Journal articles on the topic 'Boys Sexually abused children Adopted children'

The authors report results of research on a sample of 83 sexually abused children. The girls' measures of depression, anxiety, and self-esteem were significantly different from those of standardization samples. These differences indicated higher levels of depression and anxiety and lower self-esteem. The boys' scores did not differ from norms on these measures. The findings' relevance to symptom development in sexual abuse and practice implications are discussed.

Group treatment programs are a common intervention for children who have been sexually abused. However, empirical literature demonstrating their effectiveness, particularly among preadolescent males, is scarce. The authors evaluated the effectiveness of semistructured group work with six preadolescent boys who had experienced either extra- or intrafamilial sexual abuse. From pre- to postgroup, the boys experienced decreased anxiety, decreased depression, increased self-esteem, and decreased internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Further gains were generally observed from postgroup to follow-up. The success of the group-treatment program is attributed, in part, to the implementation of a reward program designed to reduce disruptive behavior.

Do those who engage in homosexuality disproportionately sexually abuse foster or adoptive children as reported by child protective services? Illinois child services reported sexual abuse for 1997 through 2002. 270 parents committed “substantiated” sexual offenses against foster or subsidized adoptive children: 67 (69%) of 97 of these mother and 148 (86%) of 173 of these father perpetrators sexually abused girls; 30 (31%) of the mothers and 25 (14%) of the father perpetrators sexually abused boys, i.e., 92 (34%) of the perpetrators homosexually abused their charges. Of these parents 15 both physically and sexually abused charges: daughters by 8 of the mothers and 4 of the fathers, sons by 3 of the mothers, i.e., same-sex perpetrators were involved in 53%. Thus, homosexual practitioners were proportionately more apt to abuse foster or adoptive children sexually.

Abstract BACKGROUND A few studies suggest that children who suffered maltreatment are more at risk for victimization by peers. However, there is little knowledge about factors that may influence the risk of re-victimization by peers for sexually abused (SA) children. OBJECTIVES Identify if self-blame and post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) are risk factors for SA children victimization by peers. DESIGN/METHODS 376 children (248 girls and 128 boys) between 5 to 14 years of age were recruited within five centers for child and youth SA evaluation. Victimization by peers was measured with the Report Victimization Scale answered by the child, his parent and his teacher. PTSS were measured with the subscale of the Children’s Impact of Traumatic Events Scale (CITES II) and self-blame was measured with three items from the subscale guilt/blame of ​CITES II. Characteristics of the abuse were abstracted from the medical chart. Description of SA was done according to Russell’s classification: less severe (physical contact over clothing), severe (physical contact without penetration, and without using of force), very severe (attempted or actual penetration). Statistical analysis was done through logistic regression. RESULTS Abuse was very severe in 61% of cases and chronic in 37.4% of cases. Aggressors were family members in 53.3% of cases. Clinical level of peer victimization was reported for 19.2% of children by their own score, 9.2% by parental score and 3.6% by teacher’s score. PTSS were at the clinical level for 53.3% of children Around 60% of the sample reported feelings of blame, as indicated by at least one score of “somewhat true”on one of the three items. The dichotomized analysis (clinical vs subclinical score of victimization by peers) showed that PTSS were positively associated with the child’s peer victimization score (Exp (B) = 1.05, p<.02), and self-blame was positively associated with the parent’s peer victimization score (Exp(B)=1.23, p<.05). Results of a Sobel test revealed that PTSS completely mediated the positive relationship between self-blame and peer victimization (Standard Beta = .37, p<.01). In the final model, self-blame was positively associated with PTSS (Standard Beta = .54, p<.01), while the latter were positively associated with victimization by peers (Standard Beta = .44, p<.01). The final model explained 26.7% of the variance of victimization by peers. CONCLUSION These results suggest that PTSS and self-blame are key targets for intervention in order to diminish the risk of victimization by peers in SA children.

Recruiting subjects for follow-up studies in child abuse raises ethical dilemmas. This paper examines the effects of the ethical stance taken in a study of a community sample of sexually abused children. The ethical code adopted required strict confidentiality and active consent to be interviewed from both child and carer, based on full information about the research objectives and method. The response rate was very low. A less rigid stance, which might have resulted in a larger sample, was considered inappropriate. Nevertheless, the quantitative and qualitative data yielded findings of interest to practitioners. Suggestions for future research practice are presented.

This paper aims to examine forensic interviewing techniques during child sexual abuse allegations using South African lenses. Forensic Social Work education and practice in South Africa is emerging as it has been adopted from the United States of America.  There are currently no guidelines for forensic social workers to inform the assessment of children who are alleged to be sexually abused which are in a South African context. For the protection of children, skillful forensic interviews must be conducted for perpetrators of child sexual abuse to be convicted. Forensic interviews help in eliciting accurate and complete report from the alleged child victim to determine if the child has been sexually abused and if so, by whom. The ecosystems theory is used to guide this paper. An extensive literature review was conducted to zoom into systems in South Africa which influence the effectiveness of the forensic interviewing techniques useful to facilitate the disclosure of sexual abuse amongst children.

The incidence of child sexual abuse varies according to definitions and methods used. The MORI Poll 1984 found it to be 12% for girls and 8% for boys and to occur across all the social classes using this definition: “A child (anyone under 16 years) is sexually abused when another person, who is sexually mature, involves the child in any activity which the other person expects to lead to their own sexual arousal. This might involve intercourse, touching, exposure of the sexual organs, showing pornographic material or talking about sexual things in an erotic way”. The majority of studies have shown that these experiences can have adverse psychological effects, but the effect on the clinical practice of general psychiatrists seems to be too small if one considers the estimated 4.5 million adults in Great Britain who have been sexually abused as children. We thought that this could be related to attitudes rather than knowledge of the subject.

Psychological theories attempt to prove the abnormality of child sex offenders’ behavior through a deterministic analysis, whereby particular psychological characteristics are considered to predict child sex offending. Such a focus ignores the structures of power that influence men’s lives, a man’s active engagement with that social context, and how we might understand child sexual abuse as part of that engagement. By considering the meanings that sexual behavior with children has for offenders’ lives as men, this article discusses how an offender’s body and the body of a child are related to the concepts of sexuality and potency, how those bodies are ascribed meanings by the individual offender and other men, as well as the analytic utility of social learning theory and the power/powerlessness theory for understanding why sexually abused boys rather than sexually abused girls are more likely to become sex offenders with reference to two case studies.

AbstractAccording to the developmental psychopathology framework, adverse childhood experiences, including child sexual abuse (CSA), may alter the course of normal development in children. Attachment security has been identified as a protective factor against psychopathology and may thus play a critical role in predicting victims’ adaptation. The main objective of the present study was to investigate the mediating effect of attachment representations in the relation between CSA and behavior problems over a 1-year period. The sample consisted of 391 children (251 sexually abused) aged 3.5 to 6 years. The Attachment Story Completion Task and the Child Behavior Checklist were used. Disorganized attachment partially mediated the relation between CSA and children's internalizing and externalizing behavior problems 1 year following the initial assessment. This mediation effect was not found for ambivalent nor secure attachment dimensions. Child gender was found to moderate the association between CSA and disorganization, with larger effects of CSA among boys. These findings underscore the importance of considering attachment representations in treatment programs for preschool victims. Evidence-based practice focusing on trauma could be combined with an attachment-based intervention targeting the parent–child relationship. Moreover, interventions should be gender sensitive, as CSA appears to affect boys and girls differently.

