Just Sex?: The Cultural Scaffolding of Rape

Front Cover
Psychology Press, 2005 - Political Science - 268 pages

Winner of the Association for Women In Psychology 2006 Distinguished Publication Award!

The past two decades have witnessed a significant shift in how rape is understood in Western societies. This shift in perception has revealed the startling frequency of occurrences of date rape, obscuring the divide between rape and what was once just sex. Just Sex? combines an overview of the existing literature with an analysis of recent research to examine the psychological and cultural implications of this new epidemic. The result is the conclusion that feminist theory on sexual victimisation has gone both too far and not far enough. The reader is presented with a challenging and original perspective on the issues of rape, sex and the body, incorporating subjects including:

* rape as a social problem
* the social constructionism of sex, subjectivity and the body
* heterosexuality under the microscope

This book succeeds in making a valuable contribution to feminist and social contructionist work on rape that will be of interest to those studying psychology, gender studies, cultural studies and sociology.

Just Sex? The Cultural Scaffolding of Rape was selected as a 2005 winner of AWP's (Association for Women in Psychology) distinguished publication award.

 

Contents

Introduction
1
RAPE IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT
15
Rape as a social problem
17
The discovery of a rape epidemic
50
GENDER POWER AND SEXUALITY AND THE LIMITS OF INDIVIDUAL CHOICE
77
The social construction of sex subjectivity and the body
79
Heterosexuality under the microscope
102
Unsexy sex Unwanted sex sexual coercion and rape
136
GOING TOO FAR NOT GOING FAR ENOUGH
167
Can a woman be raped and not know it?
169
Turning the tables? Women raping men
193
Toward ending rape
214
References
235
Index
263
Copyright

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About the author (2005)

Nicola Gavey is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her work examines the convergences of gender, power and sexuality, in order to critique cultural conditions of possibility for rape.