Sexual Depravity Research Articles

Gendered Corruption: People's Reactions to Victims of Monetary Versus Sexual Extortion.

This research addresses the important issue of the connection between corruption and gender-based violence, an area that has gained increasing attention in recent years. It provides a new perspective by comparing the perception of victims of monetary corruption versus sexual corruption. Through an experimental study, we exposed participants to a fictitious scenario in which they witnessed an event of sex-based (vs. money-based) extortion. The results showed that the victims' decision to cave into the extortion (both money or sex-based) led to higher feelings of moral outrage and blame toward them, and a weaker moral perception. Moreover, victims were considered less moral and more prone to reputational damage when described as caving into sex-based (vs. money-based) extortion. Finally, a moderated mediation model showed that the reputational damage suffered by the woman also significantly mediated the relation between the decision to cave into the extortion and the helping intentions toward her, but only when the corruption involved sexual payment. These findings provide insights into the perception of victims of both money-based and sex-based extortion, highlighting the significant role of reputational damage and stigma in the context of sextortion.

Holding the harasser responsible: Implications of identifying sexual harassment that includes abuse of power and quid pro quo elements as sexual corruption

AbstractThis article argues that a perpetrator‐based definition of sexual harassment that highlights corrupt aspects of sexual harassment may contribute to a shift in focus from the experience of the harassed, to the actions of the harasser. This argument is based on an analysis of testimonies of sexual harassment from the #metoo call by the Swedish police in 2017, which reference abuse of power and quid pro quo elements. By introducing the recently developed analytical framework of ‘sexual corruption’, we show how a perpetrator‐based definition of sexual harassment may contribute to attributing responsibility to harassers. Identifying sexual harassment that includes the abuse of power and quid pro quo elements as corruption centers on the role of the abuse of power and, thus, the responsibility of the person abusing their position of power. Moreover, this shift bypasses discussions of whether or not the situation was experienced as ‘unwelcome’ by the harassed, the severity of the act, and questions of coercion and consent. Identifying instances of sexual harassment that include the abuse of power and quid pro quo elements as corruption also closes off attempts to portray it in terms of ‘jokes’ or banter, which is common in the police context. The article contributes with analytical tools that enable a shift from tracing the experience of the harassed to centering on the actions and responsibility of the harasser.

Sex instead of money: Conceptualizing sexual corruption

AbstractResearch on the dynamics of corruption has rarely considered sex as a currency in corrupt transactions. This article puts forward the argument that the abuse of entrusted power in exchange for personal gain is relevant also when sex, rather than money, is the currency. It then contributes with a careful conceptualization of such transactions as sexual corruption. Anchoring our conceptualization in the abuse of entrusted power, the article defines sexual corruption, its elements, categories and delimitations, and proposes a conceptual framework that can be used to develop research on sexual corruption. We also address the implications of recognizing sex as a currency in corrupt transactions, providing insights as to why abuse of power is often overlooked when sex is the currency of the transaction. Our approach offers analytic precision and contributes to setting an agenda for the study of sexual corruption as an obstacle to good governance, at a time when efforts to collect data on sexual corruption are increasing.

Sexual Corruption and Political (dis)Trust

Sexual Corruption and Political (dis)Trust

“Furnaces of all letcherousness”: Narratives of Sexual Depravity and the Dissolution of the English Monasteries

“Furnaces of all letcherousness”: Narratives of Sexual Depravity and the Dissolution of the English Monasteries

Once again on Noah’s lost son in the Qur’ān: the Enochic connection

Abstract In the Qur’ān, a son of Noah dies in the flood because, the Qur’ān states, he is not actually of Noah’s family. The passage in question (Q 11:46) was puzzling to classical Muslim exegetes and modern scholars alike, and the search for parallel narratives in previous biblical and parabiblical texts has been largely unsuccessful. Another Qur’ānic passage that portrays Noah’s wife in negative terms (Q 66:10) led some early Muslim scholars to consider the possibility that she cheated on his husband but this interpretation was later dismissed on the principle of prophetic infallibility. In this paper, the story of Noah’s perished son is examined in the light of Second Temple Jewish texts, in particular the First Book of Enoch and the Genesis Apocryphon, where the sexual corruption of the fallen angels leads to cases of doubtful paternity. In these sources Noah’s own birth is recounted as a wondrous event that makes Noah’s father Lamech suspect that his wife had the child from an angel. Lamech’s grandfather Enoch eventually confirms Noah’s righteous conception and birth but the narrative motifs around antediluvian sexual decadence, conjugal disloyalty and miraculous birth stories survive into other Second Temple Jewish and early Christian texts. I argue that the Qur’ān, too, was aware of these narrative motifs and the story of Noah’s son constitutes a unique Qur’ānic spin on certain of these Enochic themes.

