Framing Sympathy-Worthiness: Informal Support and the Use of Disclosure Myths

Abstract

Research on sexual violence has shown that social support sources can have both positive and negative outcomes for victims’ health. Yet few studies examine how informal supporters construct meaning from initial disclosure experiences to produce these outcomes. Using a social constructionist framework, I analyze 30 in-depth interviews with friends, family members, and partners who received disclosures of sexual violence. I examine how confidants construct meaning from initial disclosures to negotiate and construct victims’ “sympathy-worthiness”. Disclosure recipients express several facilitators and obstacles to constructing victims as sympathetic that draw on notions about their social proximity to victims, expectations of assault based on gender and sexuality, disclosure temporality, trauma visibility, and victims’ post-disclosure “recovery-work.” I argue these positionings contribute to, and draw upon, “disclosure myths” that frame confidants’ differential interpretations of victims’ narratives, resulting in both the provision and denial of support.