AbstractThe present study examined the impact of children's maltreatment experiences on the emergence of externalizing problem presentations among children during different developmental periods. The sample included 788 youth and their caregivers who participated in a multisite, prospective study of youth at-risk for maltreatment. Externalizing problems were assessed at ages 4, 8, and 12, and symptoms and diagnoses of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and conduct disorder were assessed at age 14, during interviews with youth and caregivers. Information about maltreatment allegations was coded from official records. Latent transition analysis identified three groups of youth with similar presentations of externalizing problems (“well adjusted,” “hyperactive/oppositional,” and “aggressive/rule-breaking”) and transitions between groups from ages 4, 8, and 12. A “defiant/deceitful” group also emerged at age 12. Girls were generally more likely to present as well adjusted than boys. Children with recent physical abuse allegations had an increased risk for aggressive/rule-breaking presentations during the preschool and preadolescent years, while children with sexual abuse or neglect allegations had lower probabilities of having well-adjusted presentations during middle childhood. These findings indicate that persistently severe aggressive conduct problems, which are related to the most concerning outcomes, can be identified early, particularly among neglected and physically and sexually abused children.

Objectives: Child abuse has been a continuous, hidden health and social problem in all over the world. Identifying risk factors are crucial to implement protective services. In Turkey, data of the legal cases are still lacking. This study aims to assess the sociodemographic and psychiatric features of the sexually abused children who have been referred for forensic evaluation together with their identity issues.Materials and Methods: The forensic files of the sexually abused cases (tı 11: 9 boys, 32 girls) who had been referred to the child psychiatry outpatient clinic were evaluated. Psychiatric diagnoses in the files were based on the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-age children- Turkish Version. Data on age, gender, socioeconomic status and diagnoses of the victims and characteristics of the abusers were gathered and analysed by descriptive statistical methods.Results: Mean age of the victims was 11.54±3.31 years. Socioeconomic levels of their families were mostly lower class with rate of 51.2%. All perpetrators were male with a mean age of 23 years (min 14; max 67). When the consanguinity of the abusers and victims were taken into consideration, it was found that they were intrafamilial (fathers and brothers rate:12.2%), close relatives (19.5%), distant relatives (22.0%), other familiar (such as neighbours, friends: 14.6%) and unfamiliar (24.4%) people for the victims. 19.5% of the victims had mental retardation. The most common diagnoses of the victims were posttraumatic stress disorder (46.3%), other anxiety disorders (17.1%), and major depression (24.4%).Conclusion: Identified risk factors for sexual abuse, determined as the result of this study, are being a female child, late childhood period, mental retardation, and low economic status. The abusers were males who were familiar to the child victims. Preventive measures should be implemented for the entire population, particularly involving the high- risk groups to avoid child abuse.

Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a public health problem that has been found to be linked to negative health outcomes. Data on CSA in Saudi Arabia are limited, and there are many gaps in research in this field. The aim of this study is to examine the prevalence of sexual abuse among children in Saudi Arabia. A cross-sectional, national survey (N = 16,010) utilizing International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect Child Abuse Screening Tool Children’s Version was conducted at secondary high schools in Saudi Arabia. Participant’s mean age was 16.8 ± 0.9 years, and 50.8% were boys. Sixteen percent of the participants reported exposure to any type of CSA during their lives. Boys and those who lived with step-parent were more likely to be sexually abused compared to those who didn’t (p < .05). Ordinary least squares regression analysis revealed that gender was the predictor significantly associated with CSA. Evidence-based prevention programs targeting mainly the high-risk groups should be implemented.

Background: Sexual abuse and sexual assaults against adolescents are among the most significant threats to their health and well-being. Some studies have found poverty to be a risk factor for sexual abuse. The present study investigates the effects of gender and family affluence on the prevalence of sexual abuse of 15-year-old Icelanders in the 10th grade. Methods: The study is based on data collected for the Icelandic part of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study in 2014. Standardized questionnaires were sent to all students in the 10th grade in Iceland, of which 3618 participated (85% of all registered students in this grade). Results: Girls were more than twice as likely to be sexually abused as boys (20.2% versus 9.1%). Adolescents perceiving their families to be less well off than others were twice as likely to report sexual abuse as those of ample or medium family affluence. However, family affluence had more effect on the prevalence of abuse in girls than in boys. Conclusion: Female gender and low socioeconomic status may independently contribute to the risk of sexual abuse.

Introduction: One in 10 children would be sexually abused before their 18th birthday; about one in seven girls and one in 25 boys would be sexually abused before they turn 18. The statistics continues to increase even as low and middle-income nations of the world are gradually coming out to report cases of child sexual abuse. Aim: This study aimed to assess the knowledge and perceived effect of sexual abuse among adolescents attending selected secondary schools in Mushin Local Government. Methods: 414 respondents from selected secondary schools in Mushin Local Government participated in the study using the multistage random sampling technique. A self-designed questionnaire was used to collect data. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 26 and bivariate analysis was conducted using Chi-square test. Results: More than half of the adolescents fall within the age range of 15–17 years and majority were females. In addition to this, just a little above half of the participants were Christians and just below half of the students were in SSS 2. Also, more than half of the participants were Yorubas and well above half were from a nuclear family. Just about half of the adolescents have good knowledge about sexual abuse. In the measures of association, the relationship between the level of knowledge of sexual abuse and the perceived effect of sexual abuse was statistically significant. The relationship between adolescents’ perception of the effect of sexual abuse and their concept of the common forms of sexual abuse was also statistically significant. Conclusion: This study revealed that the adolescents under study had knowledge about sexual abuse and this knowledge determined their perception of the effect of sexual abuse, and this in turn determines what they consider as child sexual abuse. It is therefore necessary to intensify efforts on educating and re-educating children and adolescents on sexual abuse, how to identify it and how to prevent it through campaigns and health promotional activities.

Background: Child sexual abuse leads to several adverse impacts in the affected children. A study on awareness and attitude of mothers towards child sexual abuse will help to formulate better techniques to improve awareness and prevent child sexual abuse. The objective is to study the awareness and attitude of mothers of primary school students towards child sexual abuse.Methods: This cross-sectional observational study was done in the state of Tamil Nadu, India among 186 mothers of primary school children. Data were collected from the mothers using a predesigned questionnaire and analyzed.Results: Only 12.9% of the mothers were aware of the POCSO Act and 32.8% were aware of the child helpline 1098. 76.9% of the mothers were aware of unexplained genital injury as a physical indicator of child sexual abuse. Acute traumatic response (83.9%) and regression in behavior (82.8%) were the commonly aware behavioral indicators of child sexual abuse. Only 25.3% of the mothers believed that boys can be sexually abused. 75.3% of the mothers believed that the offenders were usually unknown persons. 88.7% of the mothers believed that unaccompanied children were a risk factor. 88.2 % of the mother believed that physical and mental disability in children was a risk factor. Majority of the mothers believed that streets (88.7%) and institutions (80.1%) were the common environment for child sexual abuse. Only 23.7% of the mothers had taught regarding good touch and bad touch to their children. 50.5 % of the mothers believed that the major role in preventing child sexual abuse is played by the parents.Conclusions: Awareness regarding child sexual abuse was low among the mothers of primary school children.