University Students’ Perceptions and Experiences of Quid Pro Quo Transactions in Kenya

The purpose of this study was to explore the extent to which quid pro quo transactions commonly known as 'sexual economy', 'sexual transactions', 'sexual corruption' and 'transactional sex' occur in the universities, especially in Kenya. Use of cross-sectional survey design, allowed the researcher to collect qualitative data from 16 female and 14 male students sampled using a number of procedures; namely volunteer, simple random and snowball sampling. Use of in-depth interviews to collect data gave the researcher an opportunity to obtain direct and indirect real-life experiences on quid pro quo transactions. Discourse or content analysis was used to analyse stories and narratives in line with different forms of quid pro quo transactions. The researcher identified, coded and categorised primary data patterns in form of words, sentences and phrases from the written narratives and stories from male and female students. For purposes of privacy and confidentiality, the researcher used codes to present ‘verbatim’ data. Findings from the study show that quid pro quo transactions (sexually transmited marks; money and material benefits, and access to halls of residence) is a common occurrence among university students. Empowerment programmes (economic and life skills) are necessary if male and female students and sometimes staff are to refrain from quid pro quo transactions, which is characterised with negative and devastating consequences.

The Rationality and Applicability of Sexual Corruption as an Economic Crime

The Rationality and Applicability of Sexual Corruption as an Economic Crime

‘New Normal’ and Gendered Violence in Nigerian Film Space

Arguably, film is the most magical form of storytelling. It is that genre that is most similar to our dreams; a place where a lot of possibilities abound. In the case of Nigerian films, there is little or no holding back as creativity and imagination are often interlaced with biased and unbiased social constructs. This study considers ‘New Normal’ as the current thematic preoccupation of Nigerian films to trivialise women’s rights and promote abuses. This phenomenon is contextualised as intrusive narratives which are now present as a discomforting trope underscored by subtle and at times brash episodes in Nigerian films. Based on the theoretical framework of symbolic annihilation and objectification, salient mentions of existing (or comparative) thoughts on gender, violence and filmic presence are examined. These contentions are justified through content analysis with the adoption of coding schemes that frame the forms and results of violence in the films studied. It avers Nigerian film space as a gendered platform that inspires flights of fancy, violence, sexual depravity and mental grossness through its treatment of violence related subjects. It concludes that Nigerian films promote an inconspicuous attitude where the interest of the man often defines the destiny and functionality of the woman.

The Regulation of “Sodomy” in the Latin East and West

The Regulation of “Sodomy” in the Latin East and West

Mortifying Earthly Desires in Toni Morrison’s Home

As is true of all of Toni Morrison’s texts, Home does not shy away from difficult topics, particularly those related to sexuality. In this instance, her novel reveals the contestation between the societal narrative of Black male sexual depravity and the struggle to assert an authentic, strong, good, identity that privileges mutually balanced relationships. While characters falter and make mistakes, Morrison’s text is about redemption and reconciliation to the ideals of a self-created theology steeped in a rich African and African American cultural heritage and tradition. This essay argues that Morrison uses a biblical theme to create a culturally relevant theology that shifts the narrative away from Black male depravity to a place of deliberate, conscientious, mutually beneficial relationships.

