ABSTRACT
V. Goldner refutes the notion of core masculinity, arguing that it is a cultural notion inculcated through socialisation. This touches on feminist psychoanalytic views that in sexual situations men are taught to and expect to desire subjects who initiate and take control of sex. The primary motives powering most acts of sexual abuse are aggression, dominance, and anger. The experience of sexual abuse with all its attendant feelings of vulnerability and powerlessness may be one that is encoded in the psyche, a knowledge that premature interpretations about the victim experience will serve only to magnify the patient’s aggressive defences. F. Sepler locates the phenomenon within a psychosocial construct in which the socialisation of boys privileges them as masters of their domain, their self, and their environment. Gary is adopting what Sepler calls a pseudoconsensual posture, by which he is turning his experiences of victimhood, threat, and fear into more acceptable feelings of power and control.
