Abstract
Media representation of sexual violence and sexual consent communication in cases involving queer people is an area that has been overwhelmingly overlooked by research thus far. Research looking at heterosexual instances of sexual violence has given us valuable insights into how (hetero)normative gender roles are constructed in news media, and how these work to excuse and minimise the actions of heterosexual men. But how does this change when at least one of the men involved is queer or homosexual and does not fit into the (hetero)normative gender role paradigm which is commonly used to excuse men’s sexually violent behaviours? This research examined three celebrity cases of alleged sexual violence from the #MeToo movement where the communication of sexual consent (or lack thereof) played a primary role in media reporting. This includes the heteronormative case of Aziz Ansari, and two cases involving homosexual men including Kevin Spacey and Tom Ballard. Our research found that with an absence of cultural intelligibility around queer sex and queer negotiations of consent, problematic and damaging stereotypes about homosexual ‘deviancy’ were instead used by news media in attempts to make sense of these cases. It ultimately found that in both the heterosexual and homosexual cases that news media reporting was overwhelmingly protecting and perpetuating norms of hegemonic masculinity, namely through legitimising any homosexual advance on a heterosexual man as violence, and any heterosexual male advance on a woman as non-violence.
Introduction
The global #MeToo movement is arguably one of the most profound ‘moments’ in anti-sexual violence activism in recent history (Boyle, 2019; Fileborn and Loney-Howes, 2019). Sparked in October 2017, this ‘watershed’ moment led to sustained media conversation about sexual violence. However, #MeToo has also been subjected to extensive critique, particularly as African American sexual violence advocate Tarana Burke coined the term ‘Me Too’ in 2006; however, it was not until a privileged white woman used the term in 2017 that it gained international recognition (Fileborn and Loney-Howes, 2019: 6). #MeToo also faced criticism for centering the experiences of cisgender women, with LGBTQIA+ people largely ignored or sidelined (Ison, 2019). However, sexual violence in queer relationship contexts was not entirely absent from #MeToo discourse. A number of high-profile cases drew substantial media attention during the height of the movement, namely those of actor Kevin Spacey, academic Avital Ronell, and, in an Australian context, comedian and media personality Tom Ballard (Ison, 2019).
As such, #MeToo media reporting represents an opportunity to examine how contemporary news media is constructing the issues of consent and sexual violence in queer or non-heteronormative contexts. The aims of this article are twofold. First, we aim to examine how news media construct sexual violence and consent in non-heteronormative cases between men. Second, we interrogate how constructs of gender and sexuality are operationalised across reporting on both queer and heteronormative cases of sexual violence. In order to achieve these aims, we present findings from a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of Australian media reporting on three purposively selected #MeToo case studies. These three cases involve different circumstances, and we do not seek to compare these cases in terms of their ‘harms’ being equivalent, particularly as the case of Kevin Spacey involved a minor. Rather, we seek to consider how masculinity and sexuality are constructed in relation to sexual violence and consent in these cases. Before doing so, we situate this work within a theoretical framework, drawing on the concepts of hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 2005), and intelligibility (Butler, 2004). We move on to provide an overview of current literature on media representations of sexual consent and sexual violence, and homosexuality, and account for the methodological approach taken in our study. We argue that media discourse across these case studies works to reproduce problematic constructs of gender, sexuality and sexual violence that ultimately work to exclude and dismiss the experiences of many survivors. In particular, it worked to reinforce hegemonic masculinities through perpetuating damaging stereotypes about queer and homosexual 1 masculinities. It also overwhelmingly constructed sexual violence perpetuated by heterosexual men as not violence, while sexual violence perpetrated by homosexual men was positioned as almost always violence.
Theoretical framework: masculinities, and making queer sexual violence ‘intelligible’
In our analysis, focusing on masculinity and how it is constructed in relation to sexuality is particularly important in being able to understand how the news media are framing sexual violence and consent in our case studies. As Connell (2005) attests ‘no relationship among men in the contemporary Western world carries more symbolic freight than the one between straight and gay’ (p. 143). While patriarchy is most often understood as a system of men’s power over women, patriarchy also relies on hierarchies of power among different groups of men. As Connell’s (2005) theorising on masculinity avows, the dominant position of men is sustained through hegemonic masculinity, which is a system of power and domination, and a pattern of practice that ensures men inhabit the leading position in the social world. Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) argue that while hegemonic masculinity is culturally and historically variable, it remains normative through being the most honoured way of being a man in any given situation. Connell (2005) conceptualises hegemonic masculinity as not just constructed in relation to femininity, but in relation to other masculinities and the structure of gender relations as a whole. Therefore, as there is a gender politics between men and other genders, there too is a gender politics within masculinity itself. To maintain hegemony, subordinated masculinities (in particular queer masculinities) must be relegated to a lower social status.
Connell (2005: 78) contends that queer masculinities are subordinated through a range of material practices. Political and cultural exclusion, cultural abuse, legal violence, street violence, economic discrimination and personal boycotts are all used to oppress homosexual masculinities and ensure they remain at the bottom of the gender hierarchy among men. The media are an important social apparatus, playing a significant role in persuading people that certain ways of being are ‘normal’ and ‘natural’, working to (re)instate the dominance of particular expressions of masculinity (Baker and Balirano, 2018). ‘Normal’ masculinity is associated with heterosexuality, and thus heterosexuality becomes a key component of hegemonic masculinity for men. Homosexuality then becomes a subordinated masculinity, as ‘patriarchal culture has a simple interpretation of gay men: they lack masculinity’ (Connell, 2005: 173). As we unpack in more detail later on, male rape myths reflect and reproduce gender stereotypes and social norms regarding masculinity and male sexuality (Turchick and Edwards, 2012). This theoretical understanding of hierarchical masculinities provides a critical framework for analysing the discursive construction of sexual violence and consent in queer contexts that involve men who have sex with men.
