Negotiating Boyhood and Victimisation in the Adolescent Male Rape Novel

Abstract

This dissertation provides a critical content analysis of contemporary, realist adolescent novels depicting boys experiencing particularly rape taken from a corpus of 64 fictional, Anglophone adolescent narratives depicting the sexual abuse (including attempted abuse and rape) of boys published between 1984 and 2022. It is situated at the intersection of masculinity studies and the literary as well as socio-political discourse on sexual violence, thereby following a cultural studies model to investigate how the novels respond to the cultural narrative of male (child) rape as well as male rape myths and rites of passage within a patriarchal society that aligns femininity with victimisation and masculinity with perpetration. Across four chapters I outline how the fictional boys negotiate their various experiences of victimisation (intragenerational and intergenerational, homosexual and heterosexual, intrafamilial and extrafamilial) with the heteronormative masculinity they have been socialised to perform. While the adolescent novel is generally a suitable medium to deconstruct such myths and social roles, I argue that in the adolescent male rape novels under investigation, heteronormative ideas of gender identity and sexual orientation, and thereby victimisation and perpetration, are often not (completely) deconstructed but rather reinforced. Thus, if read uncritically, the novels could easily manifest male rape myths and further stereotypes, thereby not fully succeeding at raising awareness for the sexual abuse of boys. The first two chapters investigate whether scenarios of date rape and statutory rape are depicted as sexual exploitation or sexual education and initiation, drawing upon notions of sexual desire, agency, and consent, and mapping the preliminal rite of discovering sexuality, the liminal rite of experiencing sexuality, and the postliminal rite of enjoying sexuality onto the narratives. In Chapter 1, considering Mary Koss’ (1985) concept of the ‘unacknowledged rape victim,’ I show that prevalent male rape myths and rape scripts, in the case of Cristina Moracho’s Althea & Oliver (2014), prevent and, in the case of Bill Konigsberg’s The Music of What Happens (2019), aggravate the acknowledgement of male date rape. The Music of What Happens is then successful in deconstructing male rape myths through its employment of an adult confidant and, in contrast to Althea & Oliver, depicts the date rape as sexual exploitation. In Chapter 2, the investigated novels depicting boys’ statutory rape by female teachers—primarily Robert Westall’s Falling into Glory (1993), Melvin Burgess’ Doing It (2003), and Barry Lyga’s Boy Toy (2007)—posit this ‘relationship’ with the mature female teacher/lover as a boy’s ‘greatest fantasy,’ and thus a sexual education rather than sexual exploitation. However, I argue that sexual desire does not foreclose sexual exploitation; the fictional boys might desire their female teachers and assume they consented to sexual activity with them, yet the novels depict the teachers’ abusing their authoritative position and grooming, gaslighting, and manipulating the boys, i.e. coercing them into sexual activity. Yet, it again needs an adult figure to emphasise this exploitation and deconstruct male rape myths. The last two chapters consider how boys, in scenarios in which they immediately acknowledge their victimisation, negotiate their gender identity and sexual orientation. Chapter 3 investigates rape among male peers. Investigating two sports novels, Robert Lipsyte’s Raiders Night (2006b) and Larry O’Loughlin’s Breaking the Silence (2001), in which rape is excused as athletic hazing, I argue that the rapes are expressions of hypermasculinity, seeking to emphasise a power hierarchy and aiming to exclude the target from the team, therefore constituting bullying rather than hazing. Further, the bystander perspectives foreshadow the raped boys’ (attempted) bullycides, yet the intended bystander education is arguably less successful as it equates disclosure with healing, thereby falling into the same pitfalls as many female rape narratives. Moreover, I coin the concept of the ersatz-penis, a phallic extension, arguing that the perpetrators in the sports novels not only rape their victims with an object but that such an ersatz-penis, in the form of a weapon, is employed by the targets to reclaim their masculinity, as also exemplified in Marc Talbert’s The Paper Knife (1988), Adam Rapp’s Little Chicago (2002), and Matthew Quick’s Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock (2013), thereby attesting to the sexual assault being an attack on the boys’ masculinity. Chapter 4 focuses on rape exerted by adult male perpetrators, exemplarily analysing an intrafamilial rape by a stepfather in Alex Sanchez’ Bait (2009) and an extrafamilial stranger rape in Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson’s Target (2003). I first argue that the boys seek to re-enact a liminal rite through their self-harming behaviour to regain control over their abused bodies and construct a non-sexual rite to enter adulthood. Second, I outline how the novels’ underlying male rape myths lead the boys to question their gender identity and sexual orientation which finds expression in effeminophobia and homophobia. Finally, I conclude that the deconstruction of these myths is again more successful when done through an adult figure, here the counsellor figure in Bait, highlighting a child’s inability to heal from sexual abuse on their own.