Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration Denial and Underreporting in Cisgender Male Couples

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators often deny their actions, limiting opportunities for intervention. Cisgender male couples experience similar IPV rates to mixed-gender couples, yet less is known about how men in same-sex relationships deny or report their IPV behavior. This study aimed to describe perpetration denial across emotional, monitoring/controlling, and physical/sexual IPV, and to identify correlates of perpetration denial, in a convenience sample of male couples (N = 848; United States, 2016-2017). Past-year victimization and perpetration were measured with the IPV-Gay and Bisexual Men (GBM) scale; perpetration deniers were men whose self-reported perpetration contradicted their partner’s reported victimization. Individual-, partner-, and dyadic-correlates of perpetration denial, by IPV-type, were identified using actor-partner interdependence models. We identified 663 (78.2%) perpetrators: 527 emotional; 490 monitoring/controlling; 267 physical/sexual. Thirty-six percent of physical/sexual-, 27.7% of emotional-, and 21.43% of monitoring/controlling-perpetrators categorically denied their actions. Depression was negatively associated with denying monitoring/controlling-perpetration (odds ratio 95% confidence interval: 0.91 [0.84, 0.99]) and physical/sexual-perpetration (0.91 [0.83, 0.97]); dyadic differences in depression were associated with emotional-perpetration denial (0.95 [0.90, 0.99]). Recent substance users had 46% lower odds of monitoring/controlling-denial (0.54 [0.32, 0.92]), versus non-users. Partner-race and employment were also significantly associated with emotional perpetration denial. This study highlights IPV denial’s complexities, including differences across IPV types. Further investigations into how cisgender men in same-sex couples perceive and report various types of IPV perpetration will provide valuable insight into how an underserved and understudied population experiences IPV.