Thesis (J.C.L.)--Catholic University of America, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-58).

This study focuses on Indian secondary school youths’ understanding of sexual violence in their community in the age of HIV and AIDS, and the contribution that participatory video can make to address sexual violence. South Africa, apart from having the highest HIV prevalence in the world, also has the highest incidence of sexual violence. South African society often appears complacent about the high levels of sexual violence. In the Indian community, especially among the youth, sexual violence is also cause for concern. Much effort and energy has been expended in educating learners about sexual violence and HIV and AIDS with the objective of raising awareness of the dangers of engaging in risky sexual behaviour, and ultimately to empower and influence positive behaviour change. Because HIV prevalence in the Indian population is on the rise, Indian youth’s particular vulnerability is the reason for focusing on how they understand sexual violence in the age of AIDS. Besides the paucity of research on Indian youth and sexual violence, the methodologies which have been used produced research which is descriptive in nature and hence a methodological shift from traditional methodologies to a participatory visual methodology which has the potential for critically engaging the Indian youth on the issues of sexual violence, could contribute to research which has a social change focus. This qualitative research therefore uses a visual participatory methodology within a critical research paradigm, to explore and contribute to addressing the problem of sexual violence in the age of HIV and AIDS. The participants in the study, a sample of 20 Indian learners (10 boys and 10 girls), from a secondary school in Durban which has predominantly Indian learners, was purposively selected from Grade 11 classes. Participatory video enabled them to voice how they understand sexual violence and in doing so move towards reflecting on their own agency. The theory of triadic influence with its three streams, i.e. cultural attitudinal, social normative and intrapersonal, was used to make meaning of the findings. It also provided a frame for a fourth path, namely the preventive intervene. While participatory video enabled exploring Indian youths’ understanding of sexual violence in their community in the age of AIDS, it at the same time enabled them to reflect on, and perhaps begin to disrupt their understanding of the cultural attitudinal, social normative and the intrapersonal influences and how these influence their thinking about sexual violence. Two a priori themes were established prior to the analysis, to respond to how Indian youths understand sexual violence in the age of AIDS, and how participatory video can address sexual violence. The findings suggest that their understanding of sexual violence stems from a culture of concealment in which veiling sexual violence is the norm; that the vulnerability of youth increases as the experience of pressure from peers to engage in sexual violence increases; and that sexual violence is traumatising. The use of participatory video increased the youths’ reflexivity and created a space for them to explore how to take action. The findings imply that addressing sexual violence with Indian youth should begin with interrogating the cultural norms of masculinities and femininities, and the cultural practices rooted in traditional structures of the family and community which perpetuate gender disparities and the restriction of the autonomy of women and girls. Addressing issues of vulnerability and sexual violence should be the focus of all school and community interventions to ensure learners’ well-being and ability to resist negative peer pressure. These interventions should encourage self-reflection and raise social awareness through active participation and in so doing bring about social change in the Indian community. Vigorous participatory interventions which draw on the voices of the Indian youth as agents of social change in addressing sexual violence in the age of HIV and AIDS, is therefore urgent. The significance of this study as research as intervention is useful in enabling the exploration - with the Indian youth - of how cultural and religious norms, gender disparity, Indian masculinities and femininities, and social peer pressure feed into youth’s understanding of sexual violence and at the same time getting them to begin rethinking, challenging and disrupting these understandings where necessary. The study demonstrates that engaging youth affords them an opportunity to draw from their own experiences and through their own voices and actions create knowledge through participatory video, thereby making a contribution to visual methodologies and research around sexual violence and HIV and AIDS in their world.

