Konstruktionen av en våldtäktsman -Maskulinitetsideal och dess betydelse för förståelsen av det nya brottet oaktsam våldtäkt

Sammanfattning: Since July 1, 2018 Sweden has a sexual crime legislation based on consent. A new criminal classification was added, negligent rape, which means that a person can be convicted of rape even though he or she has committed the crime without intent. Men are statistically overrepresented as perpetrators of sexual crimes and the purpose of this study is therefore to investigate the role of masculine ideals in the understanding of the new crime negligent rape. The study uses discourse analysis to examine judgments with the new criminal classification. The results are analyzed using Connell´s masculinity theory and Gagnon and Simon´s sexual script theory, both of which are based on the notion that sexuality is a social construct. Previous research show that men and women perceive consent differently and that men and women often navigate in sexual situations through gender stereotyped roles. The results of this study show that not only does masculine ideals seem to have an impact on the perpetrators behavior, it also impacts how they interpret the complainant’s response to their sexual approach. The conclusion is that the fact that the perpetrators often interpret the complainant’s passivity as consent may be a consequence of masculinity ideals which attributes women to opposite characteristic’s compared to men. For example, masculinity ideals dictate that men should be driven, dominant and authoritarian, which attributes traits such as being passive and submissive to women.