Female Sexual Slavery


Book Description

Examines the nature and extent of female sexual slavery, exploring the psychological foundations of male dominance and surveys the by-products of a patriarchal society--pimps, procurers, rapists, enforced marriages, and polygamous arrangements.




Slavery and Sexuality in Classical Antiquity


Book Description

Slavery and sexuality in the ancient world are well researched on their own, yet rarely have they been examined together. Chapters address a wealth of art, literature, and drama to explore a wide range of issues, including gendered power dynamics, sexual violence in slave revolts, same-sex relations between free and enslaved people, and the agency of assault victims.




Rethinking Rufus


Book Description

Rethinking Rufus is the first book-length study of sexual violence against enslaved men. Scholars have extensively documented the widespread sexual exploitation and abuse suffered by enslaved women, with comparatively little attention paid to the stories of men. However, a careful reading of extant sources reveals that sexual assault of enslaved men also occurred systematically and in a wide variety of forms, including physical assault, sexual coercion, and other intimate violations. To tell the story of men such as Rufus-who was coerced into a sexual union with an enslaved woman, Rose, whose resistance of this union is widely celebrated-historian Thomas A. Foster interrogates a range of sources on slavery: early American newspapers, court records, enslavers' journals, abolitionist literature, the testimony of formerly enslaved people collected in autobiographies and in interviews, and various forms of artistic representation. Foster's sustained examination of how black men were sexually violated by both white men and white women makes an important contribution to our understanding of masculinity, sexuality, the lived experience of enslaved men, and the general power dynamics fostered by the institution of slavery. Rethinking Rufus illuminates how the conditions of slavery gave rise to a variety of forms of sexual assault and exploitation that affected all members of the community.




The Prostitution of Sexuality


Book Description

Barry (sociology, Pennsylvania State U.) considers sexual exploitation a political condition and thus the foundation of women's subordination and the base from which discrimination against women is constructed. She argues for the need to integrate the struggle against sexual exploitation in prostitution into broader feminist struggles and to place it, as one of several connected issues, in the forefront of the feminist agenda. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




"Swing the Sickle for the Harvest is Ripe"


Book Description

"Swing the Sickle for the Harvest Is Ripe" compares the work, family, and economic experiences of enslaved women and men in upcountry and lowland Georgia during the nineteenth century. Mining planters' daybooks, plantation records, and a wealth of other sources, Daina Ramey Berry shows how slaves' experiences on large plantations, which were essentially self-contained, closed communities, contrasted with those on small plantations, where planters' interests in sharing their workforce allowed slaves more open, fluid communications. By inviting readers into slaves' internal lives through her detailed examination of domestic violence, separation and sale, and forced breeding, Berry also reveals important new ways of understanding what it meant to be a female or male slave, as well as how public and private aspects of slave life influenced each other on the plantation.




When Rape was Legal


Book Description

When Rape was Legal is the first book to solely focus on the widespread rape perpetrated against enslaved black women by white men in the United States. The routine practice of sexual violence against enslaved black women by white men, the motivations for this rape, and the legal context that enabled this violence are all explored and scrutinized. Enlightening analysis found that rape was not merely a result of sexual desire and opportunity, or simply a form of punishment and racial domination, but instead encompassed all of these dimensions as part of the identity of white masculinity. This provocative text highlights the significant role that white women played in enabling sexual violence against enslaved black women through a variety of responses and, at times, through their lack of response to the actions of the white men in their lives. Significantly, this book finds that sexual violence against enslaved black women was a widespread form of oppression used to perform white masculinity and reinforce an intersectional hierarchy. Additionally, white women played a vital role by enabling this sexual violence and perpetuating the subordination of themselves and those subordinate to them.




Beyond Slavery


Book Description

In a United States that continues to be driven by racial and cultural divisions, from the disproportionately high number of incarcerated African Americans to heartfelt disagreements over the true nature of marriage and the proper role of faith in public policy, the Feminist Sexual Ethics Project (from which this book originated) has identified a crucial nexus underlying these fiercest of arguments: The conjunction of religion, slavery, and sexuality.




Comfort Women


Book Description

Available for the first time in English, this is the definitive account of the practice of sexual slavery the Japanese military perpetrated during World War II by the researcher principally responsible for exposing the Japanese government's responsibility for these atrocities. The large scale imprisonment and rape of thousands of women, who were euphemistically called "comfort women" by the Japanese military, first seized public attention in 1991 when three Korean women filed suit in a Toyko District Court stating that they had been forced into sexual servitude and demanding compensation. Since then the comfort stations and their significance have been the subject of ongoing debate and intense activism in Japan, much if it inspired by Yoshimi's investigations. How large a role did the military, and by extension the government, play in setting up and administering these camps? What type of compensation, if any, are the victimized women due? These issues figure prominently in the current Japanese focus on public memory and arguments about the teaching and writing of history and are central to efforts to transform Japanese ways of remembering the war. Yoshimi Yoshiaki provides a wealth of documentation and testimony to prove the existence of some 2,000 centers where as many as 200,000 Korean, Filipina, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Burmese, Dutch, Australian, and some Japanese women were restrained for months and forced to engage in sexual activity with Japanese military personnel. Many of the women were teenagers, some as young as fourteen. To date, the Japanese government has neither admitted responsibility for creating the comfort station system nor given compensation directly to former comfort women. This English edition updates the Japanese edition originally published in 1995 and includes introductions by both the author and the translator placing the story in context for American readers.




Sex Industry Slavery


Book Description

Sex Industry Slavery highlights the voices of people who need to be heard and introduces practical solutions to the social scourge of sexual slavery and exploitation in modern society.




Non-Western Colonization, Orientalism, and the Comfort Women


Book Description

Non-Western Colonization, Orientalism, and the 'Comfort Women: The Collective Memory of Sexual Slavery under the Japanese Imperial Military examines the collective memory of sexual slavery under the Japanese Imperial Military in Japan over the past seventy-five years. Euphemistically known as the "comfort women," tens of thousands of young females were forced into sexual servitude for Japanese soldiers during the Asia-Pacific War. The majority of these women are believed to have been deceitfully or forcibly taken from Korea, a former Japanese colony. The ways in which sexual slavery has been remembered in Japan lies at the root of a long-standing diplomatic conflict between Japan and South Korea and has fueled a "memory war" among Japanese scholars and activists. The author argues that Korean "comfort women" have been exoticized in the collective memory similarly to "Oriental" women's presentations by Western Orientalists. This book is a comprehensive analysis of the memory of sexual slavery in Japan, examining various artifacts produced since the end of the Asia-Pacific War, including nonfiction books, novels, newspaper articles, popular and documentary films, and a commemorative museum. It provides novel insights into a decade old international and domestic controversy.