Butler’s theory of intelligibility and recognition is also instrumental in helping us to understand the complexities of what is happening in the news media reporting of these cases. Butler (2004) contends that our individual personhood is fundamentally dependent on social norms, with gender and sexuality being two of the fundamental norms that make us intelligible. Butler (2004) claims that the terms by which we are recognised as human are socially articulated and changeable. And sometimes the very terms that confer ‘humaness’ on some individuals are those that deprive certain other individuals the possibility of achieving that status, producing a differential between the human and the less-than-human. (p. 2)
So, much like Connell’s interpretation of hegemonic masculinity rendering subordinated masculinities as less-than, Butler also contends that some humans are recognised as less-than for not conforming to social (particularly gendered) norms that make them intelligible. While Butler (2004) recognises that ‘norms do not exercise a final or fatalistic control’ and ‘sexuality is never fully captured by any regulation’, Butler claims that norms act as a ‘field of constraints’ over what will and will not appear within the domain of the social (p. 25). Therefore, those who are outside of the norm are still being constructed as intelligible in relation to the norm, for example, not being masculine enough is still being determined in relation to what is masculine enough (Butler, 2004: 52). We use Butler’s theorisation to unpack how the norms of heterosexuality and hegemonic masculinity are used to make the case studies we analyse intelligible in news reporting. It allows us to consider how those who stray from the norms of gender and sexuality are constructed, particularly when there are limited norms regarding queer sex, queer sexual violence, and queer consent. We can then analyse what alternative ‘norms’ are used to make these cases intelligible instead, and/or how cases are made intelligible through their relation to other norms.
What we do (and don’t) know about sexual violence and consent in heterosexual and queer contexts
Sexual violence has been understood as gender-based on several fronts: heterosexual men overwhelmingly perpetrate violence against heterosexual women; this violence is situated within, and reproduces, gendered power relations, and, gendered norms and stereotypes work to normalise and excuse this violence (Fileborn, 2012). However, a growing body of literature suggests that sexual violence is also a common experience among queer communities, with some studies indicating that LGBTQ+ people experience sexual violence at similar – if not higher – rates to cisgender heterosexual women (see Fileborn, 2012 for a general overview). Despite this, a comprehensive body of research exploring causal factors including the negotiation of consent and queer sexual scripts is lacking (Mortimer et al., 2019). Sexual violence has also been dominantly constructed as bounded and binary, with certain experiences being considered more or less harmful than others (Hindes and Fileborn, 2019). However, scholars such as Liz Kelly (1988) argue that sexual violence is a continuum of experiences and behaviours. These range from minor intrusions to legal definitions of rape, and all these behaviours are interconnected and capable of causing harm. Conceptualising sexual violence in this non-linear and non-hierarchical way allows recognition of the messiness and complexity of victim/survivor’s experiences, and that sexual violence cannot be neatly categorised as real/not real, harmful/not harmful.
Current research illustrates that the norms around heterosexual men and women’s gender roles when pursuing and negotiating sex can contribute towards sexual coercion and assault (see Hindes and Fileborn, 2019 for a more extensive overview of this literature). These largely centre around the gendered norms of men being naturally active and aggressive pursuers of sex, whereas women are seen as the passive gatekeepers of men’s sexual advances (Brady et al., 2018; Cense et al., 2018). These discourses create a social climate where men’s use of pressure in pursuing sex is normalised and obtaining consent is treated as a competitive game, though women can also internalise these norms as a desirable and pleasurable aspect of heterosex (Cense et al., 2018). In addition, overt coercion is not always necessary for participation in unwanted sex: ‘social coercion’, normative gendered expectations, or the desire to please a male partner are often sufficient (Conroy et al., 2015).
Narrow and problematic sexual scripts are largely influenced by myths about rape, and patriarchal stereotypes about women’s sexuality – for instance, the notion that ‘real rape’ is perpetrated by a stranger and requires excessive physical violence (Dwyer et al., 2012; Frankuik et al., 2008). News media have been found to be particularly influential in their ability to reinforce these heterosexual rape myths and stereotypes (see, for example, Dwyer et al., 2012; Frankuik et al., 2008; O’Hara, 2012). Perpetrators are often constructed as ‘monsters’, disassociating sexual violence from ‘ordinary’ heterosexual men, while the victim/survivor is positioned as promiscuous or being to blame (O’Hara, 2012). However, Hindes and Fileborn (2019) also found that while media were still perpetuating these same harmful stereotypes in their reporting of cases from #MeToo, there was also some nuanced reporting that situated people’s experiences within the broader socio-cultural norms that facilitate sexual violence (see also Harrington, 2018).
We have a clear picture of how heteronormative gender roles and sexual scripts work to facilitate sexual violence in heterosexual contexts. However, as Mortimer et al. (2019) argue, research on queer populations ‘has lacked in-depth analyses of the multiple and intersecting myths, stereotypes and scripts that concern not only sexism, but heterosexism and cissexism’ and the ways in which these myths influence survivors’ experiences (p. 334). Indeed, the dominant framing of sexual violence as something that is exclusively perpetrated by cisgender men against cisgender women itself functions as a discursive construction that excludes and obscures queer experiences (Mortimer et al., 2019). Our analysis aims to work towards filling this research gap, as we focus on two case studies that involve (alleged) sexual violence perpetrated by gay men. However, we do not intend to perpetuate the myth that male-on-male sexual violence is somehow an exclusively ‘homosexual’ problem – especially as heterosexual men are also victims, and disproportionately perpetrate sexual violence against other men (Javaid, 2018b, 2018c).
The small amount of research that has been undertaken on queer people’s experiences of sexual violence gives us some initial insights. Research on men’s experiences points to norms of hegemonic masculinity, heteronormativity and homophobia as shaping men’s ability to recognise and label experiences as constituting sexual violence, disclose and report, and receive recognition as a victim (Braun et al., 2009; Davies and Rogers, 2006; Javaid, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c). One key element of the discursive construction of hegemonic masculinity and sex is the insatiable ‘male sex drive’ discourse, which (re)produces the notion that men are always already desiring of and ‘up for’ sex. As Braun et al. (2009) argue, the effect of this discourse is heightened in gay encounters as there is no woman present to play ‘gatekeeper’ or feign resistance, meaning that ‘the scene is set for an unadulterated male hypersexuality to flourish’ (p. 337). This discourse also intersects with homophobic discourses that position gay men as ‘‘promiscuous’ and leading ‘risky lifestyles’ and “asking for” sexual violence’ (Mortimer et al., 2019: 337; see also Donne et al., 2018; Javaid, 2018b, 2018c).
