An Orlando man, Faron Thompson, was recently charged with battery and child neglect after an altercation in which he allegedly tried to force his fiancée to swallow her engagement ring when she tried to leave him. (More details here.)
This sort of abuse is depressingly commonplace when women try to free themselves from abusive and controlling men; indeed, if I posted every news account along these lines on this blog I wouldn’t have time to do anything else.
No, I mention this case because something that Thompson reportedly told police reveals a lot about the mindset of abusers. When they arrested him, police say, Thompson complained that:
Women always claim assault, but never accept responsibility for provoking someone.
That is how abusers think.
It’s also how a lot of MRAs think.
Indeed, when I read Thomson’s reported remarks, the y immediately brought to mind something written not that long ago by Karen Straughan, the YouTube videoblogger who goes by the name of Girl Writes What. Straughan describes herself in her A Voice for Men bio as “the most popular and visible MRA in North America,” and given the rapturous reception her videos get on You Tube and on Reddit, this may not be an idle boast.
In the rather revealing Reddit comment I’m thinking of (which I blogged about earlier), Straughan suggested not only that abused women regularly “demand” the abuse they receive, but that many of them also get some sort of sexual charge from it. Oh, I’m sure she’ll deny that she really meant all that, but I can’t see any other way to read the following.
Oh, and in case you were wondering what article she’s referring to in the last paragraph — the one she says isn’t “seriously ethically questionable” — it’s a post from the repugnant Ferdinand Bardamu arguing that men should “terrorize” their partners because that’s the “the only thing that makes them behave better than chimps.” For more about that charming piece, titled “The Necessity of Domestic Violence,” see my post here.
I’m having less and less of a problem with calling the Men’s Rights movement “the abusers lobby.”
I’m sure there are some MRAs who are as repulsed by Straughan’s argument as I am. If you’re one of them, and want your movement, such as it is, to be remembered as something other than “the abusers lobby,” you need to call out all those MRAs who make such arguments. Might I suggest that you start by challenging the “the most popular and visible MRA in North America,” otherwise known as Girl Writes What?
@Kitteh I have 4 kitties and 2 dogs. And yep. This one is Phoebe we call her the college educated cat. We spent days on the college campus looking for her. It was a race between us and animal control. We found her first!
I once mentioned that my brother hit me and the response was that I hit him too. The difference of course is my brother will show off flex and ask me to hit him. When he hits me it is a rage. He broke down my parents door one time. It isn’t the same and people try to pretend it is. My brother still acts like he doesn’t know why he got kicked out of our folks home. And the reason is the violence.
And I agree on the point of nagging. I got accused of nagging by a roommate all the time. I was nagging about the fact that they hadn’t paid the electric,water or internet bill yet. I was nagging because I was out over 100 dollars covering their portion. Of course they didn’t think I was being reasonable even though I gave them a weeks warning on when the bill was due. Brought it up the day before and the day it was due and they continued to ignore me.
It is easy to just pretend it is the womans fault when a man hits her. It is is to put up a strawwoman and makeup the reason why she was hit. It isn’t easy to put your prejudices aside and listen to the other side of the story. It isn’t easy to admit you are wrong and it isn’t easy to change the thinking, but just because it isn’t easy doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.
End of rant.
Melody, four kitties! I used to have five, I wish we could have more than two now. Phoebe’s gorgeous.
That’s so horrible about your brother. Kicking your parents’ door down reminds me of the one time we had violence in our home – my brother came home blind drunk and when Mum took him to task over it he shoved her through a plate-glass door and fractured her jaw. I was sixteen and tearing shreds out of his arms to get him off her – and as much terrified he’d kill the cats if he saw them as for us. Ended up getting the little shit arrested and I think I’ve spoken to him twice at most in the thirty-plus years since. Don’t intend to speak to him ever again, either. But that sounds way less frightening than what you went through, because it was that once, not repeated occasions.
I get so sick of this “she nagged him” bullshit. First, it’s not a fucking excuse, ever; second, this so-called “nagging” is just as likely to be the sort of things you and Argenti described – the result of living with a lazy shit who doesn’t do a goddamned thing to pull his weight.
Well, I’d better head to bed and try to get to sleep a lot earlier than last night – work tomorrow. I shall drool over the print of my latest pic and dream sweet dreams. Niters, all! 🙂
I think I’m going to cycle through all my cats.
That sounds like a really terrifying situation. Glass can do a lot of damage. And it can be scary to see it. Especially, when you want to help the person being attacked.
My brother is bipolar and his flare ups tend to be very sudden and extreme. When he takes his meds he is great, but without them……Mine tended to be fairly simple because I was a faster runner than my brother. When he can’t catch you he can’t hit you. I love him dearly, but spending extended periods of time with him can be exhausting.
I agree with you on the nagging 100%.
And sleep well. I’m excited for tomorrow because I can sleep for 8 hours. I warned them that if they try to call me in (overtime or not) the answer will be no tomorrow. I’m not working a double again. I’ve worked 3 doubles in a row. I want sleep. *pouts*
What is the pic of?
Alex: He sounds like a classic abuser.
DisposableMan: For your information, the scenario I was describing is not very specific and is entirely fictional. It was simply made up to illustrate my point in the previous paragraph.
It was very specific.
What you don’t see is for the last two years she would routinely slap him on the back of the head and called him an idiot at every turn.
That’s specific.
What would be non-specific would be, “she regularly engaged in low level verbal abuse, as well as some slightly less frequent minor physical abuse (e.g. slap to the back of the head, smacking him on the shoulder, etc.).