Оперативно-розыскная характеристика личности преступника, совершающего половые преступления в отношении малолетних и несовершеннолетних

this article deals with the issues of operational-search characteristics of the criminal personality, committing sexual crimes, types of crimes against sexual integrity and sexual freedom, the qualification of the person committing sexual crimes, its psychological characteristics, as well as issues related to the study of the criminal personality, as one of the elements of operational-search characteristics of the investigation and disclosure of crimes against sexual integrity of minors and minors. Investigative and operational investigative practice includes the development of a psychological portrait of a person unknown to law enforcement agencies, but the perpetrator of the crime Studied several types of crimes against sexual integrity and sexual freedom of minors and minors, which include sexual depravity. The article States that the subject of rape can be a male person, but women can also become criminals in this area, not only acting as an organizer, instigator or accomplice, but also as a person who commits a sexual crime. The article provides recommendations for the development of a file, which should contain the most complete information about the perpetrators of sexual crimes, the external characteristics of persons in respect of whom sexual interest was expressed. The presence of such information will make the most effective work of law enforcement agencies in the operational investigation and disclosure of these crimes, will increase the efficiency in identifying persons who have committed sexual crimes, and most importantly prevent possible serial crimes.

La patologización del celibato en la medicina española (1820-1920)

En la España de la Restauración, la novela naturalista y la prensa anticlerical insistían en que la causa principal de la depravación sexual de los sacerdotes era el voto de castidad. ¿En qué medida las tecnologías de saber y de poder médicos de la época permitían defender esa tesis? Este es el asunto abordado en el artículo. En primer lugar se examinan los antecedentes ilustrados de la ofensiva higienista contra el celibato sexual. En segundo lugar se analiza la controversia suscitada por Monlau con su defensa higiénica de la castidad sexual. Los argumentos de Monlau tienen lugar en un contexto de propaganda a favor del celibato suscitada por la Iglesia Católica. En tercer lugar se exploran los argumentos médicos que conectaban causalmente la continencia absoluta con las desviaciones sexuales, en particular la pederastia. Por último se indican las circunstancias que, a comienzos del siglo XX, llevaron a reactivar la defensa médica de la abstinencia sexual entre los jóvenes, anunciando un nuevo prototipo de masculinidad.

“Address to Public Council”: The Additions to Marston’sThe Malcontent, the King’s Men’s Repertory, and Early Modern Theatrical Economics

“Address to Public Council”: The Additions to Marston’s<i>The Malcontent</i>, the King’s Men’s Repertory, and Early Modern Theatrical Economics

Slavery and inter-imperial leprosy discourse in the Atlantic World

ABSTRACTIn medieval Europe, leprosy had been widespread, but concern faded with the disease during the early modern period, until it reappeared in force in the Americas connected to Africans and the slave trade. In the Spanish Americas, lazarettos were built as early as the sixteenth century for lepers of all races, but by the eighteenth century, leprosy became an issue of note for doctors and government officials in plantation-rich French, British, and Dutch Caribbean islands. Medical treatises and academic periodicals discussing leprosy identified it as primarily an African disease, and often defined it in relation to syphilis and yaws – two other ulcerative maladies with distasteful moral connotations and physical symptoms. By the 1760s, the growing international community of European physicians and scientists began to cross-reference observations made by just a few medical practitioners and travelers in the American colonies, and to translate one another’s racially coded interpretations of the disease – thereby tightening the (erroneous) conflations of leprosy with sexually transmitted and/or ‘African’ diseases like yaws. Using private correspondence, manuscript colonial reports, and published international scientific treatises, this article traces evolving ideas about leprosy’s potential contagiousness from the sixteenth to the late eighteenth centuries, all of which served to connect the disease to moral and sexual corruption.

Marriage and Sexuality in Terms of Christian Theological Education

We are living in the early 21th century and facing a deluge of social problems which threaten our world. Nowadays one of the serious problem we are facing is that marriage and sexuality have been distorted. Since the Fall, one of the serious criminals toward God has been sexual corruption. When God created man and woman, sexuality was intended to be sacred for their perfect relationship which is so called marriage. Therefore sexuality and marriage should be interweaved in terms of Christian theological education.

“Taking the Gold Out of Egypt”: Prostitution and the Economy of Salvation in the Vida de María Egipciaca

This article explores how the thirteenth-century verse Vida de María Egipciaca portrays the sins, conversion, and spectacular penance of Mary of Egypt in terms of her rejection of and eventual entrance into orthodox economies. As I argue, hagiographic legends about prostitutes have economic subtexts and the Vida offers paradoxical visions of prostitution both as a foil and as an analogue for the financial metaphors that undergird the very economy of salvation. In the Vida prostitution, as practiced by the repentant María, not only represents sexual depravity, but also a move from economic indifference and the unregulated distribution of sexual activities to a consciousness of just prices and exchange values. The poem thus offers a striking medieval articulation of Christian salvation economy, relating the salvation economy to notions of women’s value as objects of exchange. In so doing, the Vida also interlaces the context of thirteenth-century Mediterranean economic culture with its poetics.