Discursive constructions of men as physically strong and capable of defending themselves can also come into play to render men ‘unrapeable’ – as a ‘true’ victim (and ‘real man’) would have fought back (Abdullah-Khan, 2008; Davies and Rogers, 2006; Javaid, 2018b; Mortimer et al., 2019). In addition, men who are raped are placed in a position of subordinate masculinity, because they ‘may go against, challenge, or contradict the gender expectations of men, as their victim status incorporates characteristics pertaining to powerlessness, emasculation and weakness’ (Javaid, 2018a: 201). Socially constructed notions of hegemonic masculinity are not consistent with constructions of rape victims as weak, defenceless and feminine (Connell, 2005). Heterosexual male survivors may be constructed as ‘feminine’, ‘homosexual’ or otherwise in a position of subordinate masculinity because of the discursive linking of penetration with femininity and homosexuality (Javaid, 2018a). However, while heterosexual male victims may be constructed as homosexual, homophobic attitudes mean that gay male victims still receive more victim blaming than heterosexual male victims (Turchick and Edwards, 2012; Wakelin and Long, 2003).
Together, the effect of these discursive constructions of masculinity, homosexuality and sex is to render ‘sexual coercion among gay men . . . as virtually oxymoronic’ (Braun et al., 2009: 337). However, it is important to acknowledge the intersecting roles of gender and sexuality here in producing coercion as ‘oxymoronic’, as this is in stark contrast to the construction of coercion experienced by heterosexual men when perpetrated by another man. The hegemonic, heterosexual male body is constructed as a ‘bounded and impenetrable’ one (Golder, 2004: n.p.). This is illustrated through the historic use of the ‘gay panic’ defence, which legally enshrined the heterosexual male body in this way: an (alleged) homosexual advance is positioned here as such an affront to hegemonic masculinity that lethal violence is warranted (Mack, 2013; Ramakrishnan, 2011). In this context, sexual violence against heterosexual men becomes ‘intelligble’ through its violation of hegemonic masculinity: rather than being ‘oxymoronic’, it is almost unthinkable that such an experience would be anything but harmful.
Given the collective weight of this research illustrating that sexual violence in queer contexts is vastly under-recognised, under-reported, and shaped by a range of intersecting myths, misconceptions and stigma, it is vitally important to understand how this violence is constructed in the news media. News Media is one key site of discourses on sex, gender, sexuality and sexual violence, and previous research has illustrated the role these discursive constructions play for female survivors in terms of recognising and disclosing their experiences, and seeking support (Kitzinger, 2001). News Media constructions of sexual violence in queer relationships therefore present important implications for how this violence is more broadly understood and responded to by the community and in government policy (Carratala, 2017).
Homosexuality and sexual violence in news media
To date, few studies have examined news media representations of sexual violence perpetrated against men in general, and that occurring in queer relationship contexts specifically. As Carratala (2017) argues, this silence in media representation likely reflects broader social attitudes: ‘if homosexual relationships were long concealed as special and intimate friendships, any aggression that may have taken place within those relationships fell victim to silence’ (p. 204). This ‘symbolic annihilation’ of queer sexual violence may also account for the absence of research on this issue (Venzo and Hess, 2013). Of the small number of studies that have been undertaken, these have focused on more stereotypically ‘serious’ forms of sexual violence, such as rape. Both Davies (1998) and Abdullah-Khan’s respective media analysis of male rape found that reporting constructed homosexuality as ‘deviant’, with gay men portrayed as dangerous predators. Male rape tended to be positioned as a ‘homosexual problem’, framing gay men as the perpetrators of sex crimes, rather than victims (Davies, 1998: 105).
We know comparatively more about news media representations of homosexuality in general, with existing research presenting a complex and shifting picture (Adamczyk et al., 2015; Chomsky and Barclay, 2010). Certainly, there is evidence to suggest that news media in the Anglophone Global North have constructed homosexuality in problematic ways in the past, with homosexual men largely absent from earlier media reporting, then frequently depicted as ‘deviant’, ‘perverts’ and sex offenders in dominant media narratives (Alwood, 1996). This ‘deviance’ frame also occurred during the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s (Alwood, 1996). Dominant narratives worked to further stigmatise and other gay men as ‘diseased’, sexually depraved, and as posing a threat to ‘innocent’ (heteronormative) citizens (Chomsky and Barclay, 2010; Crath and Rangel, 2016).
More recent analysis suggests that media reporting in the Global North has become more progressive and inclusive, focusing on issues such as discrimination, rights and exclusion (Adamczyk et al., 2015; Chomsky and Barclay, 2010). However, we should remain wary of any linear notion of ‘progress’: progress is often met with backlash, and dominant constructions are not static (Alwood, 1996; Crath and Rangel, 2016). For example, recent Australian news media reporting has levelled sustained campaigns against same-sex couples, marriage equality and trans/gender diverse people (Law, 2017). Likewise, contemporary reporting has been critiqued as ‘homonormative’ and mired in respectability politics (Crath and Rangel, 2016; Ison, 2019).
Our brief overview here has intended to illustrate the complex and dynamic ways that news media have typically constructed homosexuality. This adds another layer of importance in considering how contemporary media reporting constructs sexual violence in queer contexts, and the extent to which this might perpetuate or disrupt the discourses identified here. The #MeToo movement provided a unique moment for news coverage of sexual violence where there was an increase in public disclosures from differing sources. While not in the scope of our analysis, we acknowledge that the divergent ways in which these cases came to public attention may have influenced the media reception. For example, the original reporting of the Aziz Ansari case has been critiqued on account of the unethical journalistic practices used by babe.net (see Salter, 2019). Nevertheless, these cases provide a unique opportunity to analyse how media are reporting on queer and heteronormative sexual violence in the context of #MeToo.
Methods
Methodology: Critical Discourse Analysis
We conducted a CDA of Australian news media articles, guided by our theoretical framework(s) of hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 2005) and intelligibility (Butler, 2004). The use of CDA allowed us to examine how this gendered social order is sustained through the use of gendered ideology in discourse. It also allowed us to analyse how discourse not only reflects particular gendered realities, but how news media further (re)produce particular realities and norms (Xie, 2018). This methodology allowed us to examine how news media are (re)producing what is intelligible as sexual violence and who is intelligible as victims and perpetrators.
