Masochist or Murderer? A Discourse Analytic Study Exploring Social Constructions of Sexually Violent Male Perpetrators, Female Victims-Survivors and the Rough Sex Defense on Twitter

Abstract

“Rough sex” can be considered an act of sexual violence that is consensual or non-consensual, often resulting in bodily harm and in rare cases, fatalities. The rough sex defense is typically advanced by male perpetrators in an effort to portray a sexual encounter as consensual, to avoid criminal sanctions for causing injury or death. Public attitudes toward this defense are often reflected on social media following high profile cases and appear to echo dominant discourses that reinforce widely held sexual violence stereotypes. Therefore, this study aims to deconstruct public attitudes surrounding the rough sex defense. Namely, how female victims/survivors and male perpetrators of sexual violence are constructed online, whilst exploring the wider implications upon society. NVivo12 NCapture software was used to collect a sample of 1000 tweets mentioning the terms “rough sex” or “rough sex defense.” Data were examined using Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA), underpinned by a social constructionist perspective, to elicit emergent discourses. Findings indicate that Twitter allowed women to resist harmful victim-blaming discourses and constrained binary identities. Opposingly, men were constructed as sexually entitled predators, yet resisted these subject positions by advocating support for male victims/survivors. Additional analyses examine account holders’ constructions of British Parliamentarians (MP’s) and their campaigns against the rough sex defense. These constructions demonstrated a cultural, heteronormative and victim-blaming understanding of sexual violence, which calls for legislative clarity.

Juror characteristics on trial: Investigating how psychopathic traits, rape attitudes, victimization experiences, and juror demographics influence decision-making in an intimate partner rape trial

“…The impact of deliberation was assessed using a procedure frequently used in jury decision-making research [e.g., (76,77)]. A pre-deliberation-verdict certainty variable was created by multiplying participants' initial verdict decision (−1 = not guilty; 1 = guilty) with their respective confidence score (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10). Scores ranged from −10 (highly certain in not-guilty verdict) to 10 (highly certain in guilty verdict).…”

“…Whilst it is acknowledged that both men and women can be victims of sexual violence, recorded crime data currently indicates that women are sexually victimized at almost four times the rate of men ( 2 ). However, it is important to recognize that men are found to face a range of additional barriers to reporting sexual violence which may impact these figures [see ( 4 ) and ( 5 ) for a detailed discussion]. Figures in E&W indicate that 98% of those prosecuted for the most serious sexual offenses were male, with females accounting for 84% of those victimized ( 6 ).…”

Examining the immediate and enduring psychological impact of street harassment on women’s mental health

“…Very brief blogs or those where a personal experience was not described were excluded from the dataset. Examination of such naturally occurring data, unprompted for the purposes of research, is now a powerful mechanism by which attitudes and personal experiences of sexual violence can be understood (Sowersby et al, 2022;Williams et al, 2023).…”

Rough Sex: Aktueller Diskussions- und Forschungsstand

“…Dafür setzt sich u. a. die britische Kampagnen-Gruppe "We Can't Consent To This" (WCCTT; https:// wecantconsenttothis.uk/) ein. In Großbritannien trifft diese Initiative im öffentlichen Diskurs auf Unterstützung, aber auch auf Widerstand (Sowersby et al 2022).…”