"THIS ROT SPREADS LIKE AN EPIDEMIC" POLICING ADOLESCENT FEMALE SEXUALITY IN ICELAND DURING WORLD WAR II

Abstract

The thesis examines events, perspectives and prevailing discourses that led to the criminalization of adolescent female sexuality in Iceland during World War II. Provisionary law was passed that became the foundation to submit young women to the mercy of special Juvenile Court, which tried girls for real or suspected sexual relationships with British and American servicemen, and sentenced them to rural homes or to a reformatory. Through the critical theory of Nira Juval-Davis, I have demonstrated that in the national discourse, Icelandic women who dated the foreign troops, stepped over the line that signified the nation 's boundaries and failed to become the bearers of the collectivity's identity. Their lack of Icelandicness turned them into the threatening "other". They were placed on the margin of society, as legal actions were taken to protect and police their sexuality.