Dom Violence Powerful hashtag

[somerandomguy]

Ok revisiting this thread because I originally derailed it and I have a few things to say to @hithere.

@hithere, I am writing this assuming you are a man. If you're not, I apologize, but it stands anyway.

I understand you had a challenging therapy session and you wrote your post about women murdering their partners while you were very stressed out. I get it. I've been there. It can be very cathartic to write something like that, especially when you feel alone or disbelieved in your trauma.

But here's the problem. What you wrote wasn't true. It certainly felt true to you in the moment, and that feeling can be a jumping off point for further exploration ... but the place you expressed your feeling was inappropriate.

It is demonstrably false that women murder their partners "every month." It does happen, but not at that rate, and certainly nowhere near the rate that men murder their female partners.

And here's the part that sucks for you. As a man, you are an ambassador for all other men who have been through trauma and abuse. That's unfair, and none of us men asked for it, but that's how it is. The reason for this is because men haven't talked about being abused before - to such an extent that now society believes that men cannot be abused. You and I and most people on this site know that's false ... but most people out in the world do not.

As an ambassador - reluctant or not - you have a responsibility to tell the truth. YOUR truth. But you also have a responsibility to be accurate in what you say, or no one will take you seriously. And if people don't take you seriously, they won't take the rest of us male survivors seriously either. So I'm telling you this very much for my own benefit, and for all the other men as well.

Did you see what I did at the top of the thread? I derailed it, and yes, I shouldn't have, and I'm sorry about it - but I was also accurate in my criticism of the hashtag. Women do apparently emotionally abuse their male partners more than men emotionally abuse their female partners. And at the same time men do physically abuse and murder their female partners at staggering rates. One statistic does not invalidate the other. Let's not let our anger take our arguments over a cliff.

 

[Mach123]

She doesn't need to hit me. Saying "no" to me kills me a little each time. I think she prefers torturing me to death. This is not intended as a joke or to be funny.

 

[somerandomguy]

Saying "no" to me kills me a little each time.

That sucks, but it's not emotional abuse.

Emotional abuse would be saying "Why would I want to have sex with you? No one could ever want you." But just turning someone down for sex, while possibly incredibly hurtful, is not in itself abusive.

 

[Mach123]

That sucks, but it's not emotional abuse.

Emotional abuse would be saying "Why would I want to ha...

I have to disagree but it's a matter of degrees and it's positional? I don't think you can dismiss that categorically out of hand like that? Depends on the situation. It can be and in my case has been? "Why would I want to have sex with you? No one could ever want you."
I think I feel that or I have many times if or not she meant it? I know she's meant it occasionally. Nevertheless, I was talking about my situation in particular. : )

 

[Muttly]

@dulcia I'm sorry this thread has turned out in unexpected ways. That can happen when you have a forum full of people with a variety of triggers and differing levels of coping with those triggers. I hope you can continue to find validation in discovering stories like yours. While I understand what some of the others are getting at, it doesn't mean that hashtag isn't true and important for you.

@Mach123 hmm... I'm too numb to get triggered right now, but that could be the type of comment that could easily trigger. I am going to assume there is all sorts of context I don't know. Without that context... it's hard for me to come up with a situation where saying no is emotional abuse. But then, I have a history of partners (and family members) not accepting my "no" and doing things to me anyway or coercing me into things.

 

[Mach123]

@dulcia I'm sorry this thread has turned out in unexpected ways. That can happen when...

Right, what you said, then add in saying no as a weapon, and you have it!

 

[Swift]

A word on gender neutrality:
This comes up on the forums quite a lot. I think it's such a highly triggering concept.
The reasons men abuse women and the reasons women get away with abusing men are two sides of the same coin.
Male on female domestic violence is a problem with it's own lexicon of statistics and causes.
Female on male domestic violence is also a huge problem.
Violence against trans and nonbinary people occurs disproportionately outside relationships. If you're a trans WOC, the odds of you being murdered in America are one in four. One in four!
Violence in gay or lesbian relationships also has it's own causes, factors and problems.
The stereotypes that men are supposed to be strong, dominant, and express anger through rage, are a factor in both violence with male perpetrators and violence with female perpetrators towards men.
Coming back to the hashtag, I think it's great to point out that abuse is so, so, so much more than hitting someone.

I'm a gay chick who was abused by a woman, and some men. Do I think gender stereotypes had a lot to do with it? Absolutely.
I think as people, we're socialized to see men as aggressors and women as always benevolent. Why are we socialised this way? Because the statistics bear it out.
For my part, it was a bit of a doublethink. I was "dating" this psycho, so I figured she was allowed to hurt me because "dating."
That's a crap stereotype.
I also figured she couldn't be hurting me that badly, because she was a woman and women don't do that.
So - crap stereotypes all round.
There's also this thing called the "second closet", which is that violence in gay relationships is a whole other kettle of fish. Often, gay people are afraid to speak out about violence because they'll be outed, which is f*cking horrible.

Male/female and female/male violence don't have the same causes or solutions.
On an individual level the impacts, the pain, the trauma is the same.
On a societal level, it's different.

 

[Mach123]

My wifes mother hit. She weighed about 300 lbs and she wasn't kidding. I thought she was going to hit me a few times when we lived with her. My mother was also a hitter. Keep quiet or else you'll get it. I knew what my mother meant if we were in a store or something and she said "wait till I get you out of here." I remember the cold feeling in my stomach. If it rose to "Wait till your father gets home?" Forget it. My wife hit. If the kids saw her go for the wooden spoon, they knew the party was over. Girl power.

One of you is in charge and the other one knows it. What does "or else" mean? Or else you're going to get it? Maybe your not going to get it? This all really sucks and it's really ugly but sadly, it's how everything works. When does it rise to the level of domestic violence? When she takes out the gun and shoots him finally after 30 years or so, because she can't listen anymore.

We were watching one of our favourite British detective shows and they get a lot of mileage out of this kind of abuse. (I love it because they're so polite about it) Most of the stories have this stuff as a central theme. Someone bullies someone and it rises to violence. The one we watched last night was disturbing because the man was being so abusive, the nice little old ladies were wincing and stuff when he broke the dishes and yelled at them. I have that startle response if you raise your hand to me. It's humiliating.

Gender is irrelevant in this because anyone can be submissive. Then you just do what comes naturally. Look at what the men do to each other in prison and you see what's really going on. You think these nice ladies in the burbs driving their giant SUVs and drinking top shelf booze don't run things like this? It's a jungle out there. They're just really successful at it, that's all. Nothing shows, everything is great. The black eyes and the cops showing up, that's a couple towns over. More tattoos, less real teeth was how we used to say it. Now that tattooing oneself is "in" IDK if it still holds. The kids from these towns drive over there to get stuff "cheap." I was over there yesterday, grocery and gas prices were noticeably lower, everything was, including the quality of life.

 

[dulcia]

@somerandomguy, @hithere, @Muttly -- I was a bit sensitive after I posted this, hence my last comment. Thanks for being kind, though! :happy:

I tend to live primarily in the private supporter's section, so I'm used to us all being on a similar wave length about things. I sometimes forget that it requires a bit more effort to navigate threads in the more general forums.

Here's some I've come up with to make up for the narrow constraints of the hashtag in my original post:
#LoveShouldntHurt #VanquishViolence #OpposedToBlows #AbolishAbuse #SafeIsSexy

 

[hithere]

@somerandomguy, @hithere, @Muttly -- I was a bit...

Thank you. I appreciate you reaching out. I found a hashtag that I can embrace as well: #Ibelieveyou

 

[shimmerz]

women emotionally abuse men more often than the opposite.

I just want to know where the study is that says this. Most people don't even report emotional abuse and as I recall emotional abuse isn't really 'seen' as abuse in the technical sense of the word. Nobody goes to jail or gets charged for emotionally abusing someone last I knew. Personally, I think emotional abuse should be something that has consequences.

But here is the thing.
They sounds too distant. It makes it seem impersonal. Abuse is personal. And if we use terms like they it feels wrong. To me.
Why can't we all be against violence against anyone? I hate this 'this group is more persecuted than that group' crap. And I get it. Nobody wants to feel like nobody cares that this is happening with men as well as women. I don't want any of this shit happening to anybody. Male, female, child, dogs, cats, cows, horses.
This is an extremely violent world. The more we peace lovers separate into our own cliques - fighting for our cliques rights - the less effective we will be. Nobody will be able to change any of this if we don't stop fighting amongst ourselves as to who needs to be heard more.

We All Need To Be Heard. And we need to band together to do so. Don't let current rhetoric let you take your eye off the prize.

We All Want Peace. For Everyone. Don't we?

 

[Teasel]

Nobody goes to jail or gets charged for emotionally abusing someone last I knew.

Just to say it became illegal in the uk a couple years ago :)