Sexual Control. Subjectivation of Self-Determination and Paedophilia

• Applicant: Dr. Folke Brodersen
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 540847687

Paedophiles are encouraged to sexual self-determination – this observation is the focus of this thesis. Since the mid-2000s, an internationally widely adapted approach has been prompted by german institutions, which addresses potential perpetrators of sexual violence against children. Voluntarily participating paedophiles, who have not previously assaulted, are therapeutically guided to regulate themselves. I refer to this empowerment as sexual control. The underlying bundle of modes of subjectivation currently permeates youth aid, sex therapy and approaches to transformative justice, for example. The study examines the eight currently existing therapeutic concepts on the basis of treatment manuals and self-help services and relates them to theme-centred interviews with 21 participants of such services. In five dimensions of subject positions as well as five types of self-positionings, they bring forth the sexually controlled paedophile as a subject who can shape his actions. I show how his being, feeling, acting, thinking and planning is subjectivated. Based on 51 media representations, I analyse the social context of this subject. In the sense of immunology, it is included and at the same time social boundaries are renewed. This transformation illustrates the social structure of sexual self-determination: It is based on a subject that regulates itself and prevents sexual violence. For the first time, this dissertation offers a sociological analysis of the increasingly widespread approaches, that address sexual violence on the side of the perpetrator. In debates on the right of self-determination, 'yes means yes' and abuse of power in educational contexts, it is not only the position of potential victims that is established. I show the directly connected but hitherto not adressed subjectivation of self-determination in the form of the not-yet-offender. His identification as a treatable danger pervades contemporary society. It positions individuals in a precariousness and at the same time activates them to reshape themselves in terms of impulsive feelings, models of action, close relationships and plans for the future. The publication investigates this process of subjectivation based on three streams of empirical evidence and offers a reflection on social theory. It looks at the borderline of the sexual and on the criteria by which this is currently shifted – and thus addresses the academic communities of gender and queer studies, sociology and criminology as well as therapeutic and educational practitioners who work with target groups.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants