Universal Child Victims and Normal Guys

Abstract

This study builds upon the growing empirical literature on the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) and scholarship on framing strategies. Previous research has focused on the causes and consequences of CSEC, but less attention has been paid to the social movements working to raise awareness about the issue and create social change. Drawing upon 48 in-depth interviews and a year of fieldwork with the anti-CSEC movement in Georgia, this article analyzes activists’ discursive framing of juveniles involved in prostitution and their buyers. In their effort to broaden support for the movement, activists employed all-inclusive frames that emphasized “any child” can be a victim and customers are “normal guys” who must meet justice. Through a materialist feminist approach, I account for the discursive and material contexts that shape and, in turn, are shaped by the anti-CSEC movement’s frames. In particular, I discuss how hegemonic narratives and race, class, and gender assumptions surrounding juvenile prostitutes and buyers complicated activists’ frames, causing those most likely to be commercially sexually exploited youth and customers to be ignored. More broadly, this study illustrates how efforts to generate awareness and gain broader appeal through all-inclusive frames can undermine a social movement’s objectives.