Surfacing Victim-Worthiness: Male Victims of Sexual Violence and Registers of Empathy

In this article, we interrogate the role of affective economies in the surfacing of male victimhood in the context of sexual violence. The victim-worthiness concept speaks directly to the notions of the qualifications and characteristics of victimhood, especially in the context of gender- and sexual-based violence. The post-apartheid South African context on violence has largely been dominated by a public narrative that clearly demarcates victims and perpetrators of gender and sexual violence. In this article, we examine some ways in which male victim-survivors of sexual violence negotiate victim-worthiness in a public forum. We employ a discourse analytical approach and affect theoretical lenses to explore this negotiation and some of the tensions that it surfaces. We show how male victim-survivors of sexual violence take up different discursive positionalities to not only negotiate their victim status but also to legitimate and recognise male sexual victimhood. These discursive strategies further work in tandem with affective surfacing processes that produce a subject worthy of empathy.