Browsing Tag

abusive relationships

Feminism

the lie that made me give up

[content note for explicit discussion of rape, emotional and sexual abuse]

I was raped twice.

And that statement, right there, as straightforward as it seems, is fraught with the complexities and ambiguities and lies and mixed-up realities of living in an abusive relationship for almost three years. I say the word twice and I’m not lying but it doesn’t communicate the heavy weight of the truth. The truth is that I point to those separate instances as rape because they are, in retrospect, very clear: I said no. Repeatedly. I physically resisted. I cried. And still he didn’t stop– he did whatever he wanted and then said you Goddamn fucking bitch this is all your fucking fault when he was done.

At the time I didn’t understand that saying “no,” out loud, made it an open-shut case of rape. There was no consent. He knew there was no consent, that I did not want to have sex with him, at all. He just didn’t care. What he wanted mattered more, and he could trust that I was so entrenched in the lies of being worthless and unlovable and no good for anyone else but him that I wouldn’t tell anyone. He knew that I wouldn’t think of the word rape and apply it to what he’d done. And he was right– I didn’t realize he raped me until years later. Even though I’d said no, stop, please don’t, I don’t want this.

Until I gave up.

I gave up because I thought that if I stopped resisting it would be over faster. I gave up because I thought that maybe if I stopped being such a buzz-kill he’d be able to become fully erect and it wouldn’t hurt so goddamn much. I gave up because, really, fighting was pointless.

The reason why I knew it was pointless was all the times that came before. The times that I don’t call rape.

~~~~~~~~~~

We’d both grown up in purity culture. We both had absorbed similar messages about sex and abstinence and while I got a lot of if you have sex you’re worthless garbage ideas, he knew that it was a moral failing for him to “take advantage” of a woman and that any sexual contact at all with any woman who wasn’t his wife was some form of sexual predation– that wanting to be sexually physical in a relationship made him a “wolf.”

It was a reality we struggled with. I thought that because I’d “surrendered my purity” in a thousand insignificant ways (wearing fitted clothing, leaning over in front of him, kissing him) I’d have to stick this relationship out, no matter what. I was done. If I didn’t marry this boy, then it was all over for me. I’d ruined any chance of happiness I had with another person. But still, the niggling thought of I shouldn’t let him kiss me anymore was a pinprick in the back of my mind.

I also loathed our physical relationship. Everything he asked me to do made me feel degraded and dirty and hardly anything felt good. I’d thought kissing and “heavy petting” and third base was supposed to be this inexorable temptation, as compelling as the Apple in Eden. Not revolting. Not repulsive. But, I figured I was just one of those women where sex would be a sacrifice for my husband.

His feelings were different: he thoroughly enjoyed everything he made us do, but occasionally would enter a fit of conscience. We can’t keep doing this, he’d say, and I’d agree, and do everything I could to keep the relief off my face. Finally, I’d think, it could stop. He wouldn’t keep badgering me into giving him a blowjob. I wouldn’t have to keep the pain off my face when I could feel his fingernails scraping inside my dry vagina. If I thought about the future, after we were married, it was always with the optimism that things would be better then. Marriage would be a magic wand and solve all these problems.

What I came to realize, eventually, was that he didn’t really want us to stop. He just wanted to think he was a good person who didn’t take advantage of women– it was me. It was my fault. I was the temptress that lured him back in, again and again.

It was a Wednesday evening, after church. I’d worn a fundamentalist-appropriate going-to-meeting skirt, but it was a nice one that I didn’t want to rumple while we watched a movie. It took me a few minutes to decide what I wanted to change into, studying a loose pair of pajama pants and my jeans. We were in the middle of one of his purity fits, and so I decided to wear the jeans. They were tight and he wouldn’t be able to get his hand down them. But as I put them on I knew — I knew— he wasn’t going to be happy. I felt choked. I couldn’t swallow around the constricted feeling, and my heart was a terrified fluttering bird inside of my chest. My fingers turned ice cold and I could feel myself shaking as I pulled on the jeans and buttoned them up.

He was waiting for me outside the room, his mouth open to say something; then he saw me, and it shut. He stared, coldly furious, at what I was wearing. And then he hissed “what the fuck are you wearing?“, grabbed my arm and hauled me back into the room. He kept his voice low– can’t have anyone overhearing what he was about to do– and I braced myself. I knew how to weather this storm, I knew what the end result would be.

“Uh … jeans?”

He rolled his eyes. “What are you, an idiot? Of course they’re jeans. Why are you wearing jeans?”

“Because they’re comfortable?”

“As comfortable as pajamas? Seriously, Sam?”

I stared at the floor.

Mercurial, he switched tactics. “Baby, baby, don’t you want to … y’know?”

I managed the smallest nod and hoped to God it was perceptible.

“Don’t you know how much I love you? Don’t you understand that I just want to be with you?”

“I know.”

And so I changed. I endured an entire film of him stuffing his fingers inside of me, scratching and clawing, and I, again, did my best to pretend that it was good, so good, for me. I think I was convincing.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s months later. It’s after the rapes, after so many threats and half-breaks-ups and so many pinches and so many times of being hauled out of rooms. We’ve just listened to a chapel message, and I’d learned to identify Dread curled up in the pit of my stomach. It was coming. That conversation was coming. Again. He’d have another purity fit, and I’d have to deal with the mountains of shame he’d hurl at me after it was over and he’d given up.

We were supposed to meet in one of the atriums to go to lunch. I saw him waiting for me, and it was all there: the slumped shoulders, the facial expression that I knew to be the one he put on we he wanted people to think he was convicted and sorrowful and spiritual. And we had the conversation, only this time I was done. I was done pretending. I knew how this was going to end– with him screaming at me and blaming me and mountains and mountains of goddamn you fucking bitch. So I decided to skip it. I decided that instead of agreeing, I was going to soothe his conscience. I was going to tell him that no, no it’s fine and I was going to make up some reason for him not to feel guilty anymore. I was going to smooth over whatever ruffled feathers he had and move on.

What I didn’t know at the time was that I was giving him all the ammunition he’d ever need. I gave him exactly what he wanted, actually– proof. I was the temptress, the Apple, a reincarnated Lilith. I was the problem, not him. I didn’t just soothe his conscience– I expunged it of all guilt. I gave him the power to destroy me and then abandon me and then tell everyone who would listen that it was me. I was the one to blame.

