Making Sense of a R@pe Photograph: S*xual Violence as Social Performance on the Eastern Front, 1939-1944
Making Sense of a R@pe Photograph: S*xual Violence as Social Performance on the Eastern Front, 1939-1944 This article begins with a disturbing image that has a no-less unsettling provenance. It shows a group of fifteen young German soldiers standing in a semicircle, carousing and laughing as one of their comrades emulates a sex act with an unidentified woman who may or may not be dead. The laughter of his comrades suggests approval for the actions of the man on the ground. Although it is not clear if the photograph depicts an act of actual rape, its aftermath, or mere mimicry, what is certain is that the depicted scene ascribes the woman only one function: she is an object of amusement that mediates coercion and asymmetric power relations. It is very possible tha t this picture was taken before or after the soldiers raped the woman. However, irrespective of whether any penetration actually occurred, the men imitated a rape scene showcasing the woman’s body as a sexualized object of ...