Rebel Sex: male combatants and desire in coercive circumstances*

This article is about the relationship between surroundings and desire.  It takes male sexual desire in coercive circumstances as an entry point, focusing on young men in the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). While discussions of sexualities in war often centre on sexual violence, female victims and male perpetrators, this study in contrast places men and boys at the centre of inquiry and refuses a singular lens of criminality to understand their desires and actions.  It suggests three ways of thinking about affective desire that emerge from the specific ethnographic context but are more broadly resonant: para-subjective; mimetic; and transgressive.   The research explores the experiences of male LRA fighters, many forcibly conscripted as teenagers into a highly regulated group with limited sexual opportunities: either as a reward in a forced 'marriage' or in violation of strictly enforced rules where consequences included death or castration. Many were allocated 'wives' and fathered children in this context. In international law, determining criminal responsibility for conflict-related sexual violence has shifted from hinging on individual consent to assessing 'coercive circumstances'. I argue that circumstances can be/were coercive for everyone, not only women. I suggest viewing 'coercive circumstance' as a violent affective space shaping everyone’s desires, putting to one side questions of agency tied to criminal responsibility. The analysis of male combatants’ experiences calls for rethinking common frames, venturing beyond justice debates and carceral logics and offers new perspectives on desire, agency, and coercion in war and beyond.

Holly Porter is an Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies and Deputy Director of the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies. An anthropologist focusing on Africa, her work centres around issues of gender, sexualities, violence, and local notions of healing and justice after war—particularly in northern Uganda where she has lived for more than ten years. Previously, she has worked in South Sudan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Azerbaijan, and Palestine in the fields of access to justice, gender-based violence, transitional justice, peacebuilding and human rights. She is the author of many articles and the 2018 Herskovitz Book Prize finalist, After rape: violence justice and social harmony in Uganda, published by Cambridge University Press.