Juschka/Contours, 4. Penetrating the Body of the Masculine Other

This chapter develops a discussion on the gender and racial coding of pain in the modern Euro-west. To do this I examine the 2003 events at Abu Ghraib. Captured on camera are what appears to be the ritualized torture and humiliation of a number of Iraqi prisoners. It is my intention to make visible the link between the indexical sign of pain, evoked through torture, white masculinity, and the racialized other to show how the ritualized use of pain demarcates proper and improper masculinities.