Social and cultural meanings of legal responses to homicide among men: Masculine honour, sexual advances and accidents

This article overviewed and discussed the links between accepted courtroom defences to murder charges in specific legal understandings of extreme male violence, as a partially excusable reaction to threats and insults against male honour and heterosexual masculinity. Feminist insights into the gendered aspects of the “provocation plea” were here extended further to a range of cases involving male on male violence (as matters of “homosexual advance” or as fatal “accidents” arising in scenarios of heavy drinking). These claims set off national and related international debate, and uneven attempts to reform their use across jurisdictions. Yet in different circumstances they have persisted. Furthermore, they have been a historically recent example of legal rulings that served to privilege an aggressive and often violent masculinity that the state and criminal justice institutions both disavowed and condoned. © 2025 Stephen Tomsen. All rights reserved.