Sex and Violence, Subjectivity and Power - Coursework Example

Sex and Violence Abstract Sex and Violence is an infinite and contentious topic that can be analyzed from different perspectives. In such analysis we come across many debates on different issues like rape, date rape, sexual violence, subjectivity, and transgression Our paper mainly focuses on the modern conception of love and the sex sexual related other issues like gender and career. For this discussion we have taken into consideration the two different date rape cases one is the real court case and another is one more case happened in the University of Arizona. These different cases are the reflection of the modern society where the sex related problems and violence are increasing remarkably and it is a great concern in the educational institutions where the security is lacking day by day. We are going to discuss how sexual attack as well as the gender hostility. Keywords: rape, sexual violence, subjectivity, transgression, gender and career. Introduction: Gender related problems have different perspectives. It is a vast study which can be analyzed through different angles. The modern society today is facing many sex related problems from minor to the stern one. Gender related problems consist of the profession, sexual affairs, date rapes, homosexuality etc. Here we are going to focus some of the sex related problems. Let’s have a turn to the problem of rape which is one of the brutal crimes. The crime is done by a very filthy way which is prevalent these days especially among the college going students and that is “Date Rape.” According to one of the article published in “The Hindu,” “Rape is a sexual assault crime. A college student goes to a bar with some of her friends. While she visits the restroom, the guy she's been talking to unobtrusively slips a colourless, tasteless, odourless substance into her drink. Sipping her beverage, she has no idea that she will soon be impaired and defenceless. Her "date" invites her back to his place, where she slips into a drugged sleep from which she cannot rouse herself even as she is being raped. In the morning, she may or may not remember what happened.”[1] The date rape has become the growing concern among the health educators as well as the feminist activists. Women are more vulnerable in date rape cases and can be easily possessed. This mentality has grown among the college going boys. The college date rape statistic is shockingly increasing day by day. A researcher at the University of Arizona, Mary Koss conducted a research on the date rape cases. She mainly targeted the college campuses for the survey. Koss surveyed 32 campuses. According to the estimate surveyed by her, one in six college women become victims of rape. Koss found that 84 percent of the women knew their assailants, but only 27 percent realized that their sexual mugging fell within the legal definition of rape. Sixteen percent said they thought what happened to them was a crime, 11 percent did not feel a crime was committed and 46 percent believed they had been victims of "serious miscommunication" rather than rape. Footnote: [1] Article “Date with Rape,” “The Hindu” India’s leading newspaper, Sunday, Feb 02, 2003 Whatever it may be it is true that they have been succumbed by the hideous and atrocious work done by the vagrant guys. Here we are going to cram two different date rape cases. One such story of the date rape is described here by the author and in that story the victim called Valerie (name changed) never told the authorities how she ended up leaving a University of Richmond off-campus fraternity party in tears. She never mentioned how a boy she knew from class forced her onto a mattress, ripped her tights to shreds and penetrated her without permission. While describing the horrible experience of the date rape Valerie says, "He jumped on me and started to unbutton my shirt, and I just kept trying to button it back up," Valerie said. "He then stood above me holding a condom. I said I didn't need it meaning we were not going to have sex. I think he took it as if just didn't want safe sex." [2]Thus she was humiliated on the optimum level. It was not a humiliation of a single woman but of the entire feminism. Footnote:[2]Article: Date Rape: College’s dirty secret by Laura Sneade Second case is also a date rape case which happened in Briton but that is somewhat different to this case. Here the girl was not the victim but the boy was victim. It is a real court case of date rape which happened in Great Briton. The media described the girl involved in the case as extrovert, attractive, sexy, and promiscuous aggressive and demanding the sexual pleasure from her male counterpart. According to the Daily mirror the girl was ‘a Campus “wild child.”[20Oct. 1993:1][3] Unlike the girl the boy is described as a very shy, mild mannered, bespectacled, sexually inexperienced, Catholic book worm, hardworking and clever to be the first in his family to go to university and was a ‘Perfect Son. The two became close friends of each other. He was very trustworthy and honest. There two years relationship made him fall in love with her. He said that he was looking for a serious and faithful relationship with her. [Daily Mail, 20 Oct 1993:3][4 But she was not interested in committing any long term relationship with her. She was not as serious about their relationship as he was. [3] & [4]pg407, “kiss is just a kiss,”Hollway and Jefferson Date rape gender and Subjectivity She used to spend the nights in a student night club where they would go for three nights in the week and indulge the regular sex. Her statement is very important and thoughtful on this background when she said, “A kiss is just a kiss. To me it means nothing.” This man was not the only person whom she went on kissing but two more men were there whom she was kissing. In that evening she had got very drunk and after that she was unconscious and did not remember what had happened later. Subjectivity and Power: In sexual discourses power and knowledge unite to produce the sexed subject. The subject position means the woman should act like males in order to be popular or regarded successful socially. Here the woman becomes aggressive in her behavior or she changes her outward personality to change her gender and by doing this she challenges her natural gender. But sometimes some women achieve the position of subjectivity by their masculine habits especially with their partner while having sex. In the second date rape court case the girl was aggressive and snatched the subjectivity from the boy. The modern concept of the sexual relationship has totally changed. ‘A kiss is just a kiss.’ Apparently, the statement of the girl is very simple but it has a deep denotation involved in this. And it is the reflection of the modern society in which now the subjectivity in sex is handled by the females also. It is a symptomatic of the new world. In the discussion on sexuality three major discourses have been discussed by Hollway (1989) “i] The inherently unequal male sexual drive discourse, in which the sexuality active subject position is confined to the male, and the object position is confined to the male and the object position reserved for the female. ii] the have/hold discourse, in which sexual monogamy within a long-lasting relationship is supposedly applicable to both men and women, though in practice more binding on women; and iii] the similarly reciprocal permissive discourse, where, in principle, women as well as men can occupy a subject a subject position in which sex is construed as inconsequential and meaningless fun.”[5] According to the first discourse described by Hollway, if we consider these two cases from Hollway’s point of view, we will find that in the first case the sexuality active subject position is taken by the male who raped Valerie. This is the traditional rape system in which the girl is compelled to have sex unwillingly. So this case is fit in the first discourse while the in the second case both of the two people involved in sex affairs are agreed to have the sexual affair. Footnote: [5]Pg. 411, A Kiss is just a Kiss) The female subjectivity is the prevalent aspect in modern society where the traditional norms of sexuality have totally changed. Critics like Paglia (1992) and Roiphe (1993) have tried to reinstate women as subjects, that is, capable taking responsibility and pursuing their own sexual desires. [6] Power The subjectivity is followed by the power. Power has a feeling of total possession of the person who is inferior. Thus the power is generally imposed on the person who is an object. This power sometimes is inflicted by the man or sometimes by the woman. In the case of Valerie, the masculine power is used to possess the feminine body. In her unconscious status the boy totally keep her under his control and without her permission he had the sex with her forcefully [6](Pg. 406, A kiss is just a kiss) Gender Hostility: The gender matters a lot in recognizing our identity. It may be a choice of profession or it may be the sexual affairs, gender is always taken for granted first. Any anomalous sex related affair is always followed by the hostility, abuse, blame, harassment or murder. The social framework is not too strong to accept the sexual matter in a matured and compassionate way. These things directly affect cultural and social status of the person. The society punishes those concerned persons in a different means from simple hostility to rape and murder. As far as the punishment is concerned according to Foucault, Michel “In our societies, the systems of punishment are to be situated in a certain “political economy” of the body; even if they do not make use of violent or bloody punishment, even when they use “lenient” methods involving confinement or correction, it is always the body, that is at issue- the body and its forces, their utility and their docility, their distribution and their submission.”[7] Footnote: [7](Pg.173) The body of the condemned, The Foucault reader / edited by Paul Rabinow Sex and Profession: Like date rape and gender violence one more gender related issue is there and that is the connection between gender and profession. Here also there are numerous constraints of genders on professional level also. It is an accepted rule that the male should do the job which is appointed for him and thus the female. Many professions are fixed in a particular gender frame and if somebody tries to go out of way the society gets suspicious about his gender status and sexuality. If a person chooses the job that is not suitable to his gender, the society blames him/her for the transgression. While describing about the consequences of this initiative Simon Cross and Barbara Bagilhole give an example of a man who adopts the job of a nurse which is traditionally the girl’s job. The man was questioned and challenged about their sexuality, and he experienced the hostility from the society. It is an experience of a male nurse described here in this article that he was previously a coal miner and then he shifted his job from a coal miner to a nurse, traditionally female dominated job. He used to get ribbing from his friends. Some of them were malicious about this man. They went on asking him the filthy questions about his sexuality. His decision of accepting the job of nurse apart from being a lad itself could not be digested by the people. Conclusion: There are many issues related to the sex and violence which we have discussed in this paper. May be it is sex, profession everywhere the connection of the gender is there. The sex related problems should be handled with maturity and compassion. If there is a background of a happy and strong family, the individual rarely gets frustrated. When the person is sure that there is somebody behind him to support him he feels more secure and can easily keep himself away from the crime or victim. Strong family roots help the man to be a formative individual. Sources: 1. Wendy Hollway and Tony Jefferson, ‘A Kiss is Just a Kiss’: Date Rape, Gender and Subjectivity’, Sexualities, Vo 1, No. 4, Nov 1998 2. 2 The body of the condemned, The Foucault reader / edited by Paul Rabinow. New York : Pantheon Books, c1984. 1st ed. pp170-78 3. Article: Date Rape: College’s dirty secret by Laura Sneade - http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/journalism/magazine/4-97/features/articles/f-daterape.html 4. Girl’s Job for the boys men masculinity and non traditional occupations pdf 5. Article “Date with Rape” Sunday February 2, 2003 “The Hindu” India’s National Newspaper. Read More