Layers of Shame: The Impact of Shame in Lesbian and Queer Victim-Survivors’ Accounts of Violence and Help-seeking

Abstract

AbstractPurposeThe journey from shame to pride has been described as a founding and essential part of the modern LGBTQ movement. However, the tendency to treat shame as something that belongs to the past has been criticized by a number of queer theorists. The struggle to secure equal rights through normalization has also meant that certain topics that risk demonizing and stigmatizing LGBTQ people further have been neglected. Intimate partner violence (IPV) in queer relationships is one such topic. This paper explores a new perspective on queer shame through the topic of IPV in lesbian and queer relationships.MethodsDrawing on qualitative interviews with 25 people who have experienced violence in intimate lesbian/queer relationships in Sweden, this paper unpacks the concept of shame in empirical data to examine how shame operates on different levels when it comes to victimization and how it affects the help-seeking processes of such victim-survivors.ResultsMany of the interviewees expressed that they continued to feel ashamed about their denial of violence or their own reactions to the abuse even years after the relationship had ended. An additional layer of shame and secrecy affected the violence and help-seeking processes for the interviewees’ who lacked support from their social networks or who were not open about being in a queer relationship. The interviewees’ accounts also contained strategies to resist and manage shame.ConclusionsThe theoretical and empirical contributions of this paper sheds new light on how shame, victimization and queerness are entangled in the case of IPV.