English
Français
Deutsch
Español
;
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.
;
Historicizing affect, psychoanalyzing history: pedophilia and the discourse of child sexuality;
Journal of Homosexuality;
46(Februari), 79 - 109
Within the last two decades in Australia, Britain, and the United States, we have seen a veritable explosion of cultural panic regarding the problem of pedophilia. Scarcely a day passes without some mention in the media of predatory pedophiles or organized pedophile networks. Many social constructionist historians and sociologists have described this incitement to discourse as indicative of a moral panic.
[...]
Here, I will suggest a repressed discourse of child sexuality is writ large. I will argue that the hegemonic discourse of pedophilia is contained largely within a neurotic structure and that many of our prevailing responses to pedophilia function as a way to avoid tackling crucial issues about the reality and trauma of childhood sexuality.
The question that concerns me in this article is: If this incitement to discourse is indicative of a moral panic, to what does the panic refer?
Within the last two decades in Australia, Britain, and the United States, we have seen a veritable explosion of cultural panic regarding the problem of pedophilia. Scarcely a day passes without some mention in the media of predatory pedophiles or organized pedophile networks. Many social constructionist historians and sociologists have described this incitement to discourse as indicative of a moral panic.
[...]
Here, I will suggest a repressed discourse of child sexuality is writ large. I will argue that the hegemonic discourse of pedophilia is contained largely within a neurotic structure and that many of our prevailing responses to pedophilia function as a way to avoid tackling crucial issues about the reality and trauma of childhood sexuality.
The question that concerns me in this article is: If this incitement to discourse is indicative of a moral panic, to what does the panic refer?