Human Immuno Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) have formed part of the South African landscape since the first report in 19831and today South Africa is reported to be the country with the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the World2. This state of affairs, in combination with South Africa’s high sexual crime rate resulted in a general public out-cry with calls for the government and the legislature to enact laws to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS3. Government and the legislature finally responded by way of promulgating the criminal law (sexual Offences and related matters) Amendment Act4 (hereinafter the sexual Offences Act). The Sexual Offences Act inter alia provides for the compulsory testing of alleged offenders of sexual crimes5 This treatise will show that chapter five of the sexual Offences Act, indirectly criminalises HIV/AIDS, and that this is not desirable. It will be submitted that the criminalisation of HIV is against the stated UNAIDS policy 6 It is finally submitted in this treatise that South Africa should repeal all provisions in its law that directly or indirectly criminalises HIV/AIDS transmission and instead follow both and is a deterrent to public health methods of curbing the epidemic, while at the same time exacerbates the spread of the epidemic by forcing people who are HIV positive not to openly come out. It will be argued in the use of criminal law against the transmission of HIV creates stigma and is also an attack on individual human rights. The study will also show that the supposed marginalised persons, such as women and children are not protected by the use of criminal law in the prevention of HIV transmission, contrary to the arguments of the proponents of those who support the use of criminal law. The study will show that far from protecting these marginalised groups of people, criminalisation of HIV transmission, does in fact hurt them the UNAIDS policy and the South African development corporation (SADC) Model Law on HIV and AIDS.

White evangelical culture is investigated here regarding the ways that its fundamental theological beliefs propagate and maintain patriarchal assumptions surrounding women. These beliefs further function to legitimate men’s sexual abuse of women and girls. While official theological evangelical beliefs may seem benign, and perhaps commendable to some, a closer examination suggests the mobilization of those beliefs create the foundation for enslavement and destruction of women. The fundamental beliefs undergirding evangelicalism propagate internalized oppression through patriarchal colonialism of women’s bodies, minds, and souls. Tactics of spiritual rape within White evangelical purity culture enact violence, control, and manipulation to appropriate and profit from the sacred power within the spirit of another. My analysis of #ChurchToo tweets demonstrates how formerly-evangelical women exorcize internalized patriarchal identities by reversing patriarchal myths, reclaiming, renaming and becoming Holy Haggard Hags who enact Righteous Fury through the Rage of Dreadful Women. Through the process of renaming and reclaiming, the confiscated and distorted power of the four Great Hags of Our Hidden History are recovered. The Myth of Evil Eve becomes “Ezer Kěnegdô,” Bathsheba the Innocent Lamb dethrones King David, Jezebel returns as a Confident, Clever, and Powerful Woman and her Spirit exorcises Satan’s Agents and Devouring Wolves, and Tamar the Trickster reappears as a Prophetess, with gifts to symbolize the collective power of sisterhood. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2021. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

In order to improve responses to sexual assaults so that fewer cases drop out of the criminal justice funnel, it is important to understand the decision-making processes of the police and prosecutors in these cases. The focal concerns perspective posits that legal and extralegal variables factor into the police and prosecutors' decisions about how to proceed with sexual assault cases. Although decisions made at the prosecutorial stage are largely reliant on the actions of the police, the prosecutors' charging decisions often differ from how the police classify the incidents. This study examined 11 years of adult sexual assault incidents reported to the police in a Midwestern city to determine the level of congruence in the charging decisions made by the police and prosecutors. Unique from past research, this study used a mixed methods approach to analyze the data from police reports and court documents. Quantitative data examined the extent to which charging decisions were congruent between the police and prosecutors and assessed which factors in sexual assault cases predict the agreement in police and prosecutors' charging decisions. Qualitative data was used to determine which factors were cited most frequently within sexual assault case documents in congruent and incongruent cases. The quantitative analysis revealed that the police and prosecutors' decisions were in agreement in 34% of the cases, and distinct from prior research, the only statistically significant predictors of congruent charges were legally-relevant variables. Findings from the qualitative analysis mirrored those from the quantitative analysis, as legally-relevant characteristics such as the amount of evidence collected and the use of physical force were cited more frequently in congruent cases than incongruent cases. Overall, the results suggest that the focal concerns of the police and prosecutors in this study revolve primarily around the level of evidence available in sexual assault cases. Implications resulting from these findings are discussed.

No description available.