Child sexual abuse is a universal problem that affects both boys and girls. In Zambia,
 like many other African countries, there are certain conditions and circumstances
 that put children at risk of sexual abuse. However, these risk factors remain explored
 (Chiroro et al., 2006). This study, therefore, was aimed at investigating risk factors and
 exploring child sexual abuse in Lusaka District. Specifically, it focused on identifying
 the forms of sexual abuse; examine the factors that put children at risk for sexual
 abuse; find out the grooming tactics used by sexual abusers; find out the disclosure
 rate for child sexual abuse cases; examine the abuser-victim relationships; and make
 recommendations for child sexual abuse prevention. Participants were 200 secondary
 school pupils (86 males and 114 females), who were randomly selected. Their ages
 ranged from sixteen to twenty-one years. Data was collected using a structured selfreport
 questionnaire and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs). Data analysis was done
 using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).
 The results show an overall prevalence rate of child sexual abuse to be 43.5 per cent
 (n=87). Of the 87 victims, 41.1 per cent (n=36) were males and 58.6 per cent (n=51)
 were females. Among the forms of sexual abuse, sexual touch/arousal had the highest
 frequency (n=54, 62.1%). Most of the subjects (75.6%, n=19) did not disclose their
 sexual experiences, whereas only 24.4 per cent (n=19) did. Most abusers were found
 to be family members (n=39, 44%).
 Six risk factors for sexual abuse were examined, and the most powerful one was
 parental absence (n=63, 73.3%); having punitive parents (n=57, 68.7%); alcohol
 intake by a parent or other guardian (n=30, 34.5%); poor parent-child relationship
 (n=20, 23.7%); parental conflict (n=19, 22.4%); and presence of a stepparent (n=13,
 13.1%).
 Furthermore, the results obtained from the FGDs show that the most frequently used
 trick for sexual abuse is the offer of money and/other gifts (n=21, 67.8%). Fifty-six
 (69%) of the victims lacked knowledge to know that the grooming they experienced
 would result into sexual abuse. The study tested two hypotheses:
 (a) alcohol intake by the parent or guardian is not a significant risk factor for child
 sexual abuse;
 (b) in Lusaka District, children and adolescents that are sexually abused have
 adequate knowledge of the grooming tactics used by abusers.
 The results showed that:
 (a) there is a significant relationship (p=0.004) between child sexual abuse and
 parental or guardian intake of alcohol;
 (b) there is a significant relationship (p=0.000) between child sexual abuse and
 children’s lack of knowledge of the grooming tactics used by sexual abusers.
 Recommendations made include:
 (a) teacher training in the area of child sexual abuse;
 (b) encouragement of research culture among Zambian scholars in the area of
 child sexual abuse; and
 (c) active involvement of children, parents, teachers and the government in the
 prevention of child sexual abuse.

Background: In Romania, the abuse within the family of the minor child is a widespread phenomenon, its extent is insufficiently known because of ignorance/not reporting all the existing cases.
 Methods: The participants of the research are represented by two independent groups from the NW Romania 2007-2011, one for sociological study (1544 parents and 1283 children) and another for forensic statistical study (2761 cases of abused children). The sociological study was carried out by analyzing questionnaires applied in schools located in Bihor County, both to children and parents. The statistical analysis was carried out by studying the cases of the physically, sexually, and psychologically abused minors, recorded at Bihor County Forensic Service.
 Results: Physical neglect and physical abuse are the most common forms of child abuse. The forensic analysis highlight that most of the victims are male from urban areas. Physical abuse is more common in the 16-18 age group, psychological abuse in children aged between 6-10 yr, and sexual abuse in children under the age of 14 years. Girls were subject to sexual abuse, neglect, and emotional abuse, more frequently in rural areas; boys were most often victims of exploitation, physical, and emotional abuse in both urban and rural areas.
 Conclusion: The results of the study led to the formulation of general guidelines on this phenomenon and highlight the need for proposals to improve the current situation of child abuse within the family.

Introduction: Sexual abuse remains a hidden and underreported form of violence against children and a serious public health concern. Although it results in severe mental, physical, and psychological risks with consequences such as depression, fear, and low self-esteem, it is still an unexplored and less prioritized area in Nepal. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of Child Sexual Abuse among school children of a municipality. Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study, conducted among 405 students, aged below 18 of Mandan-Deupur Municipality, Kavrepalanchowk from April to May 2018. Ethical clearance was taken from Nepal Health Research Council (Ref no 2506). A simple random sampling technique was used to select the schools. Collected data were then entered and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 16. Point estimate at 95% Confidence Interval was calculated along with frequency and percentage. Results: In overall, 64 (15.8%) (12.4-19.7 at 95% Confidence Interval) were found to be sexually abused, where a high prevalence of Child Sexual Abuse was reported for boys 46 (73.43%). Conclusions: According to the findings of this study, child sexual abuse is seen as a significant issue in the place studied. Awareness programs on child sexual abuse should be organized targeting children along with parents and community people.