VILIFICATION IN 2 PETER 2: A COMPARISON WITH THE LETTER OF JUDE

The relationship between the content of 2 Peter 2 and the Letter of Jude is widely discussed among scholars, although a particular dependency has not been proven conclusively. In a recent article it was demonstrated that Jude used female sexual depravity as vilification to effeminate his opponents in order to maintain authority over the Christians in his community. The aim of this article is to compare the depiction of the opponents in 2 Peter 2 with the vilification technique used by Jude to ridicule his opponents, thus influencing the author’s audience to dissociate themselves from these adversaries. The question is whether the writer of 2 Peter 2 maintained the same austerity towards his opponents as Jude did. Moreover, this article seeks to address the question of whether the vilification technique applied in 2 Peter 2 could be an indication of the way the author and his community viewed women and, by extension, their sexuality. A logical outcome of the article is to provide commentary on the relatedness between 2 Peter 2 and the Letter of Jude, as well as discussing the moral traditions underlying 2 Peter 2.

Green Fields: Crime, Punishment, and a Boyhood Between (review)

Reviewed by: Green Fields: Crime, Punishment, and a Boyhood Between Mark T. Mustian (bio) Green Fields: Crime, Punishment, and a Boyhood Between. Bob Cowser, Jr.. University of New Orleans Press, 2010. 176 PAGES, PAPER, $15.95. Death defines us, or at least it does me. One of my best friends died when I was 16, and it still haunts me 30 years later. See what Wilfred Owen, Walt Whitman, Alice Notley, or T. S. Eliot have to say about death. Or read Bob Cowser, Jr.'s excellent Green Fields: Crime, Punishment, and a Boyhood Between. Cowser, author of Dream Season: A Professor Joins America's Oldest Semi-Pro Football Team, looks back at his own childhood and a death that took place then. Not just any death, though—a murder: the brutal rape and stabbing of his eight-year-old former classmate Cary Ann Medlin. Cary Ann and Cowser were first graders together in Martin, Tennessee. During the summer between third and fourth grade, having ventured out with her stepbrother on a bicycle ride before dinner, Cary Ann never returned. Her body was found two days later, tossed into the high grass along a rarely used road. She'd been last seen entering a brown Gran Torino with an unidentified man. Her stepbrother, only six, was left behind with the bikes. An arrest came soon after. Twenty-three-year-old Robert Glen Coe sold a brown Gran Torino and tried to catch a bus to Florida. He told his family he'd gotten in some trouble and needed to leave town, then was apprehended at a nearby bus station, having dyed his hair black in an attempt to aid his escape. Several days after his arrest, Coe confessed to the murder (a confession later recanted). He spent almost 20 years on death row before being executed by lethal injection on April 19, 2000. Part memoir, part dispassionate retelling of an ugly, senseless act, Cowser's book provides a well-woven account of the totality of a small town crime: the strangeness of the late '70s; the drugs and hopelessness that perhaps fueled [End Page 173] the incident; the family pathology that Coe himself lived through as a child; the slow and tortured process of the judicial system; the chilling monotony of death row. A sense of sadness and waste predominates, from Coe's forced watching of his father's sexual depravity to Cary Ann's mother's ultimate insistence on retribution. Ignorance and poverty haunt the whole story. In an interview with one of the defendant's associates, the prosecutor asks the young man, "Can you read?" "No, sir." "Can you write?" "I can sign a check." One of the most telling anecdotes is a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation official's comment when he first sees Cary Ann's house: he knows then that it isn't a kidnapping, that there isn't enough money for that. He knows Cary Ann is dead before they discover her body. Yet Cowser's insertion of himself into the narrative offers connection, a photo album-like view of a childhood next door. He knew people like Robert Glen Coe, knew the neighborhoods they lived in, knew what they were going through. He knew Cary Ann, though not well. He recalls the low-key way his mother told him that his classmate had been killed. The whole episode took place near where he grew up. He has his own experiences with the death penalty, when as an instructor in Nebraska one of his students attends an execution and blusters about it later. What is it that brings Cowser back, then, to go through this as an adult, once again? Turning to sources as disparate as James Baldwin and the Doobie Brothers for answers, he asks himself the same question, and asks us, as well. Perhaps it's the lawyer in me, but the trial and lengthy period between arrest and execution made for a good story. Coe is quickly convicted. His lawyers are convinced of his innocence; the evidence is circumstantial. Still, he receives the death penalty. As time passes, he's evaluated for mental stability, brought before numerous judges, taken through different appeals...

