Table Of ContentThe Violence of Care
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The Violence of Care
Rape Victims, Forensic Nurses, and
Sexual Assault Intervention
Sameena Mulla
a
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
www.nyupress.org
© 2014 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.
Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that
may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mulla, Sameena.
The violence of care : rape victims, forensic nurses, and sexual assault intervention /
Sameena Mulla.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4798-0031-5 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-4798-6721-9 (paper)
1. Rape victims—Medical examinations—United States. 2. Rape victims—Services for—
United States—Psychological aspects. 3. Forensic nursing—United States. I. Title.
RA1141.M85 2014
362.883—dc23
2014002839
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials
to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Also available as an ebook
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Sexual Violence in the City 1
1. “The Hand of God”: DNA and Victim Subjectivity in 37
Sexual Assault Intervention
2. Making Time: Temporalities of Law, Healing, and
Sexual Violence 57
3. On Truth and Disgust: Managing Emotion in the Forensic 76
Intervention
4. Re/production: Articulating Paths to Healing and Justice 103
5. Facing Victims: Vision and Visage in the Forensic Exam 130
6. Documentary Agency: Institutional Dispositions toward 152
Gender and Rape Myths
7. There Is No Place Like Home: Home, Harm, and Healing 176
8. Patient and Victim Compliance: Drugs, AIDS, and Local 195
Geographies of Care
Conclusion: “We’re Not There for the Victim”: The Violence 217
of Forensic Care
Notes 231
Bibliography 243
Index 267
About the Author 277
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Acknowledgments
A book comes about only when the right coalition of supportive,
encouraging, and challenging people provide a would-be author with
a foundation from which to write. While I have been lucky enough to
be surrounded by such people all along the way, I must still lay claim to
the remaining faults of the book. Let me start by thanking those people
I will not name: without the women and men undergoing and con-
ducting sexual assault forensic intervention, there would be no book.
My greatest debt is to them. Their honesty, integrity, and passion were
demonstrated in the thousand and one kindnesses they offered me on
a daily basis.
Adequate and meaningful time to conduct research is not conjured
out of thin air. I was able to conduct research only because of the open-
handed generosity of the Social Science Research Council’s Sexuality
Research Fellowship Program, and the Law and Social Science Program
of the National Science Foundation. The Women, Gender and Sexual-
ity Program, and the Center for Africana Studies at the Johns Hopkins
University, as well as a Regular Research Grant at Marquette University
also supported the project along the way.
My thanks also to my teachers, Veena Das, Deborah Poole, Jane
Guyer, Harry Marks, and Jennifer Culbert, who argued with each
other and with me as to what book I should ultimately write. I have
also benefited from the generous and insightful teaching of Naveeda
Khan, Rayna Rapp, and Malathi de Alwis. Xiao-Bo Yuan was my first
(and best) research assistant on this project, and I thank her for her
talented handling of the interview materials. Don Selby and Valeria
Procupez formed my first writing group, and they have continued to
read and comment on my work over the years. Amrita Ibrahim, Sid-
harthan Maunaguru, Rasna Dhillon, Young-gyung Paik, Sylvain Perdi-
gon, Aaron Goodfellow, Richard Baxstrom, Todd Meyers, and Hussein
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viii << Acknowledgments
Agrama were wonderful to learn from and with. The Department of
Anthropology and Sociology at Williams College gave me a year to
write as a Bolin Fellow, along with stunning vistas to keep me ener-
gized, and generous and friendly colleagues who helped me think about
how to both start and finish a project as complicated as this one. In Wil-
liamstown, Cyndi Howson and Alexa Schriempf made up my second
writing group, and were vital companions.
These days I am grateful for the bonhomie of my colleagues in the
Department of Social and Cultural Sciences at Marquette University. My
special thanks to Heather Hlavka. Additional thanks to Alison Efford,
Nakia Gordon, Andrew Kahrl, and Julia Azari, who I value not only as
fellow faculty but as wonderful friends. Rose Corrigan, Lesley McMil-
lan, Gethin Rees, and Deborah White all share my interests in travel,
fine dining, and research on sexual assault, and I have appreciated our
CAIRRN Workshops these past few years. My brother Rashad Mulla is
another source of support, as are my many siblings-in-law, Kedy Edme,
Sayila Edme, Martine Edme Edouard, Jude Edouard, Ayina Verella, and
Janremi Verella. Thanks also to my parents, the Mullas, and to my hus-
band’s parents, the Edmes. Veronica Cox, Alison Klein, and Lindsay
Moore Monte are owed a debt of thanks for their patient friendship that
stretches now into the decades.
Many thanks to NYU Press, and to my editor, Jennifer Hammer, for
her able shepherding of this book through to publication, and thanks
also to her assistant, Constance Grady. My gratitude also extends to
the anonymous reviewers. They provided detailed comments and very
nuanced readings of the text. Their insights made the manuscript into
a stronger book, and I wish I had been able to implement all of their
suggestions.
I will not be able to adequately express the extent of my warmth and
good feeling for how grounded my partner, Tipan Verella, keeps me.
With him reliably at my back, I was free to meander where this project
took me, and look deeply into things that unsettled me, even if produc-
tively, for many years. It is with him that I can now happily apply myself
to the task of parenting our son, Ibrahim, who stirs up our household
with his energetic antics every day and instructs his parents on the art
of play with zest and wisdom.
Introduction
Sexual Violence in the City
I’m in a hurry, and luckily, I see a taxicab parked at the curb
less than a block away. A few steps closer and I recognize the
driver. When I signal to him, he waves in acknowledgment
and pulls the car forward so I don’t have to take the last few
steps in the summer heat. “Where you headed . . . hospital?”
And when I say yes, and direct him downtown, he sighs, “It’s
never good news when you are headed to the hospital.”
It was the summer of 2002 in Baltimore, and I was a rape crisis advocate
volunteering for a local rape crisis center. I completed my training for
this in February 2002, and at that time I bought my first cell phone. I
was on call four or five times a week, taking as many eight-hour shifts
as I could. The calls would come at all hours, and sometimes, even if I
was not on the schedule, I, or another of the advocates, might be called
if there wasn’t enough coverage or there were multiple cases and addi-
tional rape crisis advocates were needed.
Though cell phone–equipped and therefore reachable, I was without
a car. All of the other advocates drove. “No problem,” I would say. I
lived near a large hotel so there were usually taxis out front. The hospi-
tals where we worked were no more than a 20-minute drive away, and
once the volunteer coordinator called us, we had 45 minutes to reach
the emergency room. It had been a busy summer; I was getting a call
at least every other shift. The lore at the rape crisis center was that the
overnight shift had the most activity, but I didn’t sign up for that shift
because cabs are harder to come by in the middle of the night, and I was
not keen to explore the city in the darkness. Still, there didn’t seem to be
a particular witching hour: 6 a.m., 12 noon, 5 p.m., or 9 p.m.—the calls
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