Technologies and Effects of Heterosexual Coercion

Abstract

I am concerned here with explicating some of the ways in which sexual coercion, including `unwanted sex', takes place within heterosexual relationships. It is suggested that dominant discourses on heterosexuality position women as relatively passive subjects who are encouraged to comply with sex with men, irrespective of their own sexual desire. Through the operation of disciplinary power, male dominance can be maintained in heterosexual practice often in the absence of direct force or violence. The discursive processes that maintain these sets of power relationships can be thought of as `technologies of heterosexual coercion'. Extracts from women's accounts of their experiences of unwanted and coerced sex with men are presented to show the operations and effects of these technologies of heterosexual coercion.