contact
Goethe-University Frankfurt
GRK Doing Transitions
address:
IKB-building, 4th floor
Eschersheimer Landstraße 121
60322 Frankfurt am Main
postal address:
Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 1
IKB-Gebäude, Postfach 3
60323 Frankfurt am Main
h.goerdten(at)soz.uni-frankfurt.de
Hans Goerdten studied sociology and philosophy in Potsdam, Berlin, and Frankfurt am Main. His fields of research are the sociology of gender, critical sexuality studies, queer studies, and qualitative-reconstructive empirical methods.
His doctoral project examines experiences of sexual violence of gay and bisexual men. It focuses on their trajectories of subjectivation and investigates the role that sexual violence may play in them. It is situated in the context of broader questions about the negotiation of masculinity in the context of the individual appropriations of gay and bisexual subjectivities. It is not meant to imply that all gay and bisexual men experience sexual violence during their identity formation. However, statistics show that significantly more gay and bisexual men are affected by sexual violence than heterosexual men. Additionally, violence does not necessarily have to be experienced firsthand to influence identity formation processes. A working hypothesis of the project is that sexual violence may play a comparable role for gay and bisexual men as it does for female biographies, where the possibility of experiencing sexual violence is always present and plays a significant role in structuring identity formation.
For these reasons, the project starts with the expectation that an empirical examination of sexual violence among gay and bisexual men can be fruitful for furthering our understanding of the relationship between gender and violence. It addresses a research gap as there is limited qualitative research specifically from a perspective of the sociology of gender on sexual violence among gay and bisexual men. Moreover, there has been an increase in discussions in queer and gay communities concerning sexual violence in recent years, which lends additional relevance to a sociological examination of the topic.
For this project, biographical and expert interviews as well as their analysis within the framework of reconstructive subjectivation research are planned. The aim is to empirically investigate sexual violence between gay and bisexual men and to work towards theorizations, drawing upon gender sociological, critical, and queer theories.
Publications
Goerdten, Hans (2022). At least we are not like the others! – Dynamics of distancing and community trouble among gay men. AnthroDesires-Blog. available online: https://anthrodes.hypotheses.org/500