Method: news media analysis
As we explored earlier, news media are a particularly influential source of discourse surrounding sexual violence, therefore news media analysis provided an appropriate method. There is a significant gap in research examining news media representations of sexual violence in queer contexts. A substantial power of the news media is that they can choose which events to respond to at what time (Xie, 2018), and considering that sexual violence involving queer people is rarely reported, the small number of queer cases reported as part of #MeToo provides an important opportunity to analyse how these were being constructed. Specifically, our analysis examines the intertextual and interdiscursive aspects of news reporting including which voices were privileged, which were absent, whose quotes were used and the commentary provided on the case by journalists/authors. This allowed us to analyse the implicit ideology and power relationships created through reporting (Xie, 2018).
Sample
A purposive sample of Australian newspaper articles covering the three selected cases of Aziz Ansari, Kevin Spacey and Tom Ballard were used for this analysis (see ‘Case Studies’ section for an overview of each). This purposive sample was selected as they represented some of the few non-heteronormative cases that arose from the #MeToo movement, allowing us to address this gap in the literature on media reporting of sexual violence. The sample was restricted to Australian newspapers, and while the #MeToo movement was a global phenomenon, a focus on Australia allowed us to undertake an in-depth analysis of a small number of rich case studies. We included both ‘factual’ reporting of the incidents (39% of articles), as well as opinion articles and editorials (61% of articles) as these all form part of the cultural scaffolding of sexual violence (Gavey, 2005). However, only one article for the heteronormative Aziz Ansari case was ‘factual’ news reporting, with 92% of articles in this case being opinion and editorials.
Digital editions of the newspaper articles were collected through the online Factiva and ProQuest databases using the time constraint of October 2017 to July 2018. They were located using the keywords of the alleged perpetrator’s names: ‘Kevin Spacey’, ‘Aziz Ansari’, ‘Tom Ballard’ and by selecting the ‘sex crimes’ theme/category. All Australian newspapers were searched resulting in 50 articles being located. The website news.com.au was also searched using the alleged perpetrator names, and 3 articles that did not appear in the databases were collected (see Table 1 for final sample of newspapers). This then yielded 53 articles in total. Twelve repeat or unrelated articles were cleaned from the sample, leaving the final sample of articles as:
Aziz Ansari = 12
Kevin Spacey = 19
Tom Ballard = 10
Final sample of newspapers and number of articles.
Procedure
NVivo software was used to code the news media articles, which began with an initial reading of all the data, and then a second reading in which themes and observations began to be developed. Our initial analysis was guided by our larger themes of sexual consent, gender and sexuality. We then broke these larger themes down into sub-themes through identifying patterns in the data, with references to patterns found in previous research on sexual violence reporting (Bryman, 2012: 581–584). These sub-themes were also guided by our theoretical frameworks, identifying how the articles made sense of the cases. We considered what stereotypes or norms about sexual violence, gender and sexuality the articles drew on or situated the cases in relation to in order to make these cases culturally ‘intelligible’ and how these did or did not reinforce hegemonic masculinity. These norms and stereotypes were identified with references to previous studies (see literature review) that have identified social and cultural norms around sexual violence, masculinity and homosexuality. These sub-themes are reflected in the presentation of our results and discussion below, including how sexual violence was constructed, how consent was constructed, how victim/survivors were portrayed, and how sexuality played into perpetrator portrayal.
Case studies
Results and discussion
Constructing sexual violence: ‘bad sex’ vs ‘sexual assault’
In the Aziz Ansari case, Ansari’s actions were framed by the majority of reporting as sitting outside the boundaries of ‘real’ sexual violence. Dominant media narratives instead constructed this case as ‘bad sex’ at worst, where Ansari perhaps ‘misread the mood’. However, the case was predominantly framed as a normative and acceptable heterosexual encounter. In The Daily Telegraph (source 7 - see Appendix 1 for list of all newspaper sources), the author states that this should not be considered sexual violence as ‘he didn’t handcuff her to the bed. He didn’t assault her’, employing the stereotype and myth that ‘real’ sexual violence must involve force. The author then states that Ansari is ‘not a criminal. He’s a man’, further reinforcing men as naturally sexually aggressive with pressure and coercion normal (heterosexual) male behaviour. This effectively constructs sexual violence in heteronormative contexts as bounded and binary (something either is or is not sexual violence), while presenting heteronormative sex as inherently (and acceptably) ‘messy’ and ambiguous (see Hindes and Fileborn, 2019 for a more in-depth discussion of Australian media reporting of the Ansari case).
This sits in stark contrast to the Spacey and Ballard cases (both alleged perpetrators being homosexual men) which, despite arguably also being messy and ambiguous (though to varying degrees, particularly in the Spacey case), were consistently constructed as constituting ‘real’ sexual violence. In the case of Spacey, this is likely also because the victim-survivor was a child at the time of the incident, meaning that the question of sexual consent (and the potential to frame the situation as simply ‘bad sex’ or a ‘date gone horribly wrong’) was not available as a narrative device for making this case ‘intelligible’. Notably, in the Ballard and Spacey cases, news media reporting tended to draw on legal language reaffirming the survivor’s experience as non-consensual and legitimate, even if they did not meet the threshold for a criminal standard of conduct (as was the case with Ballard). This is reflected through descriptors of the incident as ‘sexual assault’, ‘sexual misconduct’ and ‘indecent assault’. In a smaller number of instances, more colloquial descriptions of the (alleged) perpetrator’s actions were used, such as ‘kissed and fondled’ or ‘groped and lay him on a bed’.
Importantly, in comparison to reporting on the Ansari case, these narratives virtually never contained discourse that worked to undermine, dismiss, or downplay the seriousness of the sexual violence or the victim-survivor’s interpretations of what happened. Indeed, in Spacey’s case, the emphasis was often on his actions as a predator who (in the words of the author) ‘prey[s] on vulnerable people’ (Herald Sun, source 18). This works to place responsibility on the perpetrator rather than survivor (again in contrast to the Ansari case). For Spacey, we also begin to see the discursive linking of homosexuality with paedophilia through the author’s use of the phrase ‘fiddled about with children’ (The Australian, source 21), a framing which is deeply problematic (as we return to below) but also reaffirms the intelligibility of this case as ‘real’ violence through situating it in relation to the ‘monstrous’ figure of the paedophile. The collective effect of these dominant constructions is to position the male victims’ experiences as ‘real’ and intelligible violence, while Grace’s experience is made intelligible through relating the experience to that of ‘normal’ heterosex, thus not constituting ‘real’ violence. This demonstrates the difficulty in being able to conceptualise sexual violence as a continuum and to legitimate a broad spectrum of victim/survivors’ experiences (Kelly, 1988) when there is a discursive hierarchy of what ‘counts’. This hierarchy is not solely based on the acts themselves, but also based on the gender, sexuality and age of the victims and perpetrators.
