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Abstract

This thesis examines technology-facilitated abuse (TFA) within gay and bisexual men’s same-sex intimate relationships in the United Kingdom, focusing on how digitally mediated behaviours are interpreted, situated within wider dynamics of coercive control and identity abuse, and understood within professional contexts. It brings UK scholarship on same-sex intimate partner violence into dialogue with international research on technology-facilitated abuse. The study adopts a qualitatively driven mixed-methods design. It draws on a UK-centred online survey comprising 1,000 response records, including 650 gay or bisexual men. Detailed analysis uses a verified 200-respondent analytic sample for linked structured and demographic analysis and a verified 200-comment open-text analytic corpus. These data are complemented by 30 semi-structured practitioner interviews across LGBTQ+ specialist, domestic-abuse, statutory, voluntary, community, health and policy settings. The study does not estimate victimisation prevalence, and survey participation is not treated as evidence of personal abuse. Findings demonstrate that the meaning of digitally mediated conduct depends on relational context rather than technology alone. Practices involving access, monitoring, availability, visibility and communication could be interpreted as intimacy or care but became coercive where consent could not safely be withdrawn, relationship rules were imposed and resistance produced consequences. Descriptive age-related differences were identified in interpretations of some behaviours, without supporting a simple generational divide. Separation emerged as a particularly important analytical lens. Digital access, information and permissions accumulated during intimacy could enable coercive practices to persist or be reconfigured after physical separation. Identity and visibility also shaped coercive possibilities, including outing, bisexual delegitimation, intimate material and reputational vulnerability. Apparent reciprocity did not necessarily indicate equal power, requiring attention to motive, pattern, impact and space for reaction. Practitioner accounts revealed substantial variation in professional recognition. Stronger responses connected digital conduct to relational pattern, identity context and offline consequences, whereas weaker responses fragmented digitally distributed behaviours or placed excessive responsibility on victim-survivors to manage technology themselves. The thesis develops Hybrid Coercive Control (HCC) as a midlevel conceptual framework for understanding how coercive control operates through interconnected digital, embodied, emotional, identity-based and social mechanisms across relational time and space. It argues that effective responses require coercive control analysis, LGBTQ+ cultural competence, professional curiosity and digital safety expertise.

Publication Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science T Technology > T Technology (General)
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs > Department of Sociology & Criminology School of Policy & Global Affairs > School of Policy & Global Affairs Doctoral Theses Doctoral Theses

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