ABSTRACT
International research on marital sexual violence has long suggested that sexual violence in intimacy is a global pandemic. The significant health impacts of sexual violence in intimacy are well-known and amplified in global marginalized populations. Sexual violence is scaffolded by language, practices and discourses that Nicola Gavey notes produce “cultural conditions of possibility.” This chapter makes the case for two additional methodological approaches to the study of sexual violence in intimacy: engaging with ethnographic narratives as data in policy interventions and focusing on gender norms as crucial variables that determine the cultural conditions of possibility. Examining social stigma and underreporting poses well-known methodological challenges, as the nature of stigmas changes across cultures. In Marital Rape, there is an evidence on how social stigmas and underreporting are both shaped by the ways that sexual violence in intimacy is interwoven into assumptions about marriage, gender norms, and histories of marginalization.