Questioning consent: romantic persuasion vs aggressive homosexual pursuit
While some nuanced discourse was apparent in the reporting of Ansari around consent and gender, the majority of the articles perpetuate harmful stereotypes about sexual interactions between men and women, with the majority not recognising the case as non-consensual (see Hindes and Fileborn, 2019). For example, dominant narratives tended to present sexual ‘miscommunication’, token resistance (saying ‘no’ when you really mean ‘yes’), and the use of some coercion as normal (if not desirable) features of heterosex. The Sydney Morning Herald (source 8) author claimed this was a story of ‘males merely pressuring women into sex’, while the author of The Daily Telegraph (source 7) article claimed that this pressure is in fact desirable:
Here’s a woman’s truth about the reality of sex. There’s some persuasion involved, a lot of the time. And actually, a little persuasion is kinda nice.
In the majority of articles Ansari is never positioned as responsible for ensuring Grace was consenting. Instead, common victim blaming tropes were employed by authors of the articles, positioning Grace as responsible for the ‘unwanted’ sex:
The problem for Grace is she didn’t leave his apartment . . .
Grace could have spent more time getting to know Ansari before getting naked.
- The Australian (source 1)
Comparatively, 90% of articles reporting on the Ballard case accepted and legitimised the case as non-consensual, with only one author from The Bulletin (source 34) questioning the lack of verbal communication stating, ‘not once during the encounter did he actually say no’. None of the 19 articles covering the Kevin Spacey case questioned the issue of consent, with all of the articles reporting the details of the case as non-consensual. Again, this is likely due to the fact that the victim-survivor was a minor at the time of the offence, and legally, whether or not they consented is irrelevant. We do not suggest that the male survivor’s lack of verbal communication should be questioned, but rather raise this to highlight the difference in how the absence of clear verbal refusal is constructed across these cases. In the case of Ansari where the victim/survivor is a woman, there is a clear difference in how consent is constructed compared to the cases of Ballard and Spacey where the victim-survivors are male. When the victim/survivor is a woman there was more ambiguity in how consent is constructed, a greater focus on how her own actions contributed to the assault, more questions around her interpretation of events, and more sympathy for the perpetrator’s (in)ability to interpret consent.
The Ansari case is made intelligible as consensual through placing the case in relation to what would otherwise stereotypically be considered ‘normal’ heterosex. Queer sexual interactions, however, are less intelligible within these heteronormative frameworks, as there are fewer norms about queer sex that the Ballard and Spacey cases can be placed in relation to. Our analysis suggests that the news media overwhelmingly accepted the Ballard and Spacey cases as non-consensual and did not employ victim blaming tropes as was the case for the bulk of reporting on the Ansari case (see Hindes and Fileborn, 2019). Rather, we suggest that these cases were instead made ‘intelligible’ through placing them in relation to harmful stereotypes about homosexuality and masculinity as we explore below.
Constructing the victim-survivor: women as ‘angry’ and ‘dumb’ vs men as ‘traumatised’ and ‘scarred’
In this section, we move to consider how victim-survivors were constructed across each of the case studies. There were notable gendered differences at play: male survivors were systematically constructed as ‘legitimate’ victims, with the harms of their experiences taken seriously. In contrast, Grace’s victim status was routinely called into question, with her experience explicitly and implicitly undermined. Yet, despite this discrediting of women victim-survivors, sexual violence was simultaneously constructed as being a ‘heterosexual issue’. For example, women were more broadly positioned as victim-survivors by the authors in four of the articles covering the Spacey case, despite the victim-survivor being male:
I have never understood how forcing a woman into sex (either physically or by coercion) can in any way be considered fun.
Women are our mothers, our sisters, the little ones are our daughters. Show respect.
- Herald Sun (source 13)
We are moving towards a chaperone culture, in which women, delicate lambs that we are, must be protected at all times.
- The Australian (source 1)
This broader positioning of women as victims in articles that are ostensibly reporting on a queer and male victim of sexual violence erases the experiences of victims other than heterosexual women. It ignores that homosexual, bisexual and other men who have sex with men also experience pressure and coercion (Braun et al., 2009). As well as erasing queer experiences, it also reinforces the notion of women as potential ‘victims in waiting’, treating sexual assault as a non-negotiable reality that defines and controls women, and disregards individual agency (Naffine, 2014: 176). It may also be the case that references to women victim-survivors are used here to make these cases ‘intelligible’ in the absence of dominant discourses to draw on for queer male survivors. In other words, the issue of sexual violence comes to be understood or ‘knowable’ through the dominant narrative of ‘woman as victim’, working to resediment and stabilise this discursive construction in the face of experiences that unsettle it.
While articles covering Spacey positioned women as victims, and in need of protection, in contrast those on the Ansari case were hyper-critical of the woman victim-survivor, overtly discrediting and questioning the assault. Throughout the media coverage, the female victim/survivor is described as ‘angry’, ‘dumb’, ‘whining’, ‘clawing’, ‘cruel’, ‘vicious’, ‘unforgivable’ (see Hindes and Fileborn, 2019). In contrast, the claims of the male victim-survivor in the Spacey case were taken at face-value. There was little commentary regarding the victim-survivor; however, the small amount that did arise was sympathetic labelling him as ‘traumatised’ and ‘scarred’, with one article legitimising the victim’s freeze response. Again, this likely is due at least in part to the fact that the victim/survivor was underage at the time of the encounter. However, in the case of Tom Ballard 80% of articles similarly position the male victim-survivor as ‘traumatised’ and there is a strong focus on quotes from the victim-survivor detailing the specific harm the encounter caused to his mental health including ‘suicidal thoughts’ and ‘substance abuse issues’. While two articles do subtly question the victim-survivor, with The Australian (source 40) author calling what happened ‘unsubstantiated accusations’, and The Bulletin (source 34) author saying ‘not once during the encounter did he actually say no’, the remainder of the articles position the victim-survivor as heroic for coming forward through the use of direct quotes from him: ‘It’s a risk speaking out about sexual assault. It’s the scariest thing I’ve ever done. . . . It’s important to tell people if you’ve been sexually assaulted because you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of’, he said. (The Advertiser (source 35)) ‘Mr Roberts encourages survivors of sexual assault to not be ashamed. “If you tell the truth, all the right people will be on your side”’, he said.