Rage can come from anywhere, it ignites as a flash of lightening and hisses rapidly down a darkened tunnel, landing wherever it finds a target. Sigmund Freud, and many other psychoanalysts, have attempted to explain the inception of human’s two primordial emotions, rage and fear – encapsulated in the popular phrase, fight or flight. Our earliest historical records detail the myriad battles that determined the world’s future course of events. Without rage, and its adjutants, violence and war, the world’s countries would not exist with their current boundaries. In fact, our species, Homo sapiens would necessarily have evolved through a different course. Since 2016, the public has been outraged by current events at an unprecedented level: the confluence of the election of US President Donald Trump, the struggles over the UK’s Brexit, and the revelations of systematic sexual abuse of women and African Americans, culminating in the recent #metoo and the #blacklivesmatter social media campaigns. More and more women have protested against sexual abuse, and recently the free-verse poem book Shout, from pop cultural icon Laurie Halse Anderson, “raise[s] urgent alarms, warning against the evils propagated by a culture that values dominance over respect” (Feldman 52). The rage revolution is here now. The nine articles included in this issue of M/C Journal on ‘rage’ unpack the concept of rage and its significant linkages to injustice, anger, personal and sexual abuse of women and minority cultures, violence and war. It is no surprise that many authors have chosen to focus on women’s rage and anger. Below, three articles develop the themes of political disenfranchisement for women and Indigenous cultures with a special emphasis on Australia, and the significant role that clothing plays in group-based activism.In the feature article, Angelika Heurich explores the fraught territory of women’s rights starting with the slogan: ‘the personal is the political’. In both the First and Second Waves of feminism, she reports, “concerns about issues of inequality, including sexuality, the right to abortion, availability of childcare, and sharing of household duties” became “personal problems” rather than a matter for national debate and policy changes (Hanisch qtd. in Heurich). Heurich cites the need for “feminist intervention in the state” (van Acker 120). These issues are very much alive today: how can enraged women change government policy in a meaningful way to address past and present injustices? Author Jo Coghlan further develops the theme of protestation with how clothing depicts the history of dissent. Coghlan’s argument suggests that the political efficacy of dress can perform “an ideological function that either bring[s] diverse members of society together for a cause ... or act[s] as a fence to keep identities separate” (Coghlan qtd Barnard). Clothing, as liberation, was celebrated in Mahatma Gandhi’s hand-spun cotton that symbolised the separation of India from Great Britain. Later, the Australian Aborigines’ Black Protest Committee adopted a set of particular colours for their movement towards equality, in this case, red, black and yellow worn first in 1982. To continue the theme, Lisa Hackett outlines the response of women’s rage’ to how their garments remain unsuitable from several standpoints. Hackett notes that the issues that surround fast fashion inspire women’s anger by its production: clothing that is cheaply made, in workplaces of virtual slavery, and made of unsustainable fabrics which lead to mountains of discarded garments in the world’s landfills. These problems inspire the rage of women who desire to protect the environment and also seek clothing that fits over forced obsolescence. Even as this issue on ‘rage’ widely presents people, activities and events that are driven by rage – across the broad spectrum of personal, artistic and cultural and socio-political storytelling, we also sought solutions in productive and/or philosophical frameworks that could explore how to ameliorate conditions under which rage arises. So the next two articles address the under-used (and under-implemented) word civility. In his article “Of ‘Rage of Party’ and the Coming of Civility”, Greg Melleuish presents the English Civil War as a case study. This conflict between the Royalists and Parliamentarians disrupted the authority of the crown, and resulted in a more moderated English government, in stark contrast to regime changes later on the European continent (e.g., the French Revolution). Melleuish offers that a “new ideal of ‘politeness and moderation’ had conquered English political culture” and promoted civility as a standard of behaviour for the government and worthy individuals. This concept of civility would later evolve to introduce philosophies of the Enlightenment. A collection of authors (Elizabeth Reid Boyd, Madalena Grobbelaar, Eyal Gringart, Alise Bender, and Rose Williams) have worked through the serious issues of ‘intimate civility’ – to encourage pathways to counteract ‘rage’ and its impact on the most vulnerable in society, especially women and children. The authors, in their coinage of the term, “envisage intimate civility – and our relationships – as dynamic, dialectical, discursive and interactive, above and beyond dualism.” They introduce a ‘decalogue’ of civility, relying on notions of politeness, respect, and emphasise dialogue between the affected parties and the Australian government’s campaigns and policies on domestic and sexual violence to reduce rage in the arena of interpersonal and intergenerational conflicts. The last articles in this M/C Journal issue on ‘rage’ address the media side of the equation. These authors all deal with aspects of rage as expressed on various screens, as films, television series or downloads to other devices. Richard Gehrmann, in his analysis of the Hollywood film American Sniper (2014), first provides a capsule timeline of conflicts in the Middle East, from the Second World War to the current day’s ongoing battles in Syria and elsewhere in the region. He highlights the propaganda-based, pro-American ‘jingoism’ presented in American Sniper, contrasting its portrayal of the returned veteran Chris Kyle with other true-life accounts of US Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. Gehrmann presents a bleak commentary on the ‘hot and cold rage’ required of the lone sniper, while many ‘hot’ unresolved issues, including the refugee crisis, remain in the Middle East situation. American Sniper’s celebration of the lone gunman contributes to the acceptance of violence in an America where mass shootings indicate an ever-growing expression of individual rage.”In his article on ‘Cage rage’, Sasa Miletic outlines Hollywood actor Nicholas Cage and his violent, sometimes over-acted outbursts on film as one of “the most famous Internet memes”. Miletic asks: has the overexpression of anger depicted in ‘Cage rage’ become “a pop cultural reminder “that rage, for a lack of a better word, is good ... or can [his filmic rage] only serve for catharsis on an individual level?” With this question, Miletic explores Nicholas Cage throughout his acting career, and presents his argument that the potential for ‘double-reading’ of his angry overacting in movies is a sort of ‘parapraxis’ – or “a Freudian slip of the tongue, a term borrowed by Elsaesser and Wedel (131). Miletic’s exploration of ‘Cage rage’ introduces new concepts of rage from the contemporary Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek.The exploration of rage in film now turns to Jessica Gildersleeve’s article that locates ambiguous meanings of rage in recent television adaptations based in the Australian outback. Guildersleeve explores the two adaptations Wake in Fright (2017) and Mystery Road (2108) for how they depict rage: “in this context rage is turned to melancholy and thus to self-destruction, [serving] as an allegory for the state of the contemporary nation.” Gildersleeve notes that previous Australian authors have outlined the trope of ‘outback noir,’ and in her analysis of these two adaptations, she realigns the previous literary analysis of ‘noir’ to the emerging genre of Outback Gothic horror. The two shows depict the force of inward rage that turns to melancholy from different perspectives. While Wake in Fright (2107) seems to offer no hope for the future, Mystery Road harnesses the power of rage to locate a potential way to reconcile the two ‘classic’ opposing factions that inhabit the Outback: the colonisers and the indigenous Aborigines. Lastly, this collection on ‘rage’ comes full circle, back to the omnipresent ‘women’s rage’.From the viewpoint of Gothic literary traditions, and their challengers, author Katharine Hawkins develops the trope of Monstrous gothic through women’s roles depicted in Showtime’s television series, Penny Dreadful (2014-2016). Here, Hawkins echoes the themes from the introductory articles: as women must comply with men and their comforts, women’s rage turns both inward and outward. In Penny Dreadful, the actress Billie Piper constitutes a figure of the “Monstrous Gothic Feminine” arising from “the parlours of bored Victorian housewives into a contemporary feminist moment that is characterised by a split between respectable diplomacy and the visibility of female rage.” Piper’s Bride figure then mutates “from coerced docility [towards] abject, sexualised anger” which makes itself heard in the show’s second season (2016). Hawkins discussion introduces Ahmed’s figure of the “kill joy”, which becomes “a term to refer to feminists – particularly black feminists – whose actions or presence refuse this obligation, and in turn project their discomfort outwards, instead of inwards.” In summary, rage is with us, always. But there is hope that the outward expression of women’s rage, and of other disenfranchised populations as echoed in the #metoo and #blacklivesmatter movements will change the culture of global politics to value respect over violence. References Anderson, Laurie Halse. Shout. New York: Penguin Random House.Barnard, Malcolm. Fashion as Communication. New York: Routledge, 1996.Elsaesser, Thomas, and Michael Wedel, Körper Tod und Technik: Metamorphosen des Kriegsfilms. Paderborn: Konstanz University Press, 2016.Feldman, Lucy. “A Voice for Others Speaks for Herself.” TIME, 11 Mar. 2019: 52-53.Hanisch, Carol. “Introduction: The Personal Is Political.” 2006. 18 Sep. 2016 <http://www.carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP.html>.Van Acker, Elizabeth. Different Voices: Gender and Politics in Australia. Melbourne: MacMillan Education Australia, 1999.Žižek, Slavoj. Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. London: Profile Books, 2009.

