ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the question of cultural and historical variation and change. It explains the social realities of gender and violence to be socially constructed, which entails that the definitions, interpretations, and representations of these phenomena can and do shift; the fact of cultural difference leaves them always open to contestation and challenge. The chapter discusses some distinct examples in which the discourses surrounding sex murder have been taken up in historically and culturally specific ways. It also discusses a development in journalistic and courtroom discourses of sex murder which has occurred since The Lust to Kill was published. A link has been made between sexual crime and body building, martial arts and other ways of working out. The chapter describes the reports of a series of murders in Japan which demonstrate the understanding of sex murder as of specifically western origin, and also shows how it can take on a specifically local form.