Thus, in the Ballard case the survivor’s actions are made ‘intelligible’ through norms of hegemonic masculinity, which work to reposition the survivor as brave and heroic for speaking out about his experience. When read alongside the media reporting of Grace, the comments of Ballard’s survivor work to (though unintentionally) further discredit the voices of women survivors whose experiences are typically treated with considerably more suspicion. By implication, women survivors do not have ‘all the right people on their side’, and by extension of this logic are not ‘telling the truth’. In all, this media reporting works to construct male victim-survivors as credible, believable, and as having experienced legitimate and understandable harms, while simultaneously being erased as victims at times. Women victim-survivors, on the other hand, are always already positioned as victims, yet are not credible or trustworthy. The credibility of the male survivor in the Ballard case must also be situated within the context of the case involving a homosexual perpetrator and heterosexual survivor. As we explore in further detail below, this survivor’s experience may be made to be intelligible as violence because it violates norms of the hegemonic, masculine body as bounded, impenetrable, and sexually agentic – reminiscent of the ‘gay panic defense’ discussed earlier.
Focusing on sexuality in queer cases: constructing the deviant homosexual
In the Ballard and Spacey cases – which were outside of a heteronormative context – instead of an explicit focus on gender like in the Ansari case, media reporting emphasised the sexuality of those involved. However, while this focus on sexuality was not explicitly gendered, the discourse used to talk about sexuality clearly constructs ideologies around male sexuality, men’s bodies, and men as victim/survivors of sexual assault.
Throughout the reporting on Kevin Spacey 12/19 articles draw focus to his homosexuality. Two articles conflate homosexuality with sexual deviance, and one conflates homosexuality with paedophilia. In the same paragraph that the author of The Advertiser (source 22) claims ‘very few have been convinced’ [of him being heterosexual], the author also states (without any source) that Spacey is friends with a ‘convicted paedophile financier’. Pairing this unrelated fact with discussion about his homosexuality constructs there somehow being a link between Spacey’s sexuality and his friendship with a paedophile. The same article also quotes fives stories from ‘anonymous online sources’ of Spacey flirting with and propositioning men. While none of these stories are claiming to be sexually violent, the author frames them in such a way that Spacey’s homosexuality appears to be sexually deviant by using language such as ‘another alleged incident’. It is worth noting here, however, that some scholars (Eguchi, 2018: 100) have critiqued Spacey himself for playing in to constructs of queer ‘deviancy’ as a ‘deflection of sexual misconduct allegations against him’, while simultaneously reproducing the logics of rape culture (Enck, 2018). As Eguchi (2018) argues, by disclosing his sexuality ‘in conjunction with his apologia for Rapp’ Spacey ‘rhetorically reaffirms associations of homosexuality with sexual sin, along with paedophilia and unwanted sex’ (p. 100). As such, it may not be possible to disentangle the reproduction of these discourses in media reporting from Spacey’s own reliance on them in his apology (and, other queer perpetrators named through #MeToo similarly drew on discourses of ‘queer deviancy’ in their ‘defense’ – see Ison, 2019). Nonetheless, these findings reflect those of previous studies which have also identified a tendency for news media to rhetorically link and conflate homosexuality with pedophilia and sexual deviance (Alwood, 1996; Russell and Kelly, 2003).
One author in The Australian (Source 21) used the word ‘gay’ 13 times in their coverage of the Spacey case, and in a variety of contexts which position homosexuality negatively, implicitly suggesting that homosexuality is somehow connected to the perpetration of sexual violence. For example, ‘The moral of the tale is you can’t sexually assault young men and teenagers, particularly from inside the closet and get away with it’.
The author also suggests that other actors who are ‘in the closet’ may be sexual predators, and antagonistically says ‘come out, come out, wherever you are . . . or someone is coming to get you’. This reinforces the harmful stereotype that homosexual men are sexual predators, possessing an ‘uncontrollable and voracious appetite for sex, particularly with young “straight” men’ (Sewell, 2001: 58). Sewell further argues that homosexuality is often depicted as an extravagant and sensationalised caricature (much like The Australian and The Advertiser depict above), constructing homosexuality as a force that must be contained, and a threat to heterosexuality. This positioning of homosexuality as deviant and dangerous continues to relegate it to a lower hierarchical status between the masculinities (Connell, 2005), something that becomes particularly apparent when juxtaposed against cases such as Ansari’s where heterosexual masculinity is overwhelmingly protected (Hindes and Fileborn, 2019).
While Spacey’s sexuality is constructed as a causal factor for his sexually violent behaviours, The Australian (source 21) author also stated that: Gay men that I knew in their late 20s and early 30s felt flattered when he [Spacey] touched their bottom in the Groucho Club. They’d been touched by an Oscar winner, a Tony winner, a Hollywood star. They felt elevated. This is how yesterday’s flattery is today’s disgust.
The use of ‘yesterday’s flattery is today’s disgust’ normalises this type of non-consensual behaviour within the gay community. So, while the article conflates sexual violence with homosexuality, it also normalises non-consensual behaviour when it is between two homosexual men. This reflects research that suggests pressure and coercion is normalised between men who have sex with men (Braun et al., 2009; McKie, 2015). However, Braun et al. (2009) argue this is not because gay cultures or gay sexualities endorse or promote coercive behaviours, but rather it reflects broader hegemonic masculinities that construct male sexuality as ‘always wanting’ (p. 120). This phrase also implies that claims of sexual violence may be the result of ‘consensual’ encounters that have been retrospectively re-interpreted as violence, playing into the trope that victim-survivors make allegations on the basis of consensual but regretted sex.
