Abstract
This article asks what implications there are for women who live with men convicted of sexual crimes sharing not only affective ties with them, but also working to make this life viable. By describing the asymmetries and inequalities of gender relations through the affective-moral ways my women interlocutors responded to them, I develop what I called ‘fractured conciliation’. I deal with forms of life that emerge when there are relational fractures triggered by rape, but are reconciled: when the father - severely ill - is the rapist of his daughter, and she, faced with his suffering, strives to forgive the unforgivable; and when family lunches include the uncle who is recognized by his niece as a “pedophile”, but is tolerated by her because of the love his sister, her mother, feels for her brother.
Key words:
Family; Rape; Emotions; Gender; Fracture