The Emperor Elagabalus: Fact or Fiction? by Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y Prado (review)

Reviewed by: The Emperor Elagabalus: Fact or Fiction? by Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y Prado Charmaine Gorrie Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y Prado . The Emperor Elagabalus: Fact or Fiction?, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 2010 . Pp. xxxv + 381 . CDN $100.95 . ISBN 9780521895552 . The reign of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, popularly known as Elagabalus, who became emperor when he was barely 14 years old and ruled from AD 218–222, is noted for the reports in the ancient sources of his bizarre behaviour, sexual depravity, and fanatical attempts, as priest of the deity Elagabal, to promote the worship of this god in Rome at the [End Page 415] expense of the traditional pantheon. As is the case with the reigns of other “bad emperors” in Roman history, it is difficult to separate fact from fiction in the ancient accounts, particularly since one is the troublesome Historia Augusta. The surviving sources were surely influenced by the tainting of Elagabalus’ reputation that took place after his assassination by his cousin and successor Alexander Severus. In his book, The Emperor Elagabalus: Fact or Fiction? Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y Prado (hereafter P.) sets out to investigate what can truly be known about this emperor, whom he calls by his original name, Varius (P. argues that the names Elagabalus and Heliogabalus have come to define the creature of fiction, while Varius is a character of fact [25]). P. suggests that his approach is different from most work on this emperor in that it questions the veracity of ancient historiography and refuses to be led by it. The aim of his book is to answer the question posed by Arnaldo Momigliano: “how to proceed in writing ancient history where we cannot be guided by the ancient historians” (6). P. uses artifacts such as coins, inscriptions, papyri, sculpture and topography not only to illustrate ancient historiographical accounts but to question and verify them through what he calls a virtual cross-examination (11–12). In the first chapter, “Exposition,” P. sets out the problem he will address and his method of enquiry. As noted above, P. is extremely skeptical of the literary sources available but suggests that by applying certain tests to the material one can judge whether the author is telling the truth, fully or partially. One can also apply artifactual evidence, also subject to certain tests, to verify the literary evidence, and historiography in turn can serve as a check on the potential lies of artifacts. P. uses the second chapter, called “Explosion,” to explode the myth of the fictive creation Elagabalus and to establish the facts about Varius through setting up his series of tests for the historiographical evidence. From the texts of the ancient authors he culls 840 propositions about Varius that are checked against eight tests (inherent verifiability, controversiality, vitality to purpose, publicity, random public contemporary verification, risk, incentive, and collusion) to determine whether they are true, virtual facts, unverifiable, false, or a statement of opinion or emotion. The results of these tests are displayed in a table in an appendix, which fills over 50 pages of the book. P. determines that 24 propositions are true, 43 are virtually so, 13 are false, 16 are statements of opinion or emotion, and 744 are unverifiable. Whether the veracity of ancient texts can be quantified in such a manner is questionable, and some of these tests and their results are at times contradictory and even puzzling. Why are some propositions true and others only virtually true? What does “virtually true” mean? P. provides the reasons for his conclusions only for a few propositions as an illustration. Otherwise, the reader is referred to articles published elsewhere, making it difficult to understand and evaluate his conclusions. [End Page 416] In Chapter 3, entitled “Constitution,” P. turns his attention to the examination of artifacts in order to construct the factual Varius. In this chapter P. asks the reader to join him in the mental exercise of pretending that no ancient sources exist for the reign and relying only on the material culture. In this exercise P. isolates each type of artifact from the others in the course of his investigation. P. notes that one of the drawbacks of applying such a...