~~~~~~~~~~

I’ve talked to many women after I put all of these pieces together, and I started seeing patterns in what he’d done. Other people have been through this, and one of the most important lessons I’ve learned since I started blogging is the breathtaking power in “me, too.” I don’t know how many people will read this and identify with it, but I hope that if you do you’ll see what I eventually saw.

This is one of the ways we are kept silent. This is one of the ways that you don’t hear us talking about what we’ve been through. Because we feel guilty, and complicated, and confused, and we don’t know how to name what happened. We feel that it’s our fault, but we also feel used and robbed of … something. For women who grow up in purity culture, it’s common to look at all of this and tell ourselves that we’re just feeling the after-effects of “losing our purity.” Next time, it will be better. Next time we won’t let this happen.

And the word for what all of this is goes ignored.

Coercion.

Photo by Helga Weber

March 6, 2015 by SamanthaField

Feminism

"Real Marriage" review: 123-138, "Disgrace and Grace"

[content note: sexual violence and victim blaming]

This chapter was a … struggle. I’ve known it was coming for a while, but I wasn’t certain how bad it would be. It deeply concerns me because if this is how Mark and Grace Driscoll and the pastoral staff of Mars Hill has been counseling sexual abuse survivors I’m horrified, and I’m grieving for all the men and women who have been harmed by their teachings.

There was one section that I didn’t have a problem with, and was encouraged to see– the one headed “Serving and Protecting your Children” on 136-37. She recommends giving children the words they need to describe their abuse, about the difference between good and bad secrets (surprise parties vs. “this will be our little secret”), and assuring them they won’t get in trouble if they relate something that happened to them. She also makes it clear how important it is to believe your children, no matter who they tell you harmed them, and I was grateful for that.

