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Feminism, Child Sexual Abuse, and the Erasure of Child Sexuality;
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies;
10(2), 141 - 177
In the 1970s the child protection lobby and feminism together spearheaded a painstaking interrogation and politicization of the social problem of child sexual abuse.
...
By the 1980s a powerful discourse of child sexual abuse was working hard to expose the widespread problem of incest in the patriarchal family and was vigorously contesting legal definitions of abuse that ignored or downplayed nonpenetrative sexual acts.
...
The myth of stranger danger was found ....
...
In a significant reversal of the common twentieth-century tendency of victim
blaming, the innocent, powerless, blameless, and unconsenting “victim” and “survivor” of sexual abuse became key cultural terms.
...
The “rediscovery” of child sexual abuse — perhaps more accurately called
a “reinterpretation” — has been profoundly important for Western culture.
...
This essay suggests that, despite admirable efforts to empower children and protect them from the harmful consequences of sexual abuse, they have in one particularly notable way been disempowered and disarmed by the child sexual abuse movement.
...
I argue that the discourse of child sexual abuse has expanded at the expense of a discourse of child sexuality. Rigorous attempts to expose the reality and dynamics of child sexual abuse have been aided, if not in part made possible, by equally rigorous attempts to conceal, repress, or ignore the reality and dynamics of child sexuality.
... ... ... ... ... ...
Queer theory offers an important corrective to the culturally prevailing linear and sequential model of age stratification and sexual development. In its psychoanalytic form, queer theory has inherited from Freud the idea that sexuality involves not a chronological unfolding of distinct stages of sexual development but an interminable interplay between these stages.
...
In a contemporary context of escalating anxiety and panic surrounding pedophilia and child sexual abuse, it is increasingly difficult, and perhaps for this reason all the more imperative, for queer studies to problematize the cultural and relational construction of age, child sexuality, and subjectivity.
In the 1970s the child protection lobby and feminism together spearheaded a painstaking interrogation and politicization of the social problem of child sexual abuse.
...
By the 1980s a powerful discourse of child sexual abuse was working hard to expose the widespread problem of incest in the patriarchal family and was vigorously contesting legal definitions of abuse that ignored or downplayed nonpenetrative sexual acts.
...
The myth of stranger danger was found ....
...
In a significant reversal of the common twentieth-century tendency of victim
blaming, the innocent, powerless, blameless, and unconsenting “victim” and “survivor” of sexual abuse became key cultural terms.
...
The “rediscovery” of child sexual abuse — perhaps more accurately called
a “reinterpretation” — has been profoundly important for Western culture.
...
This essay suggests that, despite admirable efforts to empower children and protect them from the harmful consequences of sexual abuse, they have in one particularly notable way been disempowered and disarmed by the child sexual abuse movement.
...
I argue that the discourse of child sexual abuse has expanded at the expense of a discourse of child sexuality. Rigorous attempts to expose the reality and dynamics of child sexual abuse have been aided, if not in part made possible, by equally rigorous attempts to conceal, repress, or ignore the reality and dynamics of child sexuality.
... ... ... ... ... ...
Queer theory offers an important corrective to the culturally prevailing linear and sequential model of age stratification and sexual development. In its psychoanalytic form, queer theory has inherited from Freud the idea that sexuality involves not a chronological unfolding of distinct stages of sexual development but an interminable interplay between these stages.
...
In a contemporary context of escalating anxiety and panic surrounding pedophilia and child sexual abuse, it is increasingly difficult, and perhaps for this reason all the more imperative, for queer studies to problematize the cultural and relational construction of age, child sexuality, and subjectivity.
;
‘Querying’ the Limits of Queering Boys Through the Contested Discourses on Sexuality;
Sexuality & Culture;
12(4), 257-274
Presentations of boy’s sexuality within man–boy sexual relationships have shifted considerably over the past three decades. We document this through analyzing three very different constituencies:
- ‘boylover’ (adult men sexually attracted to boys) activist movements,
- three research case studies, and
- male survivors of abuse.
We examine
- the specific ways boy’s sexuality has been constructed within each of these positions,
- how these have changed over this period, and
- what insights all this can shed on wider social and cultural (re)conceptions on age, gender, and sexuality.
Studying these diverse perspectives provides a series of contrasting assumptions and frameworks which will yield invaluable insights on wider transformations in the production of narratives on child and intergenerational sexualities.
We hope to illuminate this through drawing out the complex interplays involving power dynamics and fluctuations in the epistemological hierarchy delineating boy’s sexuality (in terms of more normative and transgressive forms this may take).
We conclude this critical engagement with a discussion of the likely impact any ‘queering’ of, or fractures in, age/generational boundaries might have for the future narrating of boy’s sexual stories within man–boy sexual relationships.
Presentations of boy’s sexuality within man–boy sexual relationships have shifted considerably over the past three decades. We document this through analyzing three very different constituencies:
- ‘boylover’ (adult men sexually attracted to boys) activist movements,
- three research case studies, and
- male survivors of abuse.
We examine
- the specific ways boy’s sexuality has been constructed within each of these positions,
- how these have changed over this period, and
- what insights all this can shed on wider social and cultural (re)conceptions on age, gender, and sexuality.
Studying these diverse perspectives provides a series of contrasting assumptions and frameworks which will yield invaluable insights on wider transformations in the production of narratives on child and intergenerational sexualities.
We hope to illuminate this through drawing out the complex interplays involving power dynamics and fluctuations in the epistemological hierarchy delineating boy’s sexuality (in terms of more normative and transgressive forms this may take).
We conclude this critical engagement with a discussion of the likely impact any ‘queering’ of, or fractures in, age/generational boundaries might have for the future narrating of boy’s sexual stories within man–boy sexual relationships.