Gendered power relations in women-to-men interviews on controversial sexual behavior

ABSTRACT

This article explores gendered power relations in studies of stigmatized sexual behavior, through a poststructuralist feminist theoretical perspective. Interviews conducted by a female interviewer with twenty men who pay for sex were analyzed using the interpretive constructivist method. We applied the concept defended subjects to suggest that the subjects – both interviewer and interviewees – defended themselves against three major threats that characterized the gendered power relations in the interviews: the threat of forced intimacy, the threat of deviancy, and the threat of objectification. We then propose a new heuristic concept – defensive interactions – to discuss these interview dynamics as they relate to three key aspects of gendered power relations in qualitative interviews: the establishment of intimacy, identity management, and objectification.

KEYWORDS:

• Qualitative interview
• feminist methodology
• gendered power relations
• defended subjects
• defensive interactions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Sara Peleg Fund

Notes on contributors

Ayelet Prior

Ayelet Prior is a doctoral student at Tel Aviv University, the school of Social Work. Her research explores various aspects of the sex industry and the phenomenon of paying for sex. She focuses on social constructions of gendered identities, sexuality and deviancy. She has published in the international Journal of Sex Research and in Sexuality Research and Social Policy journal.

Einat Peled

Einat Peled is an Associate Professor at the Bob Shapell School of Social Work at Tel Aviv University. Her research focuses on aspects of violence against women and girls, prostitution, trafficking and paying for sex, and mothering and fathering, with the aim to unpack the impact of social gendered constructions on the identities, experiences, and perceptions, both of social workers and of their clients. Through her research, she hopes to facilitate a critical, reflective social work practice that is committed to changing oppressive and constrictive social conditions and practices. She has published 5 books and over 60 articles and book chapters. She serves on the editorial boards of Qualitative Social Work, Social Service Review, Journal of Human Trafficking and Society & Welfare [Hebrew].