In the reporting of Ballard, we do not see the construction of male sexuality as ‘always wanting’ or the normalisation of non-consensual sex when it is a heterosexual man receiving a sexual advance by a homosexual man. Thirty percent of the articles covering the Ballard case use the quote from the victim-survivor ‘it was a traumatising experience for many reasons, one of those being I’m a heterosexual’. This constructs the harm of sexual violence as arising from the sexuality of those involved, and the apparent violation of gendered norms as they relate to sexuality. In other words, sexual violence is harmful in this case because it violates the hegemonically masculine body’s status as bounded and impenetrable. Such reporting works to re-constitute hegemonic masculinity in a way that amplifies the apparent harms of sexual violence vis-a-vis the transgression of hegemonic masculinity. The survivor, in this case, suffers an additional ontological harm that negates his status as suitably masculine, reducing him to the subordinate status typically associated with women and gay men.
Further, in the case of Ballard, the victim-survivor is only criticised by one author for not saying ‘no’ verbally, and there is significantly less (in most cases zero) expectation placed on him by the media to have responded ‘appropriately’. Despite 78% of articles reporting on the Ballard case quoting the police response that it was ‘outside the confines of the law’, none of these articles overtly used this to question his victim status. In fact, 44% of the articles used quotes from the victim/survivor retelling how harmful the experience was, working to provide legitimacy to the claim, despite the police response. In addition, 22% of the articles quote the police response alongside quoting Ballard denying the claims, however no overt judgement is made about the legitimacy of the victim/survivor. While the Ansari case had arguably similar circumstances (but no confirmation from the police that his actions were not criminal), the same victim blaming myths are not applied to the Ballard victim-survivor. That a heterosexual man would not be desiring of sexual advances from a gay man is an unquestioned (and unquestionable) assumption here – the survivors’ actions in the Ballard case do not warrant interrogation as they are already rendered intelligible through the norms of hegemonic masculinity. Again, this is not to suggest that his actions should be questioned, but rather to illustrate the differential ways in which gender is operationalised across the Ballard and Ansari cases.
Rather than questioning the victim-survivor’s behaviours, there is a focus on the victim-survivor in the Ballard case being a heterosexual man who received an unwanted sexual advance from a homosexual man, with his heterosexuality increasing the trauma of the situation. This is reflective of studies of blame attribution in which homophobic attitudes can determine how much blame is attributed to the victim or offender (for an overview see: Tomei and Cramer, 2016). Just as negative and stereotypical views of women increase their perceived culpability in their own victimisation, negative views towards homosexuality have been found to increase the culpability of a victim or perpetrator who is homosexual (Tomei and Cramer, 2016: 225). In the Ballard reporting, we see a focus on the harm caused to the victim, rather than questioning victim-survivor’s behaviour as we see in the Ansari reporting. This is reflective of homophobic attitudes that diminish the heterosexual man’s responsibility to have acted ‘appropriately’ in such a situation, instead putting the focus on the ‘predatory and lascivious’ homosexual predator (Golder, 2004: 35).
Conclusion
The comparison of the Ballard and Spacey cases involving two men with the heteronormative Ansari case provides insight into how male victim-survivors and homosexual (alleged) perpetrators are constructed by news media, in a way that may have not been apparent if analysed on their own. Javaid (2018a, 2018b: 89) has previously stated ‘that male rape victims are likely to be constructed negatively and as gay because they run counter to heteronormativity’. However, our analysis does not fully support this claim, at least in the context of these case studies, and rather adds a layer of complexity to Javaid’s argument. When compared to the resoundingly negative portrayal of the woman victim-survivor in the Ansari case, the male victim-survivors in the Spacey and Ballard cases were constructed as ‘real’ victims, with the harms they experienced acknowledged and (re)affirmed. Much of the reporting also discursively re-aligns the male victims with hegemonically masculine traits, such as describing them as brave and heroic for disclosing. However, this more positive treatment of the male victim-survivors is inextricably linked to their (alleged) perpetrators being homosexual men, as our analysis explored. In other words, while this reporting presents seemingly sympathetic and positive constructions of male survivors, it does so through the reproduction of narrow and harmful norms relating to both masculinity and homosexuality.
Spacey was constructed through the lens of the ‘deviant’, predatory gay man, positioning his victim as more sympathetic and credible. While this credibility may also be due to the victim-survivor being a child at the time of the assault, media reporting continued to link homosexuality to paedophilia and sexual deviancy beyond the facts of this case, working to reinforce these problematic stereotypes. In the Ballard case, the fact that it was a homosexual advance on a heterosexual man meant that the victim’s status went largely unquestioned because of heteronormative and hegemonic masculine norms that present the heterosexual male body as a bounded one. Heteronormative discourses position men as the initiators/pursuers of sex, and the ones who do the ‘penetrating’ – so of course a ‘real’ heterosexual man would find a homosexual advance abhorrent. The seemingly ‘favourable’ representation of the victim may also be a function of his privilege as a heterosexual man. As Davies and Rogers (2006) observe in their review of the literature on male rape, research consistently shows that ‘without exception, and regardless of the assault situation . . . gay victims are judged to be more at fault of to blame than heterosexual victims are’ (p. 371). Thus, the relatively ‘positive’ representation of the male victim-survivor – particularly in comparison to the woman in the Ansari case – is, arguably, itself a function of heterosexual masculine privilege. However, it must be noted in the Spacey case even though the victim is implicitly and explicitly believed, reporting also reverts back to referring to survivors as women/feminised. This could be interpreted as a way of further ‘othering’ the male rape victim, aligning them with the abject feminine and subordinate masculinity (see the Javaid, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c article on this), at the same time as it renders male survivors invisible.
Overall, the relatively sympathetic portrayal of the male survivors in these cases is achieved through situating the cases in relation to homophobic and heteronormative discourses, thus reinforcing and perpetuating power structures in relation to gender and sexuality that ultimately work to the disservice of all survivors. We found that in both the heterosexual and homosexual cases that news media reporting was often protecting and perpetuating norms of heterosexual hegemonic masculinity, namely through making intelligible any homosexual advance on a heterosexual man as violence, and any heterosexual male advance on a woman as non-violence. As Ramakrishnan (2011) has argued in relation to the ‘gay panic’ defence, ‘unwanted sexual advances on men do not receive the same amount of scrutiny as unwanted sexual advances on women’ and ‘advances on [heterosexual] men are presumed unwanted and worthy of legal recognition’ (p. 291) and thus legal protections exits to ‘protect perceived affronts to masculinity’ (p. 296). Similarly, we found that hegemonic masculinity is reinstated in reporting of these cases through the stigmatisation of queer masculinities, and reinforcement of the heterosexual male body as impenetrable and bounded.
