This study reports a preliminary investigation into accounting practices for male rape in conversation. Thirty men and women, in dyads, were asked to discuss an incident of male rape presented to them in a vignette. The findings showed that two main issues were discussed: the experience of the rape act and societal responses to male victims. In addition, participants established a ‘hierarchy of suffering’, where rape was judged to be worse for ‘heterosexual’ men than it is for ‘women’ or ‘gay’ men. Hegemonic, phallocentric representations of heterosexuality were mobilized to argue that acts of rape and consensual intercourse are the same for ‘gay’ men and ‘women’ and therefore less traumatic than for ‘heterosexual’ men. This obscures the violence of rape for gay men and women and exonerates perpetrators by minimizing injury sustained. Participants also argued that heterosexual victims are likely to experience ridicule for having departed from hegemonic masculinity. Arguments were constructed to avoid charges of being dismissive towards women and gay men and of victim blaming in relation to heterosexual men. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper explores issues concerning personal agency in discursive psychology and discourse analysis, with a particular emphasis on agency in terms of motivational accounts of the person. Issues are discussed in relation to the efficacy, acceptability, and accessibility of discourse analytic research for the practising psychotherapist. We suggest that such an approach may raise problems in four areas. First, we argue that without explicit theorization of the subject as language user, discourse analysis may be vulnerable to the charge of determinism. Second, theorization of the subject as language user may be required to account successfully for individual consistency and continuity of identity. Third, although claiming to critique commonsense notions of subjectivity, implicit dualist assumptions facilitate a reading of discursive psychology that is compatible with a motivational model of the person. Finally, we argue that discursive psychology itself implies a particular model of the strategically motivated language user. We conclude that, although these issues require clarification, discursive psychology and discourse analysis have much to offer psychotherapy research.

This article employs a critical psycho-discursive approach to social identity processes and subjectivity in an important and under-researched area; the psychological impact of domestic violence on children. We use a case study of interview interaction with two teenage brothers talking about their father's past violent behaviour to show that a highly idealised, dominant form of hegemonic masculinity -'heroic protection discourse' (HPD) -was a major organising principle framing both brothers' understandings of events. However, significant differences occurred in how each boy identified and made sense of self and others within this discourse. We discuss our findings in terms of (1) the destructive power of HPD to position sons as responsible for a father's violent behaviour (2) the utility of our approach for developing a better understanding of when, if or why psychological and behavioural problems associated with domestic violence are likely to develop in a particular child. In so doing, we hope to contribute to theoretical debates in social psychology on identity and subjectivity by showing how it is possible to make sense of the 'collision' between structure and agency through the study of social interaction.

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