Abstract:
This thesis employs recent feminist theories on the body and sexual difference, along with Levinas’s work on ethics to examine the assumptions operating in academic discussions of rape prevention. Through an interrogation of analyses of rape and rape prevention I argue that there are a number of problematic assumptions in these accounts. These assumptions operate as ontological foundations within analyses of rape and rape prevention, and they are; the assumption that women are rapeable and men are able to rape; that rape is a process of feminsation, and; that responsibility for rape can be allocated according to sexual difference. I will contend that these foundations reinforce an interpretation of sexual difference that maintains rather than subverts the possibility of rape. I assert that whilst the majority of rape prevention initiatives are an important and necessary response to suffering, the promise of rape prevention can be extended. The respective works of Judith Butler and Emmanuel Levinas are used to support my argument that any ontological foundation, including those that operate in 'liberatory' practices, must always remain in question. The argument that ethics is a responsibility to respond to the other as Other that comes before ontology (rather than the adherence to a rule-based moral code) is considered. It is claimed that this understanding of ethics holds promise (as well as some limitations) for theorising the problem of rape. When ontology is in question there are important implications for the way 'rape prevention' is conceptualised. Both parts of this copula are subjected to an alternative analysis in this thesis. It is suggested that rape can be understood as an attempt to reduce the other to the same. The archaic definition of prevention, as coming before, is employed in order to consider the possibility of prevention as a response to the alterity of the other. This alternative analysis opens up new ways of understanding what resistance to rape might mean. Furthermore, it is argued that when bodies are understood as producing meaning, rather than as purely biological entities, blank slates or inscriptive surfaces, the potential for resisting rape is expanded.