The rest of the chapter, though, was a nightmarish trainwreck and in my opinion is totally irredeemable. Everything she says is not just wrong but actively harmful.

I also think it will be helpful for me to simply allow what she says to speak for itself. Often I get asked why I’m reviewing this book, and this chapter is a perfect example. Grace says some horrific things, but Grace is not alone. She is one evangelical Christian woman among thousands of others and “biblical” counselors who will all tell sexual abuse survivors the exact same thing, and they’ll probably say it in similar ways.

Before we get to that, though, I want to highlight something that I think is revealing:

Was Mark really safe to talk to about it, or would his response cause more pain (123)?

What will happen to our church and our life if they know about my abuse (128)?

The first time I told Handsome about my rape and abuse, it never once occurred to me to wonder if he was a “safe” person. There was not a single second that I was worried if his reaction would hurt me. I was nervous about telling him, but not because I thought he would possibly think of me differently. And this breaks my heart for Grace because her gut knew that Mark’s reaction wasn’t going to be the right one (“Sometimes his responses caused fear all over again” 132); she makes casual references all through this chapter about how Mark had to learn and adapt in order to respond “appropriately,” and she talks about that as if it’s normal.

That is not normal. That is disturbing.

Also, the fact that she was worried about what the congregation at Mars Hill might think tells me that they had not been building a church that was safe for survivors. If a church hears “your pastor’s wife was in an abusive relationship” and reacts with judgment and condemnation, you have not been responsible leaders. Unfortunately, this is a failing endemic to evangelical churches everywhere.

Anyway, I want to spend the rest of the post showing how evangelicals use Christian-ese in order to victim blame survivors.

We wondered if it was really possible to trust each other again … (126) [implying that she had done something by being abused/telling him she’d been abused to be untrustworthy]

I had lived a double life, a pastor’s daughter and wife filled with deception and fear. (127)

That meant asking the Holy Spirit to restore any memories that needed to be brought into the light so I could be cleansed … and it meant Jesus’ righteousness alone had to replace all my old identity of abused, neglected, dirty, and worthless [sic]. (127)

We quickly realized there were large numbers of abuse victims attending our church … Mutual, honest accountability had always felt too vulnerable but it was part of the process I needed to prayerfully participate in. (128) [“accountability” is a term used among Christians that is intrinsically linked to sinfulness; men who struggle with porn have “accountability partners,” many small groups have “accountability times” where they confess sin to each other.]

I finally wanted to put my own sin and shame to death, through Jesus’ death on the cross. (128)

God gave me a few trustworthy women to encourage and exhort me and love me, despite knowing the truth about me. (129)

I never thought [healing] was possible, but that is what repentance and redemption feel like. (129)

To cope with the pain, I initially pretended to be a “good girl,” … without true repentance. (130)

It was an identity crisis [referring to different common coping mechanisms experienced by many survivors] because I wasn’t rooted in Christ. (131)

But we each need a new identity so that we don’t feel condemned by our sin. (132)

I sobbed off and on for hours over the pain of abuse and the conviction of my own sin. (133)

I could give many other examples, but the others need more surrounding context and I’m trying to keep the length of this manageable.

Survivors of abuse– any form of abuse– have not sinned. I don’t know how to stress that any more emphatically. The only person responsible for sin is the one doing the abusing, not the victim. Trusting someone not to hurt you? Not a sin. Expecting someone to be a decent human being? Not a sin. Hoping that your abuser is capable of change and growth? Not a sin.

There is a common argument among evangelicals, especially “biblical counselors,” that it is important to claim “responsibility for your choices”; very often they frame this in terms of “autonomy,” appropriating feminist vocabulary in order to cloak what they actually mean. In reality, what they’re doing is a logical fallacy: post hoc ergo propter hoc, more commonly known as “false cause.” Grace argues that because she chose to date her abuser and chose to have sex with him willingly, she is partly at fault for what happened. If she had not chosen to date him, or chosen to have sex with him, the abuse would not have happened.

