Negociando significados: coerção sexual em narrativas de jovens brasileiros

Abstract

This dissertation presents the (reported) experiences concerned to sex imposed by pressure or by use of force of young men and woman (from the age of 18 to 24 years old), who live in three Brazilian capitals (Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre and Salvador). The reports are examined in the light of an international production discussing the subject of sexual coercion. The data corresponds to a sub-sample from 46 interviews with youngsters of middle-class and lower classes, selected from a group of 123 interviews concerning the qualitative data of GRAVAD research (Teenage Pregnancy: A Multi-centered Study about Youth, Sexuality and Reproduction in Brazil). Young men and women related different experiences of forced sex, which vary according to the context and the kind of coercion used and/or suffered. The dynamics of gender relations reveal that, in terms of sexual negotiation, agreement and desire are not always together. Under certain circumstances, some forms of coercion are taken as part of the seduction interaction. The analysis of the narratives clarifies the relational and contextual character of the affective and sexual interactions between genders and what can be qualified as violence. Such conclusion lead to the questioning of the positivism attributed to some sexual conducts categorized as violent by many studies dedicated to the theme.