ABSTRACT
In studies on fear of crime to date, little attention has been paid to the impact of sexuality. More specifically, while lesbians and gay men have long been produced and examined as objects of fear (Duggan 2000; Hart 1994; Moran 1996), their appearance as subjects of fear is something of a new departure. The importance of fear in lesbian and gay experiences of danger and safety associated with violence still remains largely unexamined.1 It is now perhaps a trite point, but one worth repeating within the frame of a lesbian and gay politics of violence, that fear of crime is for many more important than direct experiences of criminal acts in the generation of experiences of danger and safety. In this chapter, we begin an exploration of the geography and politics of fear that informs lesbian and gay perceptions of danger and safety.
