Fear of having to reveal their sexual orientation deters some women who are abused in lesbian relationships from seeking help, new research shows.
 
The study, presented to the British Sociological Association’s annual conference in Cardiff, reports that abusive lesbian relationships can involve physical assaults, sexual coercion and emotional cruelty, just as abusive heterosexual relationships can.
 
But fear of their colleagues or family finding out their concealed sexuality can deter some women from speaking to those closest to them or approaching the police, the research found. In one of the most detailed studies to date of abuse in lesbian relationships, Dr Rebecca Barnes interviewed 40 women aged between 21 and 70. The women were chosen because all had suffered some form of abuse.
All 40 had suffered emotional abuse such as verbal abuse, threats to kill and controlling behaviour by their partners.
 
Thirty-five had suffered physical abuse, such as being punched, kicked and slapped. Eighteen women had been intimidated or pressured into unwanted sexual activities, whilst four were physically forced into having sex.
 
Five had either been threatened with having their sexuality revealed to their family and colleagues by the abusive partner, or this threat had been carried out.
 
Seven women felt so desperate and trapped that they had felt suicidal during the abusive relationship, and of those, three had attempted suicide.
 
Dr Barnes, Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Derby, said: “Only women who had been abused by a previous female partner were invited to participate in the study, with the aim being to examine these relationships in detail rather than trying to establish what proportion of lesbian relationships as a whole is abusive. However, other studies indicate that abuse in same-sex relationships occurs at similar rates as for heterosexual relationships.
 
“The findings show that women in abusive same-sex relationships experience very similar challenges to women in abusive heterosexual relationships,” said Dr Barnes, who carried out the research while at the University of Nottingham.
 
“However, being in a same-sex relationship poses additional barriers to seeking and receiving effective support.
 
“My findings also showed that abuse in lesbian relationships can involve wide-ranging forms of emotional, physical, financial and sexual abuse, as it can in heterosexual abusive relationships.
 
“Unique to same-sex relationships though is homophobic abuse, where some of the abusers threatened to reveal their partners’ sexuality to their family, colleagues or friends. In some cases this threat had been carried out.
 
“Even where these threats were not made, fear of having their sexuality revealed or of receiving homophobic responses deterred some of the abused women from seeking support from agencies such as the police.
 
“One of the key differences with same-sex abuse is the secrecy which surrounds many same-sex relationships – a few of my participants had had relationships lasting years which their family or colleagues knew nothing about or which only a few close friends were aware of. This particularly applied to women who were in their first same-sex relationship.
 
“The fear of losing key relationships with family or friends, or of encountering homophobia at work should one’s sexuality be revealed, can deter some victims from speaking out about the abuse.
 
“An abusive partner’s awareness of these fears can lead them to exploit the victim’s vulnerabilities in order to keep them in the relationship and under their control.”
 
Dr Barnes said that only a small handful of organisations exist solely for those suffering same-sex violence. Three of those she interviewed had gone to women’s refuges but one said she was ostracised by fellow residents when her sexuality was discovered.
 
Dr Barnes added that the impacts of the abuse were often extensive, eroding women’s confidence and making many fearful of future relationships. Some women were in new and loving relationships at the time of the interview, but others reported emotional impacts which had persisted over years or decades, hampering new relationships.
 
“These findings show that more support for those in same-sex relationships is needed and that this needs to be there not just in the immediate aftermath of an abusive relationship, but also in the long-term,” said Dr Barnes.
 
Quotations from those interviewed:

On the fear of their sexuality being revealed
“One of the things she used to do a lot if I wouldn’t do what she wanted me to do or if I wouldn’t see her was say that she’d tell all my clients I was gay or ‘I’ll go and tell your mum’, cos my mum wasn’t aware that we were in a relationship so, lots of that and I’d give in.” (Colette, 40)
 
“She said, ‘Well you know how much my sister hates gays,’ she goes, ‘she’ll soon phone your family up and tell them,’…and I had to run to the phone like crazy, just in case, I thought it was her sister, and I was even checking the answerphone messages, just in case, but nobody ever did phone up – I was just led to believe they would, and that was a really awful, on edge feeling.” (Sam, 31)
 
“And of course, what made it worse was nobody knew I was a lesbian in those days, so what do you do, where do you go, who do you go and see?  Even my family didn’t know, so if you leave, where do you go?” (Belinda, 56)
 
“I was in a refuge, and I was lying, because everyone else there was heterosexual, and I was so scared. I didn’t want it revealed that I was a lesbian and I was you know like trying to be the same as these women, and I always referred to her [her partner] as ‘it’, because I was actually scared.” (Simone, 47)
 
On perceptions of ongoing prejudice/lack of public sympathy:
 
“Whilst things may have improved, there’s still enough prejudice out there for other people to sort of wonder why you’d need support. I mean if you’re stupid enough to buck the system anyway then you should lie on the bed you’ve created – I suppose that’s how some of them [in society] would see it.” (Andrea, 43)

On the shock of ‘discovering’ that abuse happened in same-sex relationships too:
 
“I didn’t know women could be so horrible to each other; I didn’t even know it existed.  I thought it was just men, men and women. It was totally new to me. I know now.” (Sophia, 40)
 
Physical abuse:
 “I got a few punches in the arm in the car, sworn at, the verbal abuse went all the way home, we gets home, gets in the flat, next minute she’s coming up and she’s kicking and punching me, punching me in the face, kicking me legs, kicking me wherever she could, thumping me everywhere.” (Carol, 50)
 
“But it was from the first time that we moved in, I would say every day there was an argument or there was her threatening me or you know punching me or her main thing was she’d grab me around the throat and hold me up against wherever it was and say, ‘You’ll do what I tell you or you’ll suffer the consequences’, and she did threaten to kill me once.” (Charlotte, 33)
 
Emotional abuse:
 “She’d say ‘You’re useless, you’re stupid, you’re fat, you’re ugly, you’re not good at anything’. And I want to have kids and she turned round to me one day and said, ‘You can’t have kids, you’d be a useless mother, you’d be crap at it’. And she’d come out with all this nonsense, but of course when somebody says that to you so often, you believe it don’t you?” (Maria, 35)
 
“She even used to say things like, ‘I know why your husband used to hit you now, I understand him now’, and it’d get into my head and I’d really question myself, that is this how I should be treated?” (Lynette, 47)
 
Coerced sex:
“When we ever used to argue, she used to think that would resolve it by going to bed and I used to say, ‘That is the last thing that I want to do when you’ve just basically just nearly tried to strangle me’, but I used to [have sex with her] just to keep her quiet, so I can’t say that she ever actually forced me to, but she did force me to mentally because it was just easier for me to do it than not.” (Charlotte, 33)