Gay and Bisexual Men’s Perceptions of Police Helpfulness in Response to Male-Male Intimate Partner Violence

Despite several recent studies documenting high rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) among gay and bisexual men (GBM), the literature is silent regarding GBM’s perceptions of IPV within their community, or the perceptions of the helpfulness of a hypothetical police response to a male victim of male-perpetrated. Data were drawn from a 2011 survey of venue-recruited GBM (n=1,041) and analyzed through chi-square tests and logistic regression. Participants were asked how helpful the police would be in the hypothetical situations of both a gay/bisexual male experiencing IPV and a heterosexual female experiencing IPV. Although the majority of respondents had similar perceptions of the commonness and severity of IPV in GBM compared to heterosexual women, the majority of the sample (58.6%) reported perceiving that contacting the police would be less helpful for a gay/bisexual male victim of IPV than for a heterosexual female victim of IPV. In logistic regression, associations were found between increasing experiences of homophobic discrimination and this comparatively negative view of police response. This learned anticipation of rejection by protective legal forces should be considered as the response to male-male intimate partner violence grows.