Rethinking Rufus: Sexual Violations of Enslaved Men

by Thomas A. Foster

Rethinking Rufus is the first book-length study of sexual violence against enslaved men. Scholars have extensively documented the widespread sexual exploitation and abuse suffered by enslaved women, with comparatively little attention paid to the stories of men. However, a careful reading of extant sources reveals that sexual assault of enslaved men also occurred systematically and in a wide variety of forms, including physical assault, sexual coercion, and other intimate violations.



To tell the story of men such as Rufus--who was coerced into a sexual union with an enslaved woman, Rose, whose resistance of this union is widely celebrated--historian Thomas A. Foster interrogates a range of sources on slavery: early American newspapers, court records, enslavers' journals, abolitionist literature, the testimony of formerly enslaved people collected in autobiographies and in interviews, and various forms of artistic representation. Foster's sustained examination of how black men were sexually violated by both white men and white women makes an important contribution to our understanding of masculinity, sexuality, the lived experience of enslaved men, and the general power dynamics fostered by the institution of slavery. Rethinking Rufus illuminates how the conditions of slavery gave rise to a variety of forms of sexual assault and exploitation that affected all members of the community.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Race, African American, Gender, Sexuality, American

192 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2019

About the author

Thomas A. Foster is Professor of History at Howard University, in Washington, DC, and author of Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America, and Sex and the Founding Fathers: The American Quest for a Relatable Past. He is also editor of Long Before Stonewall: Histories of Same-Sex Sexuality (NYU Press, 2007), New Men: Manliness in Early America (NYU Press, 2011), and Documenting Intimate Matters: Primary Sources for a History of Sexuality in America.

Reviews

[guinevere · Rating 5 out of 5]

Academic books continue to be shorter and shorter. I wish this was longer. I feel like there is a wealth of information that needed to be added but nonetheless, this book was excellent. This scholarship is transformative and groundbreaking. I’m so thankful for Dr. Foster’s research. Thank you for highlighting and delving into an under-explored area.

If you read this book and you haven’t read Vincent Woodard’s The Delectable Negro yet, then you must!

[Kinsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A much needed and overdue exposé on the sexual assault culture faced by enslaved men. This novel focuses on the emasculation of physical punishment and the imbalanced power dynamic of enslaved/master relations, as well as the ways black male bodies were sexualized by whites. This novel stares unflinchingly at the long term physical and psychological scars these actions perpetrated on the black community in a way that reverberates even until this day.

A special thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

[vampcherry · Rating 4 out of 5]

In depth analysis and research on the psychological and physical abuse suffered by enslaved men. This was much needed and a must read in my understanding of our present perceptions and beliefs, and how it has been shaped by the past.

[Jeffrey Hyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

gender and slavery

This was a more academic discussion of sexual violations of both men and women. It is sad that such things occurred and still does today. The sexualized fetishism of black men was nothing I hadn’t heard before. Some of the stories, I had not

[Eva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much of the academic and scholarly work on bodily violations as well as forced relations and forced couplings of enslaved people of African descent as part of transatlantic slavery and the antebellum era focuses on what happened to girls and women, which is and continues to be extremely important. "Rethinking Rufus" is the only book to date that I have found addresses these types of bodily harms and violations against enslaved men of African descent. It is not easy subject matter to get through by any means, and at the same time, it helps to combat the misinformation out there about rumours or conjecture about this phenomenon and its related effects, and it gets to the heart of the subject and its implications, including how Black men are viewed today because of things that happened specific to this subject matter.