Entre laços e nós: narrativas de violência nas relações afetivo-sexuais de adolescentes de uma escola na região Costa Verde (RJ).

Abstract

This thesis aimed to understand how adolescent students of a state school from the Costa Verde region of the State of Rio de Janeiro signify different types of violence in affective-sexual relationships. An ethnographic research was developed, which included participant observation of seven months and in-depth interviews with six girls and boys between 18 and 24 years, regardless of sexual orientation. The privileged axes of the analysis were: the affective-sexual paths, experiences, which involve some kind of violent action in the relationship and the measures taken toward conflicts. The results of the research unveil that aggressions between couples are naturalized in daily life and reinforce the victim and aggressor dichotomy; that is, multiple statements involving some type of aggression were not classified as violent, but rather as negative experiences. The adolescents who were surveyed do not usually seek help towards such situations, as well as they do not signify certain experiences as violence, the fear of moral judgments produces a selection of what may or may not be told to peers or the family, therefore, they tend to deal with these conflicts by their own. The reproduction of gender social standards, especially in dating and "seeing someone" experiences, contributes to the maintenance of hierarchies and inequalities, which affect girls and boys in different ways. The silencing on the subject contributes to the violence s invisibility in dating and "seeing someone". In a context of aggravating homogenization and control of sexuality and gender within the school environment, making the violence visible in dating might be considered as one more "problem" to be watched over, rather than contributing to the recognition of the adolescent as a person entitled to have rights. In other words, these observations bring to light the relevance of the problematization regarding the dichotomy between autonomy and tutelage, according to the state's logic of intervention regarding teenage sexuality and gender public policies, and regarding a particular political scenario, which attempts to undermine the dialogue on sexuality in the school environment. In short, the expansion of this dialogue arises as a challenge, in a sense that it contemplates reflections on violence in the affective-sexual relationships; and to expand qualitative studies, which make it possible to better understand this phenomenon.