Responsibilizing Girls’ Sexualities: U.S. Child Marriage, Sexual Violence, and the Neoliberal State

• In Event: 1480 - Section on Sociology of Sexualities Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 03. Sexuality, Family, and Marriage

Abstract

Child marriage has recently garnered attention in the political sphere, with states such as Texas, New Hampshire, and Virginia adopting new child marriage legislation in 2017. Child marriage also holds significance for researchers who study young people, sexuality, and crime, since statutory rape laws do not apply when the individuals in question are married. Despite its prevalence in the United States, current research on child marriage focuses on the Global South, reinforcing notions of U.S. sexual exceptionalism (Puar, 2007). In this paper, I draw on feminist and queer theories to explore how state efforts to regulate young people’s sexualities are racialized and gendered, and rely upon an adult/child binary that constructs young people as dependent victims rather than agentic sexual beings. I argue that the state’s investment in the adult/child binary is rooted in neoliberal and patriarchal ideals of responsibilizing girls’ sexualities within the family. Furthermore, conceptions of adult/child sex as inherently sexually violent obscure more nuanced understandings of coercion and empowerment as coexistent continuums. In conclusion, I argue that state policy should stray from binary logics to allow room for the ambivalence and ambiguity of young people’s sexualities.

Author

• Jamie O'Quinn, University of Texas-Austin