Rape and sexual coercion within heterosexual relationships: an intersection of psychological, feminist, and postmodern inquiries.

Abstract

This thesis is an intersection of inquiries from psychological, feminist, and postmodern perspectives, about the rape and sexual coercion of women within heterosexual relationships. Human sciences research and feminist literature on both sexual violence and "normal" heterosexuality is reviewed. It is suggested that rape exists on a continuum as an extension of normative coercive heterosexuality. I argue that it is important to investigate the wider range of coercive heterosexual practices and experiences. The data from a survey of sexual victimization prevalence among Auckland university students are presented. It was found that sexual victimization was widespread among the women surveyed, and that most abuse had been perpetrated within legitimate heterosexual relationships. Feminist poststructuralist theory and discourse analysis are introduced in the search for ways of working that are more adequate to explore the nuances, complexities and contradictions of coercive heterosexuality. A poststructuralist form of discourse analysis is used to show how subtle forms of sexual coercion can operate to produce "consent" from a woman to unwanted sexual intercourse. Through employing Foucauldian understandings of sexuality and power, I have looked at the ways in which dominant discourses on heterosexuality constitute women as subjects who are encouraged to be complicit in our heterosexual subjugation. Women's accounts of their experiences of unwanted, coerced, and forced sex with men are drawn upon to show how these subtle forms of power can operate so that the need for direct force and violence can be obviated. Finally, a detailed written account of one woman’s experiences of coercive heterosexuality and rape is reproduced to document what such experiences can be like, with all the complexities, ambiguities and contradictions that can be involved. Some of the issues that arise when attempting to analyze or make sense of such accounts are addressed. This whole project has been couched within a postmodern acceptance of the partiality and situatedness of all knowledge, and so I have avoided any definitive conclusions. I have preferred instead to interrogate the seemingly natural and neutral practice of heterosexuality to evoke new ways of understanding women's experiences of unwanted, coerced, and forced heterosexual sex.