During the last decade, public awareness of and concern about the sexual victimization of children has grown considerably. The number of reports to social service agencies has increased markedly, partly due to legislation in some states which mandates professionals to report suspected child abuse. Clinicians in mental health clinics are also reporting a substantial increase in the number of adult clients, who in the course of their therapies, report histories of childhood sexual victimization. Several books have been published within the past five years, predominantly about incest (e.g., Herman, 1981; Meiselman, 1978; Rush, 1980; Burgess, Groth, Holmstrom, and Sgroi, 1978). Media attention to the issue has increased phenomenally. Incest victims have been interviewed on television and numerous articles have appeared in popular magazines.

This archival and qualitative research adds insight into the psychosocial consequences females of sexual victimization incur. Sexual abuse is a pervasive, complex societal problem experienced by 30%-46% of American females. The psychosocial consequences are numerous, often severe, and can result in death. They include: anxiety, BPD, denial, dependence, despair, eating disorders, destructive relationships, fear, guilt, hallucinations, helplessness, hopelessness, hysteria, insecurity, isolation, MPD, nightmares, numbness, passivity, pessimism, phobias, PTSD, rage, self-loathing, sexual dysfunctions, shame, shock, sleeping disorders, stigmatization, stress-related disorders, substance abuse, and suicide. The severity of psychosocial consequences to female victims varies greatly depending upon the degree, duration, and emotion surrounding the abuse, the victim's health, and the health of the victim's social network. In conclusion, strategies suggested in the literature to combat female sexual victimization are outlined.

The term ‘sexual harassment’ has been treated as key to victim resistance against normalising constructions of unwanted sexual/gendered attention as ‘just sex’ and as a ‘trivial’ part of everyday life. The act of labelling unwanted conduct as sexual harassment has been constituted as an important political step in reframing normalised problematic conduct as gendered violence as well as legitimising recipient access to formalised routes of amelioration. However concerns have been raised that recipients, particularly women, are ‘reluctant’ to use the term ‘sexual harassment’ to describe their experiences and resist unwanted attention using laws and policies designed to deal with this issue. Drawing on resources from discursive, postmodern and feminist approaches, this thesis explores how constructions of the term ‘sexual harassment’ and strategies to deal with it shape, enable and constrain resistances against gendered/sexualised power relations inscribed in manifestations of unwanted attention. It unpacks how discourses of sexual harassment polarise labelling and non-labelling behaviour to produce the former as an act of resistance and the latter as non-resistance. This project moves away from this polarisation to consider boundary construction around the issue of sexual harassment. Through discursive analysis of narratives identified through Q methodological analysis and constructions produced in interview data, this thesis examines how both inclusion and exclusion of relevant issues in multiple understandings of sexual harassment and policy considerations impact challenges that can be made to unwanted conduct. Central to this examination is critical consideration of the operation of gendered power relations within sexual harassment discourses. I pay particular attention to how various constructions of resistance within sexual harassment discourses become embedded in and re(produce) gendered binaries of dominance-subordination. This thesis considers how gendered binaries might be transgressed and destabilised by articulating alternative spaces for the performance of resistance

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of NLP Reframing as a means of decreasing sexual response when aggression is aroused by a female with incarcerated rape offenders. The process of reframing involves a redirection of the positive intentions underlying rape behavior by associating new acceptable and nonviolent behaviors to the same intention. The paradoxical nature of this method allows for measurement of newly acquired behavior, a decrease in the maladaptive behavior (rape) or a decrease in some representation of the maladaptive behavior. In this study, a representation was created by arousing the aggression level of the participants toward a female followed by measurement of sexual response as measured by the Sexual Imagery Levels 1 and 3 of the Rorschach. A post-test only control group design was utilized. The sample for this study included 26 rape offenders incarcerated at the Arizona Correctional Training Center in Tucson. Participants ranged from 18 to 28 years of age and had a mean age of 23.33 years; had a mean I.Q. of 112.71 on the Culture Fair Intelligence Test and included 13 Anglos, 7 Mexican Americans, 4 Blacks, and 2 Native Americans. Data analysis for hypotheses testing involved ANCOVA with the total number of responses on the Rorschach being the covariate. Significant results beyond the .05 level of confidence were obtained on one of the two directional hypotheses (Sexual Imagery Level 3), suggesting that reframing rape behavior using the NLP method with incarcerated rape offenders may be effective in decreasing sexual response at a more symbolic level.