Homosexuality and shame: how shame turns us against ourselves

[zedness]

Some basic research that I did at university has led me to believe that one of the most important things in defining gay people on both an individual and social level is the emotion of shame

Comments

[superbbluewren]

Neil, that is a very interesting post. I suppose one of the reasons that I did not pursue life in the gay world thirty years ago, is that my intuition was that I would find only guilt and shame. I did not feel the same, but I was not confident that I would find anyone else and I didn't know where to look.

I guess it surprised me that that is still a dominant issue in the gay world today. As you say, it is less so among the younger members of our community. But it is still there. And I suppose that it is has affected me in coming out now, more than I expected.

I do think that we need to take a positive approach and decide what our response is going to be, rather than to simply accept without question the judgement of one section of society. We can choose not to be shamed.

[zedness]

I do think it is not too difficult to overcome any lingering shame once it's been recognised. It's just a matter of recognising where that shame exists and is having an effect on behaviour, which may not always be as straightforward as it sounds.

I also think there would need to be more solid evidence of a link between shame and behaviour before taking the whole idea too seriously. Examining the alleged correlation actually sounds like a good idea for a university research project. I'll keep it in mind.