(In)actions Speak Louder than Words: Foucault, Governmentality, and the Social Construction of Rape in the Policing Landscape

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe author examines qualitative data with British police to explore police interactions with male rape victims, and the effects and outcomes of such interactions. Drawing on British police data collected from interviews and questionnaires, the author theorizes the data using sociological and Foucauldian perspectives to increase the understanding of the social construction of male rape in the policing context. From this theoretical framework, it is argued that police encounters with male victims of rape are on the whole negative based on their discursive ideas and knowledges about male rape. From the qualitative data presented and analyzed, themes of power, discourse, culture, values, norms, and beliefs emerge. It is also argued that male rape is culturally constructed as deviant and placed alongside other forms of discourse personified as deviant, such as queerness and mental health, among the police. As a consequence, male rape is symbolizing abnormality for it disrupts some officers’ constructions and discourses on what sexual violence actually entails.