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“Dating is pure suffering”: violence within affective-sexual relationships between adolescents in a school in the Costa Verde, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

This work is the result of a master’s thesis that aimed to understand students’ perceptions of violence within affective-sexual relationships between adolescents in a public school in the Costa Verde, Rio de Janeiro. The study corpus was derived from participant observation in the school and in-depth interviews with three girls and three boys aged between 18 and 24 years. The core areas of analysis were affective-sexual trajectories, experiences involving violence within relationships, and agency in the face of conflict. The findings reveal that violence is part of the everyday lives of adolescents and reinforce the victim/aggressor dichotomy. The adolescents’ interpretations of violence were divided into two categories: “suffering” and “serious acts of violence”. These understandings influence the recognition of violence and agency. The reproduction of gender norms contributes to sustaining gender hierarchy and inequalities, which affect girls and boys differently. Silence on this issue contributes to the invisibility of violence within relationships and the consequent failure to seek support from relevant organizations and services. Further research is needed to gain a deeper understanding of violence within affective-sexual relationships between adolescents.

Key words:
Adolescence; Dating; Violence

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