The heteronormative culture we live in means there is greater cultural intelligibility of heterosexual relationships, in part through greater proliferation of sexual scripts and tropes about women and men’s sexual interactions. In some cases, this works to fuel news media perpetuation of rape myths and tropes about women and men; however, it can also help to foster more nuanced discourse as we have a greater understanding of the intricacies of heterosexual interactions. On the other hand, there is far less cultural intelligibility around queer sex, and negotiations of sexual consent in queer contexts. Our analysis found that news media appear to have utilised what discourse is intelligible about these situations to make sense of the Ballard and Spacey cases, which are damaging and problematic stereotypes around queer/homosexual masculinity and sex. Our analysis demonstrates the clear need for more representation of, and research on queer sexual interactions in order for cases such as these to be better understood. Greater cultural intelligibility of those who sit outside of a heteronormative context may allow news media to more accurately report on sexual violence in all its complexities and avoid harmful stereotypes that continue to stigmatise queer people while reinforcing hegemonic masculinities.
Footnotes
Appendix
Newspaper reference list
| Source no. | Reference |
|---|---|
| Aziz Ansari | |
| 1 | Albrechtsen J (2018) Bad sex? No, it’s girl power gone wrong. The Australian, 19 January |
| 2 | Delaney B (2018) This is what we talk about when we talk about #MeToo. The Guardian, 19 January |
| 3 | Filipovic J (2018) The poorly reported Aziz Ansari exposé was a missed opportunity. The Guardian, 17 January |
| 4 | Ford C (2018) More to Ansari case than ‘bad sex’. The Age, 19 January |
| 5 | Glancy J (2018) The Oscar goes to . . . anyone who can pass the purity test. The Australian, 22 January |
| 6 | Harmon S (2018) Aziz Ansari responds to sexual assault allegation. The Guardian, 15 January |
| 7 | Harvey C (2018) Keep the lawyers out of your bed. The Daily Telegraph, 21 January |
| 8 | Maley J (2018) Tears shed in cabs the world over fill #MeToo pot. The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 January |
| 9 | Muldoon J (2018) Ansari story reveals disturbing truth about sex. The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 January |
| 10 | Overington C (2018) Jordan Peterson interview fallout: It’s little wonder men don’t know where they stand. The Australian, 26 January |
| 11 | Patrick A (2018) How to agree to have sex. Financial Review, 25 January |
| 12 | Shepherd T (2018) Navigating the shades of grey surrounding sex. The Advertiser, 31 January |
| Kevin Spacey | |
| 13 | Blakeney B (2017) So many creeps, what happened to respect? Herald Sun, 25 November |
| 14 | Carmody B (2017) Spacey faces sexual misconduct allegation. The Age, 31 October |
| 15 | Collins P (2017) Netflix fires Kevin Spacey from House of Cards. The Guardian, 4 November |
| 16 | Convery S (2017) Kevin Spacey apologises after being accused of sexual advance on 14 year old actor. The Guardian 30 October |
| 17 | Dalton A (2017) Netflix cuts Spacey from House of Cards. AAP, 4 November |
| 18 | Duck S (2017) Kevin and Hell. Herald Sun, 4 November |
| 19 | Herald Sun (2017) Spacey a predator, says teen’s mother. Herald Sun, 10 November |
| 20 | Idato M (2017) Behind the scenes of the real Hollywood. The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 November |
| 21 | Iley C (2017) The Secret Life of Kevin Spacey. The Australian, 11 November |
| 22 | Leonard T (2017) After the whispers, Spacey’s house of cards is falling down. The Advertiser, 1 November |
| 23 | Lette K (2018) Netflix is flirting with danger in its crackdown on inappropriate conduct. The Advertiser, 23 June |
| 24 | Panahi R (2017) Speak up, but keep a sense of balance. Herald Sun, 1 November |
| 25 | Prendergast L (2017) Sexual Devolution. The Australian, 4 November |
| 26 | Quinn K (2017) The year when everything changed. The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 December |
| 27 | Sinha-Roy O and Michaud C (2017) Spacey in latest Hollywood sex scandal. AAP, 31 October |
| 28 | Squires W (2017) I was an early supporter to #metoo, but this is getting ugly. The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 November |
| 29 | The Australian (2017) Kevin Spacey ‘sorry for harassment’ of actor Anthony Rapp. The Australian, 30 October |
| 30 | The Daily Examiner (2017) Spacey’s brother points finger at rapist Nazi dad. The Daily Examiner, 1 November |
| 31 | Young C (2017) Is office romance still allowed? The Australian, 5 December |
| Tom Ballard | |
| 32 | ABC News (2018) ‘Adelaide comedian JooYung Roberts speaks publicly about alleged sexual assault by ABC host Tom Ballard’. ABC News, 13 June |
| 33 | Carmody B (2018) Comedian Tom Ballard denies indecent assault. The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 June |
| 34 | Hildebrand J (2018) Most offensive movie ever made. The Bulletin, 15 June |
| 35 | Iannella A (2018) Comedian tells of grief after ‘assault’. The Advertiser, 12 June |
| 36 | Johnson S (2018) What a long weekend! Tom Ballard under fire. Mail Online, 11 June |
| 37 | Knopf E (2018) Adelaide comedian ‘battled substance abuse issues’ after alleged Tom Ballard sexual assault. 9 News, 12 June |
| 38 | Koha N (2018) Comedian Tom Ballard denies sexual assault claims. Herald Sun, 10 June |
| 39 | Piotrowkski D and Hevesi B (2018) ‘I am Tom Ballard’s accuser’: Comedian identifies himself as the man behind indecent assault allegation against the ABC personality–which Ballard says is ‘simply NOT what happened’. Mail Online, 11 June |
| 40 | Varga R (2018) ABC presenter Tom Ballard denies assault claim. The Australian, 10 June |
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
