The objective of this thesis was to read the historical and material conditions for FSA victimhood through the language of the subject in order to identify possibilities for an FSA victimology. Using Foucault’s (1978) understandings of the historical production of sexuality and the constitution of the self and his examples of the way power emerges as a cluster of relations at a particular cultural and historical moment as well as Butler’s (1989; 1999; 2004) proposal for gender formation as backdrops, this study investigates the ways that discourses on gender and sexuality as instrument-effects for power/knowledge provide the conditions of possibility for identifying as a victim of FSA. The constitution of sex and gender is channelled through an apparatus, consisting of institutions, discourses and ‘truths’, which produce and are produced by the subject. Sexuality and gender can thus be more critically appreciated through the understanding of the historical, political and material conditions that constitute them as well as their configuration within modern power to produce subject positions under constant (self)regulation, monitoring and surveillance. This study used self- identified FSA victims to demonstrate how scientific discourse and the identification of possibilities for gender and sexuality are mutually constitutive.
The recent global and local transformations and shifts in constructions of female sexuality have provided an avenue that prepares the public imagination for the emergence of FSA victimology. Whilst South Africa is still characterised by relatively orthodox views on gender and sexuality (Jewkes et al., 2003), the various pockets of society that do embrace alternative modes of gender and/or sexuality make possible an emerging FSA victimhood discourse. This is particularly evidenced by the rapidly emerging female sexual offender figure in the public consciousness alongside the amendments made to the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act (Minister for Justice and Constitutional Development, 2007) and the media and public focus on sexual violence. While South Africa is defined by a very particular political landscape characterised by inequitable social and economic relations, the conditions that generate an FSA victimhood subject position are still produced in much the same way as they are in more equitable contexts. However, and as demonstrated by the South African participants in this study, FSA victimhood is not solely dependent on sexuality and gender (de)constructions but rather emerges at the intersection of additional complex and competing identity components such as race and class.
Whilst victimhood and trauma are cast as rare in the aftermath of what is now constructed as FSA (Denov, 2001), the data emerging in this study largely suggests that FSA victimhood is thinkable under certain material and psycho-political conditions and that ‘trauma’ is volunteered. Key to surfacing these conditions was gender performativity (Butler, 1999) because in the context of a confessional interview, gender, sexuality and power could be performed in unusual ways. Performativity thus allowed participants to renegotiate their subjections, perform an alternative discourse and consolidate an FSA victim subject position within the interview as an incitement to speak about sex. This context provided the participants with the vehicle to produce FSA victimhood in a way that clearly exposed those conditions that make such an object possible. These conditions appear to be rooted in access to particular knowledge such as psychological theory, class resources, non-normative sexual and gender discourses and access to technologies such as online self-help groups.
Participants also mobilised and disrupted deeply engrained heteronormative gender constructions to make the emergence of a particular type of victimhood impossible, possible and potentially pervasive. In so doing, the participants constructed aetiologies of FSA, profiles of its victims and perpetrators and consequences of victimisation. These are now part of human science knowledge (as objects articulated in the current study) and will thus provide further and refined possibilities for FSA victimhood in sexuality research, ushering in increasing modes of both regulation and resistance.
One of the most interesting findings in this study was the tension inherent in constructing male FSA victims given the irreconcilability of being both male and an FSA victim. In much the same way as the female sexual offender, the male victim presents an alternative framework for understanding gender. Thus FSA victimisation, and particularly male FSA victimhood, presents a challenge to the masculine-feminine dichotomy because it so clearly indicates that not only the female body, but also the male body is permeable, penetrable and thus vulnerable (Bourke, 2007). The possibility of female-to-male sexual victimisation is thus another means to disrupt gender constructions that constrain femininity to purity, fragility and maternity and masculinity to strength and dominance. The ability to use this study to contribute to these counter-hegemonic gender discourses also disrupts circulated understandings of ‘real’ and thus reportable sexual violence.
The absence of international and South African research interrogating FSA victimhood (McMahon, 2011) has provided the opportunity for the current study to form part of the production of an FSA victimology whilst simultaneously demonstrating how victimhood is produced at the intersection of power, gender and sexuality against the backdrop of certain material conditions. The study thus provides a platform for further examining broader global and local conditions of possibility for FSA victims which promise the production of possibly new counter-knowledges on gender, sexuality and sex abuse. These counter-knowledges contribute to critical accounts of the way that history, culture and discourse produce and reify human subjects and subjectivities.