I would normally demand an apology, not because of hurt feelings, but because such a stigma if allowed to fester would be quite counter productive to any arguments I make in the future.
What stigma? I’d say the passive aggressive insistence that you deserve an apology is cowardly. It looks as if you have pretensions of being in a situation where you have the right to make demands. That you opened this portion of the exchange with an insult doesn’t improve the moral standing. If you were actually solid in your sense of self you’d have ignored it, because speculative derision is a dime the dozen in fora, esp. because the question of specificity didn’t really adhere to you; for all anyone knows it could have actually been a story you heard from someone else.
But you got personally defensive. Now I wonder why. How often has your abuse apologia led people to wonder if you are abusive?
If that’s happening, perhaps you might want to look into what being an abuse aplologist is getting you; what benefits outweigh the speculations as to your motives?
“Firstly, the abuse perpetrated by women is often seen as, if not acceptable, at least permissible. If you disagree, try to slap a man in public. You’ll probably get giggles if not cheers from the public. A man hitting a woman…well lets hope he can run fast.”
Really? What I’ve seen is people who don’t want to get involved, “It’s a personal matter, they obviously have issues”. After all, most people aren’t practiced in violence, and it’s obvious the dude who hit the woman is willing to be publically violent. It’s also a challenge to his, “masculinity” to call him on it. As a result the odds are he won’t run; his blood is up and he is going to get in (at the very least) the face of anyone who tries to intervene.
“OK, I’m done with this thread. There are other threads I’d like to comment on. If you still have a beef with something I said (which I suspect some of you may) we can attempt to resolve it there
Coward. You started it here, we do it here. You don’t get to walk away as if you didn’t get your ass handed to you, just so you can stink up other threads.
Why, BTW, do you feel that will change anything? The things you said will still be the things you said. You will still have to respond to them.
Oh… I see, it’s manipulative. You can pretend we didn’t want to engage, “just get the last word”, because you pretended you weren’t quitting.
So not just coward, but cheap coward, with abusive behaviors. Perhaps the speculation isn’t so out of line as it might at first appear.
Somebody call the WAHHHHHHmbulance, Disposable Idiot’s fee-fees is hurt. Otherwise why mention it?
Dude, too late about that stigma. We both know you’ll come back and comment as if you never said what you said and forget that we can search your bullshit.
You haven’t been banned yet, but I’m sure that day will come. You just keep on keepin’ on.
I have one question for Disposable:
Which group do you think has done. and is doing, more to help solve that problem?
Because I can think of one, and… well it’s not MRAs.
This guy is that character from every murder mystery ever who says “I certainly didn’t (detail about the murder that nobody told him)”.
Argenti: “First, a minor nitpick, safe, not sane, please. I’ve had plenty of safe kinky sexytimes while insane”
Hehe, fair enough. =)
“Fuck, I rambled and forgot to add that I’m sorry about your abuse dagrabbit.”
Thank you. I’m both lucky and unlucky that the worst of it happened when I was little, and my brain is still blocking out the most specific details of what happened. Unfortunately, my brain does not block out the guilt, fear, or discomfort.
Melody –
It’s one I did yesterday and was wittering about on the other thread. 😉 I’d been looking for a suitable pic of a man sitting with a cat in his lap to make a pastiche of Mr K from a new face-template I’d just done. I found a really good one – big and clear, and the kitty looks exactly like my Mamie, who crossed over about nine years ago. I’m really pleased with how it worked out.
http://i.imgur.com/u5mUpY4.png
Shorter Dispo Bore: I am here to charge in insulting everyone, then later on pretend that I’m here for a calm, civil debate with you crocodile-crying harpies. Also, although I don’t really put much stock in reading, I am going to treat you to some tracts challenging the feminist dogma that physical abuse is totes justified by nagging or whatevs.
“I would normally demand an apology, not because of hurt feelings, but because such a stigma if allowed to fester would be quite counter productive to any arguments I make in the future.
However, I won’t make this demand of you because, I understand that the only thing feminists hate more than men standing up for men is other feminists conceding anything. I wouldn’t want to jeopardize your standing with your in-group.”
Worst flounce ever. Do I have to say you’re in no position to demand anything? No.
meh…after about a dozen posts and a hundred responses not a single earnest attempt by your side to communicate – just slander, straw men and baseless accusations. For my part, I admit I started off with a caustic tone but I did apologize.
Anyway, I wish you all well and bid you adieu.
I guess as troll flounces go, that was okay. Nothing special, though. 5/10.
Don’t let the door hit ya where the Flying Spaghetti Monster split ya.
Er, that was not directed at you, katz. 😉
So wait, all that discussion of how that sort of behavior isn’t normal but abusive, the discussion of how people would react in non-TV-land, all that, is just slander and baseless accusations?
Pecunium, which troll was it that insisted on completely ignoring both of us? This one is reminding me of that one. I don’t really care, just a bit annoyed that apparently the only way “real discussion” could’ve occurred would’ve been to simply yield to his claim that behind very story of a male abuser lies a female abuser.
All the irony, dummy’s trying to tear th sliding off the house (gods is their dog dumb)
Wasn’t the Baby International Socialist ignoring you both the other day?
I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that we owed you anything.
I don’t suppose the phrase “male entitlement” means anything to you?
They did apologize, yanno. That means it never happened!
Of if it did happen it was totally not his fault!
Wait wait wait.
Is this:
slander*, a straw man, or a baseless accusation?
(*protip dummy, nothing written on the internet is slander.)
Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit, my double-blockquote worked. This will require a snackrifice to basement cat.
Kitteh — Cassie replied to me at least once or twice, not sure she ever replied to Pecunium, but I think he got here after she left.