As the single most successful social-networking Website to date, Facebook has caused a shift in both practice and perception of online socialisation, and its relationship to the offline world. While not the first online social networking service, Facebook’s user base dwarfs its nearest competitors. Mark Zuckerberg’s creation boasts more than 750 million users (Facebook). The currently ailing MySpace claimed a ceiling of 100 million users in 2006 (Cashmore). Further, the accuracy of this number has been contested due to a high proportion of fake or inactive accounts. Facebook by contrast, claims 50% of its user base logs in at least once a day (Facebook). The popular and mainstream uptake of Facebook has shifted social use of the Internet from various and fragmented niche groups towards a common hub or portal around which much everyday Internet use is centred. The implications are many, but this paper will focus on the progress what Mimi Marinucci terms the “Facebook effect” (70) and the evolution of lists as a filtering mechanism representing one’s social zones within Facebook. This is in part inspired by the launch of Google’s new social networking service Google+ which includes “circles” as a fundamental design feature for sorting contacts. Circles are an acknowledgement of the shortcomings of a single, unified friends list that defines the Facebook experience. These lists and circles are both manifestations of the same essential concept: our social lives are, in fact, divided into various zones not defined by an online/offline dichotomy, by fantasy role-play, deviant sexual practices, or other marginal or minority interests. What the lists and circles demonstrate is that even very common, mainstream people occupy different roles in everyday life, and that to be effective social tools, social networking sites must grant users control over their various identities and over who knows what about them. Even so, the very nature of computer-based social tools lead to problematic definitions of identities and relationships using discreet terms, in contrast to more fluid, performative constructions of an individual and their relations to others. Building the Monolith In 1995, Sherry Turkle wrote that “the Internet has become a significant social laboratory for experimenting with the constructions and reconstructions of self that characterize postmodern life” (180). Turkle describes the various deliberate acts of personnae creation possible online in contrast to earlier constraints placed upon the “cycling through different identities” (179). In the past, Turkle argues, “lifelong involvement with families and communities kept such cycling through under fairly stringent control” (180). In effect, Turkle was documenting the proliferation of identity games early adopters of Internet technologies played through various means. Much of what Turkle focused on were MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) and MOOs (MUD Object Oriented), explicit play-spaces that encouraged identity-play of various kinds. Her contemporary Howard Rheingold focused on what may be described as the more “true to life” communities of the WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link) (1–38). In particular, Rheingold explored a community established around the shared experience of parenting, especially of young children. While that community was not explicitly built on the notion of role-play, the parental identity was an important quality of community members. Unlike contemporary social media networks, these early communities were built on discreet platforms. MUDs, MOOs, Bulletin Board Systems, UseNet Groups and other early Internet communication platforms were generally hosted independently of one another, and even had to be dialled into via modem separately in some cases (such as the WELL). The Internet was a truly disparate entity in 1995. The discreetness of each community supported the cordoning off of individual roles or identities between them. Thus, an individual could quite easily be “Pete” a member of the parental WELL group and “Gorak the Destroyer,” a role-player on a fantasy MUD without the two roles ever being associated with each other. As Turkle points out, even within each MUD ample opportunity existed to play multiple characters (183–192). With only a screen name and associated description to identify an individual within the MUD environment, nothing technical existed to connect one player’s multiple identities, even within the same community. As the Internet has matured, however, the tendency has been shifting towards monolithic hubs, a notion of collecting all of “the Internet” together. From a purely technical and operational perspective, this has led to the emergence of the ISP (Internet service provider). Users can make a connection to one point, and then be connected to everything “on the Net” instead of individually dialling into servers and services one at a time as was the case in the early 1980s with companies such as Prodigy, the Source, CompuServe, and America On-Line (AOL). The early information service providers were largely walled gardens. A CompuServe user could only access information on the CompuServe network. Eventually the Internet became the network of choice and services migrated to it. Standards such as HTTP for Web page delivery and SMTP for email became established and dominate the Internet today. Technically, this has made the Internet much easier to use. The services that have developed on this more rationalised and unified platform have also tended toward monolithic, centralised architectures, despite the Internet’s apparent fundamental lack of a hierarchy. As the Internet replaced the closed networks, the wider Web of HTTP pages, forums, mailing lists and other forms of Internet communication and community thrived. Perhaps they required slightly more technological savvy than the carefully designed experience of walled-garden ISPs such as AOL, but these fora and IRC (Internet Relay Chat) rooms still provided the discreet environments within which to role-play. An individual could hold dozens of login names to as many different communities. These various niches could be simply hobby sites and forums where a user would deploy their identity as model train enthusiast, musician, or pet owner. They could also be explicitly about role-play, continuing the tradition of MUDs and MOOs into the new millennium. Pseudo- and polynymity were still very much part of the Internet experience. Even into the early parts of the so-called Web 2.0 explosion of more interactive Websites which allowed for easier dialog between site owner and viewer, a given identity would be very much tied to a single site, blog or even individual comments. There was no “single sign on” to link my thread from a music forum to the comments I made on a videogame blog to my aquarium photos at an image gallery site. Today, Facebook and Google, among others, seek to change all that. The Facebook Effect Working from a psychological background Turkle explored the multiplicity of online identities as a valuable learning, even therapeutic, experience. She assessed the experiences of individuals who were coming to terms with aspects of their own personalities, from simple shyness to exploring their sexuality. In “You Can’t Front on Facebook,” Mimi Marinucci summarizes an analysis of online behaviour by another psychologist, John Suler (67–70). Suler observed an “online disinhibition effect” characterised by users’ tendency to express themselves more openly online than offline (321). Awareness of this effect was drawn (no pun intended) into popular culture by cartoonist Mike Krahulik’s protagonist John Gabriel. Although Krahulik’s summation is straight to the point, Suler offers a more considered explanation. There are six general reasons for the online disinhibition effect: being anonymous, being invisible, the communications being out of sync, the strange sensation that a virtual interlocutor is all in the mind of the user, the general sense that the online world simply is not real and the minimisation of status and authority (321–325). Of the six, the notion of anonymity is most problematic, as briefly explored above in the case of AOL. The role of pseudonymity has been explored in more detail in Ruch, and will be considered with regard to Facebook and Google+ below. The Facebook effect, Marinucci argues, mitigates all six of these issues. Though Marinucci explains the mitigation of each factor individually, her final conclusion is the most compelling reason: “Facebook often facilitates what is best described as an integration of identities, and this integration of identities in turn functions as something of an inhibiting factor” (73). Ruch identifies this phenomenon as the “aggregation of identities” (219). Similarly, Brady Robards observes that “social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook collapse the entire array of social relationships into just one category, that of ‘Friend’” (20). Unlike earlier community sites, Ruch notes “Facebook rejects both the mythical anonymity of the Internet, but also the actual pseudo- or polynonymous potential of the technologies” (219). Essentially, Facebook works to bring the offline social world online, along with all the conventional baggage that accompanies the individual’s real-world social life. Facebook, and now Google+, present a hard, dichotomous approach to online identity: anonymous and authentic. Their socially networked individual is the “real” one, using a person’s given name, and bringing all (or as many as the sites can capture) their contacts from the offline world into the online one, regardless of context. The Facebook experience is one of “friending” everyone one has any social contact with into one homogeneous group. Not only is Facebook avoiding the multiple online identities that interested Turkle, but it is disregarding any multiplicity of identity anywhere, including any online/offline split. David Kirkpatrick reports Mark Zuckerberg’s rejection of this construction of identity is explained by his belief that “You have one identity … having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity” (199). Arguably, Zuckerberg’s calls for accountability through identity continue a perennial concern for anonymity online fuelled by “on the Internet no one knows you’re a dog” style moral panics. Over two decades ago Lindsy Van Gelder recounted the now infamous case of “Joan and Alex” (533) and Julian Dibbell recounted “a rape in cyberspace” (11). More recent anxieties concern the hacking escapades of Anonymous and LulzSec. Zuckerberg’s approach has been criticised by Christopher Poole, the founder of 4Chan—a bastion of Internet anonymity. During his keynote presentation at South by SouthWest 2011 Poole argued that Zuckerberg “equates anonymity with a lack of authenticity, almost a cowardice.” Yet in spite of these objections, Facebook has mainstream appeal. From a social constructivist perspective, this approach to identity would be satisfying the (perceived?) need for a mainstream, context-free, general social space online to cater for the hundreds of millions of people who now use the Internet. There is no specific, pre-defined reason to join Facebook in the way there is a particular reason to join a heavy metal music message board. Facebook is catering to the need to bring “real” social life online generally, with “real” in this case