The Sexualization of Corporal Punishment

The Construction of Sexual Meaning

Bibliographic Data

ID19005284
AuthorsTrevor Butt (University of Huddersfield, corresponding author), J Hearn (0000-0002-9808-1413, University of Manchester)
Year1998
Volume1
Issue2
Pages203-227
Publication date1998-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSexualities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1363-4607 • E-ISSN: 1461-7382
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/136346098001002004
OpenAlexW2034567222
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited7

Corporal punishment has been increasingly understood in western industrial societies as having a sexual meaning. This article examines alternative interpretive frameworks or discourses of corporal punishment. Three main such discourses are described: the judicial, the comic, and the sexual. The prime focus of the article is the examination of how the sexual discourse has become elaborated, and has intersected with and subverted other discourses. The competing claims for both essentialist and constructionist explanations of this process of sexualization of corporal punishment are critically reviewed. A more adequate account is then outlined comprising the following elements: embodied subjectivity; gendered power relations; the focus on the bottom; practices, representation and pornography; and historical contexts, specifically modernist/postmodernist narratives

Corporal punishment · Criminology · Epistemology · Human sexuality · Linguistics · Narrative · Objectification · Political science · Pornography · Psychoanalysis · Sexualization · Social constructionism · Social science · Sociology · Subjectivity · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Gender Studies · Law · Psychology · Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub