Defying shame

Abstract

Th is article gives voice to Mathilde, Karen and Amalie: Th ree young women who had intimate images of themselves shared non-consensually online. Th eir experiences help build a framework for categorising digital sexual assault (DSA), as well as giving insight into how shame, in cases of DSA, connects to social media aff ordances. Th e empirical data was produced during four creative writing workshops. Th e participants described their experiences during these workshops and they collectively developed strategies for defying shame. Th is article analyses their experiences of shame, their shame-defying strategies, and the role that social media played in forming types of aggressors and assault experiences. I present what I call the onlooker as a digitally augmented aggressor and I show how this aggressor infl icts shame through the look, as described by Sartre. Th is results in a discussion of imaginary, progressive contra-shaming, which is one of the four coping strategies that showed empowering potential in relation to DSA.MedieKultur 67

Shame, Chronic Illness and Participatory Storytelling

“…As Zahavi describes it, ‘the other-as-subject can be present even when the other-as-object is absent’ (Zahavi, 2014: 217). Although the actual encounter with a shaming gaze is often perceived as more painful than imagined ones, the anxiety of meeting that gaze, and various strategies for preventing it, can also come to saturate and structure an entire life even if the actual shame encounter is rare (Mortensen, 2020; Wurmser, 1987).…”