meaning “offline and pre-existing.” Very real risks of missing “real life” social events (engagements, new babies, party invitations etc) that were shared primarily via Facebook became salient to large groups of individuals not consciously concerned with some particular facet of identity performance. The commercial imperatives towards monolithic Internet and identity are obvious. Given that both Facebook and Google+ are in the business of facilitating the sale of advertising, their core business value is the demographic information they can sell to various companies for target advertising. Knowing a user’s individual identity and tastes is extremely important to those in the business of selling consumers what they currently want as well as predicting their future desires. The problem with this is the dawning realisation that even for the average person, role-playing is part of everyday life. We simply aren’t the same person in all contexts. None of the roles we play need to be particularly scandalous for this to be true, but we have different comfort zones with people that are fuelled by context. Suler proposes and Marinucci confirms that inhibition may be just as much part of our authentic self as the uninhibited expression experienced in more anonymous circumstances. Further, different contexts will inform what we inhibit and what we express. It is not as though there is a simple binary between two different groups and two different personal characteristics to oscillate between. The inhibited personnae one occupies at one’s grandmother’s home is a different inhibited self one plays at a job interview or in a heated discussion with faculty members at a university. One is politeness, the second professionalism, the third scholarly—yet they all restrain the individual in different ways. The Importance of Control over Circles Google+ is Google’s latest foray into the social networking arena. Its previous ventures Orkut and Google Buzz did not fare well, both were variously marred by legal issues concerning privacy, security, SPAM and hate groups. Buzz in particular fell afoul of associating Google accounts with users” real life identities, and (as noted earlier), all the baggage that comes with it. “One user blogged about how Buzz automatically added her abusive ex-boyfriend as a follower and exposed her communications with a current partner to him. Other bloggers commented that repressive governments in countries such as China or Iran could use Buzz to expose dissidents” (Novak). Google+ takes a different approach to its predecessors and its main rival, Facebook. Facebook allows for the organisation of “friends” into lists. Individuals can span more than one list. This is an exercise analogous to what Erving Goffman refers to as “audience segregation” (139). According to the site’s own statistics the average Facebook user has 130 friends, we anticipate it would be time-consuming to organise one’s friends according to real life social contexts. Yet without such organisation, Facebook overlooks the social structures and concomitant behaviours inherent in everyday life. Even broad groups offer little assistance. For example, an academic’s “Work People” list may include the Head of Department as well as numerous other lecturers with whom a workspace is shared. There are things one might share with immediate colleagues that should not be shared with the Head of Department. As Goffman states, “when audience segregation fails and an outsider happens upon a performance that was not meant for him, difficult problems in impression management arise” (139). By homogenising “friends” and social contexts users are either inhibited or run the risk of some future awkward encounters. Google+ utilises “circles” as its method for organising contacts. The graphical user interface is intuitive, facilitated by an easy drag and drop function. Use of “circles” already exists in the vocabulary used to describe our social structures. “List” by contrast reduces the subject matter to simple data. The utility of Facebook’s friends lists is hindered by usability issues—an unintuitive and convoluted process that was added to Facebook well after its launch, perhaps a reaction to privacy concerns rather than a genuine attempt to emulate social organisation. For a cogent breakdown of these technical and design problems see Augusto Sellhorn. Organising friends into lists is a function offered by Facebook, but Google+ takes a different approach: organising friends in circles is a central feature; the whole experience is centred around attempting to mirror the social relations of real life. Google’s promotional video explains the centrality of emulating “real life relationships” (Google). Effectively, Facebook and Google+ have adopted two different systemic approaches to dealing with the same issue. Facebook places the burden of organising a homogeneous mass of “friends” into lists on the user as an afterthought of connecting with another user. In contrast, Google+ builds organisation into the act of connecting. Whilst Google+’s approach is more intuitive and designed to facilitate social networking that more accurately reflects how real life social relationships are structured, it suffers from forcing direct correlation between an account and the account holder. That is, use of Google+ mandates bringing online the offline. Google+ operates a real names policy and on the weekend of 23 July 2011 suspended a number of accounts for violation of Google’s Community Standards. A suspension notice posted by Violet Blue reads: “After reviewing your profile, we determined the name you provided violates our Community Standards.” Open Source technologist Kirrily Robert polled 119 Google+ users about their experiences with the real names policy. The results posted to her on blog reveal that users desire pseudonymity, many for reasons of privacy and/or safety rather than the lack of integrity thought by Zuckerberg. boyd argues that Google’s real names policy is an abuse of power and poses danger to those users employing “nicks” for reasons including being a government employment or the victim of stalking, rape or domestic abuse. A comprehensive list of those at risk has been posted to the Geek Feminism Wiki (ironically, the Wiki utilises “Connect”, Facebook’s attempt at a single sign on solution for the Web that connects users’ movements with their Facebook profile). Facebook has a culture of real names stemming from its early adopters drawn from trusted communities, and this culture became a norm for that service (boyd). But as boyd also points out, “[r]eal names are by no means universal on Facebook.” Google+ demands real names, a demand justified by rhetoric of designing a social networking system that is more like real life. “Real”, in this case, is represented by one’s given name—irrespective of the authenticity of one’s pseudonym or the complications and dangers of using one’s given name. Conclusion There is a multiplicity of issues concerning social networks and identities, privacy and safety. This paper has outlined the challenges involved in moving real life to the online environment and the contests in trying to designate zones of social context. Where some earlier research into the social Internet has had a positive (even utopian) feel, the contemporary Internet is increasingly influenced by powerful and competing corporations. As a result, the experience of the Internet is not necessarily as flexible as Turkle or Rheingold might have envisioned. Rather than conducting identity experimentation or exercising multiple personnae, we are increasingly obligated to perform identity as it is defined by the monolithic service providers such as Facebook and Google+. This is not purely an indictment of Facebook or Google’s corporate drive, though they are obviously implicated, but has as much to do with the new social practice of “being online.” So, while there are myriad benefits to participating in this new social context, as Poole noted, the “cost of failure is really high when you’re contributing as yourself.” Areas for further exploration include the implications of Facebook positioning itself as a general-purpose user authentication tool whereby users can log into a wide array of Websites using their Facebook credentials. If Google were to take a similar action the implications would be even more convoluted, given the range of other services Google offers, from GMail to the Google Checkout payment service. While the monolithic centralisation of these services will have obvious benefits, there will be many more subtle problems which must be addressed. References Blue, Violet. “Google Plus Deleting Accounts en Masse: No Clear Answers.” zdnet.com (2011). 10 Aug. 2011 ‹http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/google-plus-deleting-accounts-en-masse-no-clear-answers/56›. boyd, danah. “Real Names Policies Are an Abuse of Power.” zephoria.org (2011). 10 Aug. 2011 ‹http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/08/04/real-names.html›. Cashmore, Pete. “MySpace Hits 100 Million Accounts.” mashable.com (2006). 10 Aug. 2011 ‹http://mashable.com/2006/08/09/myspace-hits-100-million-accounts›. Dibble, Julian. My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1998. Facebook. “Fact Sheet.” Facebook (2011). 10 Aug. 2011 ‹http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistic›. Geek Feminism Wiki. “Who Is Harmed by a Real Names Policy?” 2011. 10 Aug. 2011 ‹http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy› Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin, 1959. Google. “The Google+ Project: Explore Circles.” Youtube.com (2011). 10 Aug. 2011 ‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocPeAdpe_A8›. Kirkpatrick, David. The Facebook Effect. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010. Marinucci, Mimi. “You Can’t Front on Facebook.” Facebook and Philosophy. Ed. Dylan Wittkower. Chicago & La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 2010. 65–74. Novak, Peter. “Privacy Commissioner Reviewing Google Buzz.” CBC News: Technology and Science (2010). 10 Aug. 2011 ‹http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2010/02/16/google-buzz-privacy.html›. Poole, Christopher. Keynote presentation. South by SouthWest. Texas, Austin, 2011. Robards, Brady. “Negotiating Identity and Integrity on Social Network Sites for Educators.” International Journal for Educational Integrity 6.2 (2010): 19–23. Robert, Kirrily. “Preliminary Results of My Survey of Suspended Google Accounts.” 2011. 10 Aug. 2011 ‹http://infotrope.net/2011/07/25/preliminary-results-of-my-survey-of-suspended-google-accounts/›. Rheingold, Howard. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993. Ruch, Adam. “The Decline of Pseudonymity.” Posthumanity. Eds. Adam Ruch and Ewan Kirkland. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary.net Press, 2010: 211–220. Sellhorn, Augusto. “Facebook Friend Lists Suck When Compared to Google+ Circles.” sellmic.com (2011). 10 Aug. 2011 ‹http://sellmic.com/blog/2011/07/01/facebook-friend-lists-suck-when-compared-to-googleplus-circles›. Suler, John. “The Online Disinhibition Effect.” CyberPsychology and Behavior 7 (2004): 321–326. Turkle, Sherry. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Van Gelder, Lindsy. “The Strange Case of the Electronic Lover.” Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices Ed. Rob Kling. New York: Academic Press, 1996: 533–46.

