4 - Sex at War

Summary

Chapter 4, “Sex at War,” describes how violence, sex, and war were linked in numerous and sometimes contradictory ways. The production and circulation of sexual knowledge, as well as of modern ideas about sexual desire and its management, became intimately intertwined with not just nation-building but also overseas expansion – a process that further consolidated nation-building at home. The Japanese imperialist project spurred the production of new models of citizenship grounded in new sexual regimes often imposed by violence, be it the organized mass rape of women behind the frontlines or the disorganized sexual violence committed by troops. Yet the Asia-Pacific War also constituted an unprecedented vast web of sexual incitement, suppression, and violence – much of which was organized and systematic and most of which victimized women. Given that acknowledgment, commemoration, and reparation for these atrocities remain contested today, the issue of the wartime sexual-slavery system has both “gone overseas” and become a core bargaining chip in the revisionist movement.