In this thesis, I work from a poststructural feminist framework to examine the pedophile monster as a Western cultural discourse. I argue that in the formation of this discourse, medical and moral discursive strands are conflated to produce the pedophile monster as a subject. I undertake
a genealogical exploration to trace the historical emergences of the pedophile monster discourse from the Victorian Era forward. Here I critically deconstruct two contemporary forms of media as case studies to illustrate the current work of the pedophile monster discourse in distributing
responsibility for child sexual abuse between subhuman monsters, mothers and the child victims themselves. I argue that, with the exception of their role as patriarchal defender, men are artfully neglected in the construction of commercial child sexual abuse as a social problem.
I then make use of a Foucauldian discourse analysis to study text from online forums and chat rooms used by men to discuss commercial child sexual exploitation. I was specifically interested in the discursive strategies used by the men to construct their subjectivities in relation to that of
the pedophile monster. This thesis is an attempt to challenge the dominance of the pedophile monster discourse by implicating men in the problem of commercial sexual exploitation of children beyond the polarised categories of protector and monster. My goal in this thesis is to
bring visibility and shift responsibility to men who perpetrate commercial sexual exploitation of children.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/2817 |
| Date | 26 May 2010 |
| Creators | Janzen, Caitlin |
| Contributors | Strega, Susan |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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