Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
9-2023
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Program
Liberal Studies
Advisor
Carrie Hintz
Subject Categories
Literature in English, British Isles | Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Women's Studies
Keywords
Sexual Violation, Psychoanalysis, Samuel Richardson
Abstract
The importance of unveiling rape in the #MeToo era has unintentionally obscured encounters that lack the clarity of “yes” or “no.” However, desire can be ambiguous even in unambiguous cases of assault. Feminist activists and scholars have started to address ambiguity by arguing for a new epistemology of rape, what Linda Alcoff calls “grey rape.” In this thesis, I interrogate the “grey” embedded in ordinary sexual encounters by looking at ambivalence as an example of everyday desire evident across the seduction plot and the novel tradition. Rather than seeking to make consent more inclusive to oppressed groups, I read between the binary logics of “yes” or “no,” “force” or “fraud,” “seduction” or “rape,” “compulsion” or “unhindered choice,” towards alternative modes of sexual relation, of which ambivalence is one. To have ambivalent desire is to be overwhelmed by a dialectic of contradictory emotions, perpetually suspended in what Toni Bowers calls the “shadowy realm of ‘or’” in the consent binary. I bring into relation texts that share themes of sexual violation and physical suffering, yet which offer a glimpse of pleasure in catastrophe. These include Measure for Measure, Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady, Dora: Fragments of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria, and Monsieur Venus. I explore how a critique of consent that incorporates ambivalence can generate methodological innovations for reading scenes of everyday sexual violation.
Recommended Citation
Ruby, Natalie, "Ambivalent Scales: Methods for Reading Scenes of Sexual Violation" (2023). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/5564
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Included in
Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Women's Studies Commons