I spent more than two years in Bangladesh and lived through several incarnations—as a volunteer for aid organisations, an expatriate socialite, a bidesi (foreigner) trying to live sodesi (locally)—before becoming an ethnographer and, simultaneously, a lover and fighter of my adopted country. During the winter of my second lifetime I was sexually assaulted and at the beginning of my third lifetime, I recounted the experience at an academic conference in Dhaka. Smitten by the possibility that personal revelation could overcome cross-cultural barriers, I read A Night Out to compel others to sympathise and share, perhaps even loosen the somewhat restricted discussion of sexual intimidation in Bangladesh. Yet the response to A Night Out was quiet, absorbed by the static of courtesy, and taught me that disclosure alone cannot transcend differences to reach a space of mutual understanding. Later, when I posted A Night Out online, I observed the continued and changing capacity of revelation to evoke responses from people across genders and cultures. This article argues that the impact of revelation, although difficult to quantify, is never static and depends significantly on context: first, by describing autoethnography, a way of writing about other cultures that connects the "autobiographical and personal to the cultural, social and political" (Ellis xix), in the "Before" section to give background to A Night Out; secondly, the "After" section considers the various responses to the story and discusses it as "both a process and a product" of cultural research (xix). Before A Night Out Switching lives between Australia and Bangladesh has shown me the value of cultural research that deconstructs traditional conceptions of the "Western" and "Eastern" worlds. In terms of the representations of women, those in the East are too often prescribed the characteristics of ignorance, poverty, illiteracy, domesticity, maternity, and victimization, while the Western woman is depicted as modern, educated, in control of her body and sexuality (Gandhi 86). As a researcher, ultimately, of the life stories of Bangladeshi women, I sought to decrease the misconceptions surrounding those who were, like me, never only "West" or "East", influenced but never solely defined by their culture. Autoethnography is a method of cultural research that makes connections between "individual experience and social processes" in ways that emphasise the essential falsity of cultural categories (Sparkes 217). To transcend these boundaries of people, place and time, autoethnographers make use of narrative, believing it to be "the best way to understand the human experience" because it is "the way humans understand their own lives" (Richardson 218). As a writer, I likewise believe that narrative provides a way to make sense of or negotiate one's place in relation to any space or group of people. In particular, telling personal stories "bears fruit" of "reaching out to others," provoking their own stories and emotional responses, thereby becoming an effective cultural research method (Four Arrows 106). I remember my admiration for the Bangladeshi writer Shabnam Nadiya, who in Woman Alone describes her isolating experiences of sexual molestation as a girl and, later, the realisation via the writing of Taslima Nasrin that "it happened everywhere, everyday ... to anyone" (2008). For Nadiya, self-reflexivity created a "bridge" between the interior practise of reading and the exterior "everyday lived life" of communal experience and identity (2008). While connections on such an intimate scale may be difficult or unwelcome, making them is significant as "the process of revolution itself" (Ware 239). Inspired by Nadiya to write a piece with enough emotional power to reach over the public space of the conference room, my revelation concerned one of my own experiences as a woman in Bangladesh. A Night Out I was never afraid of my city at night. The time I liked Dhaka best was when the day wore down to dusk and the sky looked like it had been brushed clean. When I lived near Dhanmondi Lake I would walk through the drab hues of the surrounding park with its concrete paths and dusty trees that stretched their reflections across the pond-green water. The park was always crowded with raucous wallahs (vendors) and power walking women in bright dresses, yet even so I was the focus of attention, haunted by exclamations of "Koto lomba!" (How tall!) until my shadows became longer than myself in the quartzy light, and I was not so noticeable. When I moved to the Newmarket area I would spend the twilight hours sitting barefoot on my balcony in a voluminous housedress, watching Dhaka's night stage. Children played games on the rooftop of the lower apartment block opposite, women unhooked lines of fresh laundry and groups of friends would chat or play guitar. Even when the evening azan growled from the megaphones of nearby mosques there was activity on the street below, figures moving under the marigold glare of the sodium streetlights or, in winter, stretching nets across the street for badminton matches. Rickshawallahs rang their bells to the call of the crows and there was always an obnoxious motorist laying into his car horn. I felt more a part of my neighbourhood at this distance than when I became, eight floors down, the all-too-visible spectacle of the only foreigner in the district. The flat, my only source of solitude in Dhaka, was in a peaceful building set at the end of a road that turned three corners before coming to a blind halt. Walking its length day and night to reach the main thoroughfare, I got to know the road well. A few old bungalows remained, with comfortably decaying verandas behind wrought-ironwork and the shade of banana trees. Past the first corner the road became an entry for Dhaka College and the high school opposite; houses gave way to walls papered with adverts, a cluster of municipal bins surrounded by litter and wooden shacks that served cha (tea) and fried snacks. I was on friendly terms with the grey-haired wallah who stalked the area daily with his vegetable cart and one betel-chewing woman who sorted the neighbourhood rubbish. Once I neared the college attention from the chawallahs and students became more harassing than friendly, but I continued to walk to and from my house and most of the time, I walked alone. When solitude turns oppressive, the solution is to open all windows and doors and let air and friends in. One evening I invited Mia and Farad, both journalists and wine-drinkers, who arrived before sunset and stayed almost til midnight. We all knew the later it became the harder it would be for Mia to reach her home across the city. A call to one of the less dodgy cab companies proved us right—there were no taxis available in the area. It would be better, said Farad, to walk to the main road and hail a cab from there. Reluctant to end the evening at the elevator, I locked my door and joined my friends on the walk out to Mipur Road, which even at midnight stirred with the occasional activity of tradesmen and drivers. After a few attempts, Farad flagged down a cab, negotiated a fare and recorded the driver's number. It was part of the safety training Mia and I had imbibed as foreigners over the years. Other examples included "Never buy spices from the sacks at the market" and "Never wear gold necklaces while riding rickshaws." "I should catch my bus," Farad announced after Mia's departure. "But you've left your books in my house," I replied. "I thought you were coming back to get them." Farad was incredibly sexy with his brooding face and shaggy black beard and I had hoped more time would reveal reciprocal interest. From one writer to another it was not a suggestive line, but I was too shy to be more explicit with my male friends in Bangladesh, who treated me as one of the boys and silenced me sometimes with their unexpectedly conservative views of women. Farad considered my comment. "I'll collect them later, or we can meet at the university in a few days. Do you need to catch a rickshaw to your door?" "I don't have any taka on me," I said, "and it's not far." I was, after all, in my own street, not being chauffeured home by a bleary-eyed driver. "Thanks for coming! Abar dekha hobe (see you again)." "Goodnight," Farad replied and as he turned to leave I saw him grin into his beard, amused by my tipsy pronunciation. Fatigue dropped heavily on my shoulders as I strolled back down the road. My flat, with its small clean bed and softly purring ceiling fans, seemed far away at the end of the alley. It was very quiet, as quiet as home when I used to walk through the city to the train station after late night shifts on the suicide hotline. The dim light in the street exposed its emptiness. The stalls along the road had shut hours earlier and the only movement came from a middle-aged man taking his exercise, swinging his arms widely from side to side as he strode home. As I turned the first corner of the alley, another man