This discourse enables the male students to construct a version of female gendered subjectivity that supports their own investment in compulsory heterosexuality and hegemonic masculinity. Using biological and psychological discursive strategies females, are constituted as non-sexual and the sum of their reproductive parts. They are positioned as passive objects whose role in the act of sex is delegated to the anatomical aspects of conception and childbirth, and then devalued through the use of sarcasm, sexism, slang and other negative discursive techniques.
By taking up this discourse, the male students are able to construct a version of conception where the female is always passive; she is either penetrated by or receiving of the male sperm. Romance, excitement or pleasure are not relevant to issues of conception in this discourse, and the female is not referred to as a person with feelings and/or emotions. In this discourse the male students are able to construct females as having no physical, emotional or sexual needs that require human endeavour in order to conceive. The male students effectively contain the female by her biology, and her subjectivity is prejudiced to the point
of objectification; she is a cervix, a uterus, a womb or an ova, a receptacle for male sperm. The following comments demonstrate how the discourse enables the male students to construct this version of female subjectivity.
When a female gets sperm into her the baby is conceived. The guy gets a woody and he penetrates the vagina and then millions of sperm swim to the cervix.
Sperm swim through the uterus into the uterine tubes. Yeh, then sperm penetrates the egg.
Some of the sperm swims through the uterus into the uterine tube.
If there are no new eggs in the tube the sperm will cluster around it.
The discourse allows the male students to suppress, marginalise and devalue the active role of the female in gestation and childbirth. Using discursive strategies such as sarcasm, humour and slang, the male students are able to ridicule her role in sexual reproduction, remove it of power, knowledge and value, and then dehumanise it by impersonal biological references. This also enables the male students to ignore issues of ethics, values or moral obligation regarding their own sexual behaviour. The discourse allows the male students to use psychological discursive strategies that contain the female students‘ behaviour and gendered subjectivity by positioning them as accountable for the consequences of sex, sexuality and sexual decision-making. This discourse constructs the females as accountable for safeguarding against contracting or transmitting STIs/BBVs; for safeguarding against conception, and for childrearing, adoption or abortion in the case of pregnancy. By positioning females as accountable the discourse authorises the way some male students inhibit the female students‘ participation within classroom discussions by constituting their gendered subjectivity within notions of blame, guilt and shame.
Health educator: Why do you think those 16,000 girls got pregnant?
Male student: Cause they were drunk.
Health educator: Yes alcohol was probably one of the reasons. But also because they put no thought into using contraception at all. Now are we happy with that?
Male student: No way.
By constituting females as passive and non-sexual, but accountable, the discourse places them in a dangerously ambiguous sexual position. For instance, while females are constituted as accountable for the prevention of pregnancy, their activity in initiating preventative measures can be constructed as potentially deviant. The following comments by the male students demonstrate how deviance is constituted in this discourse.
True, girls on the pill are easy. Yep, they‘re easy alright.
What‘s she doin? If she‘s on the pill then it means that she‘s sexually active and she‘d like a bit.
Right, so she‘s gonna be easy to get into bed [lots of cheers].
An easy shag, easy game [lots of laughter].
This discourse acknowledges the females‘ potential for sexual agency and power that is possible through their support of the male students‘ version of compulsory heterosexuality. As such, the discourse enables the male students to position the female against the dominant versions of knowledge that construct females as non-sexual and passive. By being sexually available and active in supporting the male students‘ performance of heterosexuality, and by being sexually knowing about contraception, the discourse positions the female as deviant. Therefore female subjectivity is defined by the male students‘ version of knowledge as passive and non-sexual, but potentially deviant and in need of surveillance and control.
This discourse authorises the contradictions and ambiguity in the male students‘ construction of female subjectivity. Females who do not actively support the heterosexual investment are constituted within this discourse as morally corrupt, negligent or suspicious; however, females who do actively support the heterosexual investment are also constituted within this discourse as morally corrupt, negligent or suspicious. The discourse authorises the male students‘ scrutiny of female behaviour and justifies the removal of deviant females from protection against unwanted male sexual advances; it also justifies the removal of females from sharing in the privileges of romance, marriage, motherhood and
family as they are defined by the patriarchal view of society underpinning all of the male students‘ discourses.
If she‘s carrying around condoms then she must be getting it. So if she‘s getting it then she‘s a slut. Are you telling me I can‘t call her a slut when she is? I mean come on! That‘s not being sexist, that‘s saying what she is ... she‘s just a prostitute.
By taking up this discourse the male students are authorised to use sexist and misogynist discursive strategies to devalue the role of the female in sex, sexuality and sexual decision-making and to establish the context of fear, concern and danger in which female subjectivity is produced. These strategies enable the male students to affirm the importance of the male role and to justify male authority. They also operate as a warning to females who do not actively support the male students‘ investment in hegemonic, heterosexual masculinity.