Less than ideal victims: Understanding barriers to Queer men’s recognition of male-perpetrated intimate partner violence through Christie’s ‘Ideal Victim’ framework
| Published date | 01 May 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/02697580231196165 |
| Author | Joseph Patrick McAulay |
| Date | 01 May 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/02697580231196165
International Review of Victimology
2024, Vol. 30(2) 282 –297
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/02697580231196165
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Less than ideal victims:
Understanding barriers to
Queer men’s recognition of
male-perpetrated intimate
partner violence through
Christie’s ‘Ideal Victim’
framework
Joseph Patrick McAulay
University of Oxford, UK
Abstract
Queer men who experience Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) from male romantic partners have
long struggled to recognise that they are being abused or to identify themselves as victims. I
argue that Nils Christie’s framework of the Ideal Victim can help us to understand the cultural
and social dynamics which work to prevent these men from identifying their experiences as
forms of victimisation. This paper uses data gathered from interviews with Queer male victims
of male-perpetrated IPV to investigate this potential relationship, attempting to find out how the
men understood their experiences of violence and abuse in relation to wider cultural norms and
images of victimisation. This analysis reveals two key themes. First, within the men’s accounts,
the images of the Ideal Victim and Offender are heavily gendered and because of this, the men
struggled to relate their own experiences of victimisation to what they perceive to be the heavily
feminised figure of the Ideal Victim. Second, within the men’s account, there was a ‘Public Story’
of IPV in which relationship abuse had to be physical, frequent, and all-consuming to be taken
seriously. This ‘Public Story’ constrained the men’s ability to understand their partner’s actions as
IPV and made them doubt the validity and legitimacy of their own experiences in which emotional
manipulation and psychological abuse were often more frequent and devastating than physical
assault. From these findings, I argue that there is an urgent need to confront the Public Story of
IPV and its related Ideal Victim to craft more inclusive public narratives of relationship abuse in
which Queer male victims can find legitimacy and support for their experiences.
Keywords
Victims, intimate partner violence, Queer criminology, Ideal Victim, stigma, masculinity,
victimology
Corresponding author:
Joseph Patrick McAulay, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, Manor Road Building,
Manor Road, Oxford OX1 3UQ, UK.
Email: joseph.mcaulay@csls.ox.ac.uk
1196165IRV0010.1177/02697580231196165International Review of VictimologyMcAulay
research-article2023
Article
McAulay 283
Introduction
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is an endemic social problem within the Queer male community.
Research from multiple jurisdictions suggests that Queer people experience IPV at equivalent rates
to heterosexual women (Finneran and Stephenson, 2013; McClennen et al., 2002; Messinger,
2011; Rollè et al., 2018; Yu et al., 2013), with studies conducted in the United Kingdom validating
these initial findings (Guasp, 2013). Furthermore, Queer men as a specific segment of the wider
Queer community face unique challenges when they encounter abuse in their relationships, specifi-
cally that they often struggle to recognise that they are in a violent and abusive relationship and
consequently do not label themselves as victims of IPV (Cruz, 2003; Donovan and Hester, 2010;
Merrill and Wolfe, 2000). This difficulty with identifying as a victim appears to have an impact on
the reporting and help-seeking behaviour of this population, as Queer men are less likely to utilise
formal support services or contact the criminal justice system (Donovan and Hester, 2015;
McClennen et al., 2002; SafeLives, 2018). Furthermore, even if Queer male victims do attempt to
report their experiences, they are at risk of experiencing stigmatising responses that minimise their
harm and reject their status as true victims. This rejection can occur when service providers or
criminal justice practitioners suggest that their victimisation is less serious because they are men
or that IPV is a crime that can only truly impact women (Donovan and Barnes, 2019; Hine et al.,
2022b; Huntley et al., 2019). Despite this evidence, there is a lack of understanding as to why
Queer men are unable to recognise experiences of IPV. This is a significant blind spot in current
IPV scholarship given that scholars have argued that the recognition of a victim identity in cases of
IPV is a necessary step for victims before they can begin the process of leaving an abusive partner
(Dunn, 2010; Ferraro and Johnson, 1983; Loseke, 2001; Mills, 1985). Therefore, it is of critical
importance that we develop a better understanding of why Queer men struggle to identify abuse in
their romantic relationships as IPV, and themselves as victims.
I argue that Nils Christie’s (1986) concept of ‘The Ideal Victim’ provides a useful framework
for better understanding Queer men’s reluctance to identify as victims of IPV and the barriers that
they face in identifying abuse in their relationships. While other scholars have attempted to under-
stand the role that the image of the Ideal Victim plays in the experiences of several different victim
groups (Davies, 2018; Van Wijk, 2013; Wilson and O’Brien, 2016), none have applied this frame-
work to specifically examine the challenges faced by Queer male victims of IPV. In this article, I
argue that by applying Christie’s framework to these men’s accounts, we can begin to understand
why they struggle to label themselves as victims of IPV. I begin by outlining Christie’s Ideal Victim
framework, before showing how this framework can help us understand why male victims, and
Queer male victims specifically, often struggle to accept victim identities or recognise that have
been harmed. I then present original empirical data that demonstrate how Queer male victims of
IPV struggle to understand their experiences against the dominant ‘Public Story’ (Jamieson, 1998)
of IPV. Finally, I conclude by arguing that only by challenging both this Public Story and the Ideal
Victim image that sits behind it, can we allow Queer victims to fully understand their experiences
and recognise their victimisation.
Conceptualising the Ideal Victim
The concept of the Ideal Victim was developed by Nils Christie (1986) who argued that victimhood
was a socially constructed identity. That is, who is labelled as a victim will vary from one situation
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