approached me from behind. I glanced at him, probably because he had glanced at me. "Are you OK?" he asked. "Fine." "What is your country?" "Look," I said, unaccountably feeling my heart rate increase, "I'm sorry, but I don't want to talk now." "No problem, no problem," he assured me, spreading his hands and smiling, displaying two charming rows of teeth. "Relax. You're very nice." My instinct was to smile back. We walked past the waste piles that had been emptied from the bins, ready for sorting. The woman I exchanged greetings with worked here on most days and instructed me on how to wear my orna (scarf) when it wasn't placed correctly over my chest. I wondered now where she slept at night. Calculating the closeness of my friend seemed less like idle speculation when the man who was walking beside me stepped directly into my path. He was tall and lean and wore a dark blue shirt. His face gleamed, as if he had been sweating during the day and had not washed off the residue. It occurred to me to twist past him and walk faster, maybe even run. I considered how fast and how far I could go in my thongs and wondered if I should kick them off, and then start to run. "No problem," the man repeated, holding out his hands again, placing them tightly behind my neck. He pulled me towards the wall as he forced me back by moving closer. Instant wetness struck me as I felt the concrete—my pelvic floor had made the first start of surprise. The strong hands moved quickly from my neck to my breasts. "I just want to…" said the man, squeezing both breasts like he was selecting fruit. He added, "You're very nice." I was wearing the only remotely attractive bra I owned, purchased from the supermarket on Dhanmondi 27. The cups, moulded from black synthetic lace, made my chest stick out in jaunty cones like a 1950s sex-bomb and the underwire dug into my chest. Clothes can be armour, yet in this case had depleted my self-preservation. I stood quite still, thinking only of what might happen next. I was against a wall in an alleyway at midnight, with no-one around except the man who was groping me. Finally I reacted, though it was not the reaction I would have guessed at my most objective self. Cowgirls get the blues, rough beasts slouch to be born and six foot one kick-boxing world travelling feminists scream like frightened cats with the shock of even minor violation. And certain men, I learned on my night out, chuckle at the distress they cause and then run away. After A Night Out The personal and public impacts of A Night Out proved to be cumulative over time and throughout retellings. When I read the piece at the Dhaka conference I was set to unleash the "transformative and efficacious potential" that autoethnography legendarily contains (Spry 712), though if my revelation achieved anything close to such a transformation, it was unclear. A female academic who had been chatting with me before my presentation, left the room directly after it. The students, mainly female undergraduates, had no questions to ask about any aspect of my paper. Whatever reactions my audience felt, if any, were not discussed. After my presentation, the male convenor privately expressed his regret over my experience and related more horrific examples. Sexual harassment of women is prevalent in Bangladesh yet so too is the culture of blaming the victim and denying the crime (cf. Lodhi; Mudditt; Nadiya), an attitude reflected through the use of the term "Eve Teasing," which assigns the provocative role to the woman and normalises the aggressive or sexual actions of the perpetrator (Kabeer 149). The response of this liberal and thoughtful man to my revelation was the only one that was articulated. By this measurement, A Night Out had failed to make the desired impact. One of the greatest reasons for this was the tension between the personal motivation behind my revelation and the public impact I had optimistically expected. A Night Out omits the reactions of my community immediately after my assault, when I was chastised for walking alone at such at late hour and for failing to defend myself, particularly given my size. In my street, gossip spread that I had not been groped but mugged, a less lecherous so perhaps more acceptable offense. I read A Night Out partly to gain some retrospective acknowledgement of my experience and in my determination I defied the complexities of a conservative country…[in which] women do not live alone, do not have male friends, do not travel by themselves or smoke cigarettes publicly and most definitely [...] do not talk or write about sexual topics. In Dhaka these things matter and 'decent women' are supposed to play by the rules. (Deen 35) Although I observed this conservatism to varying degrees in Bangladesh, I know that when women play outside the rules, negotiating cultural norms becomes a process of "alliance and conflict" that requires sensitivity to practise (Akhter 22)—a sensitivity that is difficult to grasp. The career of Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin illustrates this: credited with opening doors of feminist discussion "that had been shuttered by genteel conservatism, by niceness, by ignorance and denial" (Nadiya), Nasrin diminished this effect and alienated her audience through subsequent "shock tactics and sensationalism" (Deen 56). Although my revelation had also alienated my audience, it was not the impact I had hoped for. While Linda Park-Fuller celebrates autoethnographic performance as a "transgressive act—a revealing of what has been kept hidden, a speaking of what has been silenced" (26), the conference experience made me realise the significance of cultural context to the impact of revelation. I considered recasting A Night Out in a setting that was more intimate than academic, to an audience prepared for the content and united by achieving a specific outcome, where responses could be given privately if desired. I would also have to shift my role from defiant storyteller to one who welcomed all types of feedback. By posting A Night Out online as a Facebook note, I not only fulfilled the requirements above but made the story accessible to a large audience of men and women of diverse cultural backgrounds, including Bangladeshi. The written replies I received were easier to decipher than the faces after the conference presentation. Among the responses, some from people I did not know at all, many conveyed their appreciation for the description of Bangladesh. Others commented on the risk I took in walking down the road at night and suggested ways I could defend myself in future. I was told I was tough to write the account and was invited to share more of my experiences. One friend in Bangladesh shared my note with others and wrote to describe the reaction of a female friend of his who was "terribly shocked" by what I had written about my breasts, more than my attraction to Farad or the sexual assault itself. This anonymous respondent's "pure cultural shock", which my conference audience may also have felt, was better communicated through the Facebook retelling of A Night Out, although I am unable to interpret the silence of the other Bangladeshi women I sent the note to. While the responses I received indicated my revelation had made some impact in its online context, I could not help being especially touched when a male friend wrote, "And as a Bangladeshi I feel sorry for [your trouble]." It is one matter to write up a personal experience and another to have it make a public impact. As my first reading of A Night Out shows, autoethnographic revelation contains the potential to alienate as well as to create sympathy with an audience. Combined with the second, more private and accessible, distribution of A Night Out, this "Before" and "After" analysis shows the evolution of the revelation's impact on my audience as well as myself, over time and within different cultural contexts, in the academic, social and online arenas. Although my experience confirms the impact autoethnography can make as a form of cultural research, it can only be strengthened by continued attempts to seek a balance between the projections and inflections of culture, self and audience. It is not only in the telling but in the re-telling that personal revelations will gather and continue to give impact, which is why I now present A Night Out to a new audience in a new context and await your new responses. References Akhter, Farida. Seeds of Movements: On Women's Issues In Bangladesh. Dhaka: Narigrantha Prabartana, 2007. Deen, Hanifa. Broken Bangles. New Delhi: Penguin, 1998. Ellis, Carolyn. The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel about Autoethnography. Walnut Creek: AltaMira P, 2004. Four Arrows. The Authentic Dissertation: Alternate Ways of Knowing, Research, and Representation. London: Routledge, 2008. Gandhi, Leela. Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction. St Leonards: Allen and Unwin, 1998. Kabeer, Naila. 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