Sexual explanations substitute for political explanations of terrorism.

Evidence

While “going Muslim” operates as an explanation for violence, in both cases, a root cause is identified as an additional explanation. In Lindh’s case, it is implicitly suggested that his liberal education is to blame for his involvement with terrorism. It was too open, too tolerant, too lax; it was a liberal education gone very wrong. In the case of Landon, it was symbolic castration that inspired him to look for an ideology that would legitimize his retaliation against female sexual rejection. Both the news and TV drama narratives contain a critique of liberal values and an enduring focus on sexuality. Sexual explanations, in other words, stand in for political explanations. The vast realm of political violence, whose complexity is already diminished through the use of the term terrorism, is now further depoliticized and portrayed as a mere cover for sexual problems. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 1043

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that political violence gets depoliticized via sexual-psychological root causes is a dense, layered analytic move that reframes how audiences read terrorism coverage.
• XREF: Connects to the moral-panic literature and to writing on how delegitimized dissent is pathologized rather than engaged. — connects to: Mediated female confession now risks titillating men instead of politically alienating them. — Theresa M. Senft, Camgirls: Celebrity and Community in…, 63
• SEED: Essay angle: how ‘root cause’ journalism about terrorism smuggles in class/sexual moral judgments while appearing explanatory.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race…, 1043