Marginalised men: male survivors of intimate partner abuse & violence

Concepts of intimate partner abuse and violence are shifting, complex, situationally-contingent and multi-faceted. Whilst women’s narratives of abuse have provided much-needed, if harrowing, insight into the subjective experience of intimate partner abuse, men’s accounts of female-perpetrated abuse have been slower to emerge, generating much controversy and hostility even in contemporary times. This paper seeks to add to a small, but developing qualitative literature on male victims’ accounts of intimate abuse and violence. Drawing on case-study data, the article charts some of the salient themes emergent from a series of in-depth interviews and the personal diary of abuse of a heterosexual male victim, and explores some of the congruences with other accounts of intimate abuse and violence. The paper concludes with a discussion of the ways in which male victims of intimate abuse might be situated within contemporary frameworks of masculinities