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Unveiling the Taboo: Exploring Fear and Critical Thought in Bound and Gagged

This paper delves into Sarah Blumenberg's Bound and Gagged, analyzing the preface and Chapter 1 to unravel the complex themes of fear, critical thought, and societal taboos surrounding issues like rape and child molestation. By examining how these topics are portrayed and their effect on public perception, the study aims to challenge conventional beliefs and encourage a deeper understanding of these difficult subjects.

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Unveiling the Taboo: Exploring Fear and Critical Thought in Bound and Gagged

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  1. Bound and GaggedPreface and Chapter 1

    Sarah Blumenberg
  2. Presentation Disclaimer “Panic-button issues like rape and child molestation don’t invite critical thought, but rather fear, and fear is available to be mobilized, as populist politicians know so well.” (Kipnis 1996, 9)
  3. What Constitutes as a “Child?” Pederasty Historical Construction ofChildren Property and Labor evolution Marriage
  4. High Five for Porn Topic: American Pornography Focus: Criminalization of Sexual Fantasy Method(s): A Case Study (and in-depth interview) of Daniel DePew Target: The Case itself Goals: To problematize the societal stigma of fantasy and reveal institutional violence in regards to the prosecution of sexual crimes. To additionally express the societal detriment that exists in prosecuting one for “thought crimes.”
  5. The Problem “Without any public discussion of the issue whatsoever, the state has now taken the position that fantasizing about something illegal is illegal, and pursues prosecutions of the citizenry on that basis…If public policy and policing procedures are enacted on the basis of the most simplistic assumptions about the role of fantasy in the human psyche (that fantasy is synonymous with intent, for instance), this imperils a basic form of freedom, as well as the available modes of political expression.” (Page X)
  6. Who is Daniel DePew? Daniel Thomas Depew was 28 year old (at the time) systems control engineer at a high-tech electronics company from Alexandria, Virginia. He was also a gay, sadomasochist Police perusal and construction of “evidence.” Court Case https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/932/932.F2d.324.90-5667.html
  7. The “other”Illusion “Mainstream culture constructs elaborate fantasies about what it purports it’s not – subcultural, foreign, pornographic, violent – which propel, and are enacted in, these highly publicized rituals of control and punishment, policing and mastery…The overarching fantasy is that the powerfully monstrous bad thing is somewhere else, that it can be caged, and most crucially, that it’s “other…” Not in us, but in Daniel DePew.” (Kipnis 1996, 7)
  8. Law and Order SVU – “Confessions”Season 10, Episode 2 (2008) Netflix – approximately 11 minutes total Please jot down potential answers to the following questions: What makes this similar to DePew’s case? What makes this different? What are the implications of this representation of legislation in our media?
  9. Activity All of you have read the DePewcase and watched the SVU episode. Please address the following questions: What makes this similar to DePew’s case? What makes this different? How does this perpetuation of the “pervert” stereotype harm society? How is the problem furthered in that these exist within media for sake of entertainment? How does this media example convey institutional violence within our legal system? How do these examples implicate on our rights to freedom of speech/thought?
  10. Why do we care? Child abuse is a terrible thing, not many people would argue against that, but why should this case be entirely disturbing? Police power/brutality, subjugating (“other”) based on fantasy, life-altering arrests based on fantasy, Freedom of speech/thought, evasion of real issues (smoke screen), perpetuation of (c)overt institutional violence Totally separate, but not any less important, side thought: think about how many times you have committed “crimes of thought.”
  11. Snuff Films: Where Sex and Death meet “The foreign origin is important, because insofar as the metaphysics of evil is a reoccurring feature of the social imagination, and gets mobilized by different symbols at different points in history, it’s often the case that the bad, scary thing is symbolized by the outsider. Heretics, witches, Jews, homosexuals, communists, international terrorists, and now pedophiles have all had their day as icons of evil and perversity.” (Kipnis 1996, 11) French word for orgasm
  12. What is interesting about Kipnis’sArgument Kipnis does not explore any other types of fantasy. She employs the same sorts of methods that defense attorneys use. (tone/rhetoric) By referring to people constantly by their first name it is an attempt for the jury (or audience) to humanize the persecuted as people and not just vehicles of crime. General “conspiracy” tone. Governmental (Dis)trust (forced to use this sorurce) Creates distrust in law enforcement and then quotes the government as a reliable source. Problem with trying to address sociological silence. Also, seems like a conspiracy.
  13. Sources (additional to those referenced in text) Kipnis, Laura. 1996. Bound and Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America. New York: Grove Press http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/200/subcult.html http://www.philosophy.uncc.edu/wcgay/lvviolencetypes.html Stephen Robertson, "Age of Consent Laws," in Children and Youth in History, Item #230, http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/teaching-modules/230 (accessed April 11, 2013). http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0412120359dec12,0,2045063.story
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