In defence of not-knowing: uncertainty and contemporary narratives of sexual violence

Abstract

This article models a critical method of engaging with not-knowing as it relates to discourses around sexual agency and sexual violation through an analysis of Carmen Maria Machado’s short story ‘The Husband Stitch’. I argue that sexual and gender-based violation not only enforces harmful forms of uncertainty among the women of the story. It also forecloses the potentially productive capacities of modes of not-knowing. In doing so, I respond to assertions from feminist scholars as varied Linda Martín Alcoff, Mary Gaitskill, Laura Kipnis and Joseph Fischel that we need to better account for the full ‘complexity’ of narratives of sexual encounter – including violent encounters. Broadly, in a #MeToo era in which stories of sexual and gender-based violence have received unprecedented mainstream public exposure, I contend that we can both treat the testimonies of survivors as credible and authoritative, and open up discursive space for the experience and expression of not-knowing.