The Walk of Shame

The term "walk of shame" is deeply rooted in the idea that shame is a difficult emotion stemming from a feeling of inferiority or social discomfort, which causes a person to wish to disappear, become invisible, be "swallowed up by the earth". However, sometimes exactly at such a moment of disgrace, individuals are publicly exposed to the full extent of their misery and must walk "the walk of shame" witnessed by family, friends and acquaintances. Shame, considered by some to have genetic origins, is an integral part of social circumstances and settings in accordance with a set of values, patterns of thought and the individual's physiological make-up. Shame is the result of familial, social and media processes. Thus the walk of shame does not take place privately behind closed doors, but on city sidewalks, in the workplace, in newspaper columns and on television and computer screens. It is not surprising, then, to discover that the tremendous power of shame has expropriated it from the individual's control in the private sphere to the public sector, creating a collective punishing mechanism whose goal is to warn against undesirable behaviour. Indeed, a person's public humiliation is a form of punishment, a negative sanction leading to disgrace, debasement and mortification. This book discusses the walk of shame from a cultural perspective, focusing on contexts, strategies, images etc., that reveals the many facets of a controversial concept.