Crimes against sexual freedom have been the subject of an important and controversial reform, which came into force on October 7, 2022. Prior to the reform, the Penal Code distinguished between sexual assault and sexual abuse. In both cases, the victim was subjected to sexual practices without his or her consent, but the distinguishing element between both crimes was the use of violence or intimidation to perpetrate the crime: if the perpetrator used violence or intimidation, we were dealing with a crime of sexual assault, while if none of these elements were present, the facts were constitutive of a crime of abuse (punished with a lower penalty).

The reform introduced by Organic Law 10/2022 eliminates the distinction between sexual aggression and sexual abuse, integrating the conducts that previously constituted abuse into the crime of sexual aggression. In addition, the reform has modified the minimum and maximum penalties of some criminal modalities, a circumstance that has led to the revision of final convictions.