Love and violence at play: Revealing the affective-sexual relations between young people using the gender lens

Abstract

Objective was to analyze using the gender category, the discourse about affective-sexual relationships among teenagers based on the interactions in an online game grounded on the themes of sex, sexuality and violence. This is a case study, a qualitative approach that carried out the analysis of the discursive comments of adolescents produced from interactions with the Papo Reto game. The study subjects were 27 teenagers from a public school in São Paulo-SP. The analysis was based on the gender category and revealed that relationships between teenagers are part of a context of relationships influenced by gender models and norms constituting inequities that are determinants of both violence and its invisibility as a problem. The ambivalence of meanings that violence assumes in intimate relations translates into discourses of overcoming and, at the same time, of reiteration of gender inequities.