This study is to review the suffering and resistances of sexual violence victims that can not be discussed within a general frame of anti-sexual violence movement discourses. It also aims to assert a new anti-sexual violence discourse saying that sexu...
This study is to review the suffering and resistances of sexual violence victims that can not be discussed within a general frame of anti-sexual violence movement discourses. It also aims to assert a new anti-sexual violence discourse saying that sexual violence victims are not passive victims but independent human beings who can express their feelings, talk about experiences and hurts. This study discusses the contradiction of sexual engagement, not based on the dichotomy of agreed sexual relationship vs disagreed / against one's intention/ unwanted sexual relationship but on whether a women's body wants it or not. This study also attempted, based on women's sensibility, to point out a departure point of sexual violence. By the voices of women, women's identity, desire, resistance, and will to change can be listened. What does a 'sexual violence victim' mean can only be understood when a narrative truth is secured between past experiences and present memories.
Following are the conclusions of this study:
First, expected roles of man and women, sense of value, and moral standards regarding sexual relationship, the most important elements in maintaining heterosexual love may differ between men and women, and they are subject to changes. Nowadays, unmarried women's traditional equation of sex-love-marriage seems to be disintegrating, however, Korean women in general still want to remain 'a women of the man' and they do not want to express themselves in sexual relationship. Married women as well want to live peacefully within the established frame of married life. They want to remain faithful to the established sexual norm as 'a woman of the man' because a praise of 'good women'is given to them as a reward and women want it. The negotiation process to be recognized and rewarded for 'being a woman of the man' is a conspiracy for maintaining the gendered desire (meaning both man and woman want to perform their socially accepted roles). The more women are dependent and perform the socially- expected role of woman, the more they can expect support from man, and this solidifies the established concept of woman and man. Woman's customary participation in sexual relationship represents their mental status being dependent on man, and the mentality is remembered by woman's body. Women's flexible body, an integrated entity composed of both body and mind, however, is bound to makean attempt to correct, though it might be only to a limited extent, the uneven relationship, while not wanting to upset the existing 'a woman of the man' relationship. Woman, as a sexual being, may venture to express their sexual desire, however, possibility for obtaining man's concession to her will is not easy and limited. In this regard, women's submissive sexual relationship may be tantamount to being exposed to sexual violence.
Second, in the course of continually experiencing the gendered sexuality, the feeling of insult over being treated as 'an object for sex'became engraved not only in the mind of women but in their bodies, which is contradictory to the gendered desire of women. Ultimately, women began questioning the meaning of the contradiction. As women's body is a flexible entity, woman with flexible body began to try to have their voices heard in their intimate relationships. Going through countless anguishes, enthusiasm to live a new life, unspoken desires for various sexual experiences, disintegration of the imposed identity, restoration of healthy self, women with the experience of sexual violence would arrive at the port of a new life. It is the result of resistances on the part of women concerned, which, in women studies, is called 'agency of resistance'. In this regard, the conflicts and revolutionary disturbances in the identity and self- respect of women can be said to constitute sexual violence. Women of sexual victim talk about their experiences and express their desire to live differently, and they are beyond a sexual victim but an independent human being with much self esteem. Sexual violence as an embodied experience may put women in different position, and enforce them to see from a totally different perspective who they are and what happened to them. This process often reveal 'submissive sexual relationship' that they have accepted without questioning was actually a sexual violence.
Third, naming, from the perspective of early feminism, the denial of sexual desire, absence of self, infringement on equal relationship (infringement on inter-subjectivity), damaged sense of self respect, 'sexual violence' or' violence in intimate relationship', bring women to reflect upon themselves. In other words, they would see sexual violence from a position where the sexual differences and women's agency crosses. Only when we understand woman's sexual experience as an embodied experience, sexual violence can be discussed as not a factual truth but a narrative truth, far different from thus far discussions. This is a departure point of the author's suggestions regarding the strategies and discourses of anti-sexual violence movement.
This study found that solving the problem of sexual violence requires changes in women's economic and social status, changes in the established ideas of women (for example, femininity), open-mindness toward sexuality, enhanced self-respect, changes in the trained-to be-a woman habits As women are sensitive to physical violence, they should open their eyes to psychological and social violence being committed against them.