‘It Will Continue to Embarrass Me on Some Level, and I Think that’s OK’: Conceptualising Embarrassment in Discussions about Sex between Social Workers and Service Users

Abstract

Research has consistently identified embarrassment as a barrier hindering communication about sex across a range of professions. This paper presents an in-depth exploration of embarrassment as an experience in discussion about everyday sexuality between social workers and service users. It is based on the interpretative phenomenological analysis of eleven semi-structured interviews with social workers, working across a range of services in Israel. The analysis revealed that the experiences of embarrassment related to four aspects of one’s identity. The term social self relates to embarrassment due to the breach of social codes, especially taboos about sex. Embodied self incorporates the embarrassment of social workers in facing their own physical feelings arising from interactions with services users. The term gendered self describes the uncomfortable feelings generated by a challenges to one’s own sense of gendered identity. Finally, sexual self relates to the sexual autobiography of the practitioners and service users. The findings of this paper highlight a new perspective on embarrassment as a potential site for challenging dominant discourse and practice about sex and gender. The paper also highlight the relational interdependency between their embodied gendered sexual self and their social work practice that can serve to transform both self and practice.

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