‘I Thought That I Am Girly, Girlish Because of All That’: Effeminophobia as Violence in the Context of Child Sexual Abuse and Hegemonic Masculinity in India

Abstract

While the global body of knowledge on men and boys' experiences of sexual abuse during childhood has incrementally grown over the last several years, it remains an under-researched area of study. Drawing upon primary phenomenological research with men survivors of child sexual abuse (CSA) in India, in this chapter, I report and discuss findings that explore the gendered meanings that men who have experienced CSA make of their abuse experiences against a backdrop of heteropatriarchal assumptions and expectations regarding masculinity. Specifically, I discuss how effeminophobia – anxiety and disdain regarding feminine-identified behaviors, mannerisms, attributes and presentations among boys and men – is an ingredient and also the product of such meaning making and eventually works as another form of violence against men and boy survivors following the primary experience of sexual violence. More broadly, acknowledging the role of effeminophobia in constructing men and boy survivors' experiences supports the argument that heteropatriarchy is a double-edged weapon that injures women and gender-expansive people disproportionately but also hurts boys and men.

Citation

Sharma, A. (2024), "‘I Thought That I Am Girly, Girlish Because of All That’: Effeminophobia as Violence in the Context of Child Sexual Abuse and Hegemonic Masculinity in India", Mukherjee, U. (Ed.) Debating Childhood Masculinities (Emerald Advances in Masculinities), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 115-130. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80455-390-920241008