the person's conduct due to the influence of a narcotic, anesthetic or other substance administered to that person without the person's consent, or due to any other act committed upon that person without the person's consent;

     (5)  “Physically helpless” means that a person is unconscious, asleep or for any other reason physically or verbally unable to communicate unwillingness to do an act;

     (6)  “Sexual contact” includes the intentional touching of the victim's, the defendant's, or any other person's intimate parts, or the intentional touching of the clothing covering the immediate area of the victim's, the defendant's, or any other person's intimate parts, if that intentional touching can be reasonably construed as being for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification;

     (7)  “Sexual penetration” means sexual intercourse, cunnilingus, fellatio, anal intercourse, or any other intrusion, however slight, of any part of a person's body or of any object into the genital or anal openings of the victim's, the defendant's, or any other person's body, but emission of semen is not required; and

     (8)  “Victim” means the person alleged to have been subjected to criminal sexual conduct and includes the spouse of the defendant.

[Acts 1989, ch. 591, § 1; 1997, ch. 256, § 2; 2005, ch. 456, § 1.]