And, in a ridiculously literal way, that’s true. However, just because the abuse happened after she started dating him does not mean that she was abused because she dated him. It happened because he was an abuser.

In my opinion, there are few “counseling” ideas more poisonous. I spent so many years trying to do this, trying to be “responsible by recognizing what I had done wrong,” not allowing myself to have a “victim mentality,” and all it did was cause agony.

There’s a secondary problem going on in this chapter, most clearly seen in this:

My judgment was clouded once I had sex with someone outside a marriage relationship. The abuse made me feel dirty and defiled, and the lie that I had no value became even more believable. (136)

This is what purity culture does to sexual abuse survivors. I don’t want to say that without purity culture no victim would ever feel “dirty” or “defiled” after being abused. Abuse is intrinsically a deep spiritual, emotional and physical violation and it will cause pain and suffering, regardless of whether or not purity culture exists. However, Grace feels that because she’d consented to sex that her abuse was inescapable (“I was filled with my own guilt from fornicating and told myself if I married him it would cover my sin somehow” 124), and she felt that way because purity culture teaches women that sex– even rape– makes women dirty and defiled.

And she’s clueless that the “lie that I had no value” comes from purity culture, the exact same lie she’s promoting all the way through this chapter.

November 10, 2014 by SamanthaField

Feminism

#WhyBuffyStayed: Riley and the Cycle of Abuse

I told y’all that one of the reasons why I shifted my schedule down to three posts a week was to work on my non-blog writing and work on getting published. Well, I was published at The Mary Sue yesterday, and if you’ve never checked them out, you really need to if you’re at all a geek. They’re one of my favorite places on the internet, because it’s the crossroads of two of my absolute favorite things: feminism and geekery.

“It shouldn’t have to be necessary for someone to punch his girlfriend in the head with enough force to render her unconscious in order for domestic violence to be a part of the national conversation, but, unfortunately, it is. One of the more visible manifestations of the dialogue surrounding former Baltimore Ravens’ running back Ray Rice and his abuse of then-fiancée (now wife) Janay was the hashtag #WhyIStayed, in which people shared their stories of why they stayed in abusive relationships.

So… why? Obviously, each case is different, but it’s no stretch to say that women stay in abusive relationships at least partly (I believe largely) because our culture tells us to. In a thousand different ways, beginning with “he only makes fun of you because he likes you,” women are instructed to see acts of coercion, aggression, and violence as romantic. Instead of as abuse, women are taught to see these actions as simply the result of true passion and love. Because of this, it can be extremely difficult for a woman to recognize an abuser before she is trapped in the Cycle and left with little or no option for escape.

Sadly, one of my favorite shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is guilty of spreading this dangerous myth. There are so many moments through the show that are worth standing up and cheering for, but in season four—acknowledged even by fans as anything from “mediocre” to the “absolute worst”—Buffy ends up in an abusive relationship that the writers consistently portray as romantic, passionate, and loving.”

You can read the rest here.

Sharing the love and spreading it around a little bit would help me a great deal, if you can and want to. 🙂

October 8, 2014 by SamanthaField

Feminism

things you can do for someone in an abusive relationship

I’m not entirely sure why I haven’t written this post yet– of all the things I should be writing about, this is probably one of the more important. Every so often I get an e-mail along the lines of “I think my son/friend/sister might be in an abusive relationship– what can I do?” and I always take the time to answer these individually, and will continue to do so. However, over time, I’ve realized that there’s a few things I say to pretty much everyone, so I figured I should collect them into a post.

~~~~~~~~~~

Before we get started, there’s a couple terms I need to clarify: abusive behavior, abusive relationships, and abusers.

Someone who is not an abuser can engage in abusive behaviors. Human beings are quite capable of hurting each other, sometimes very deeply and consistently. Our relationships can be unhealthy and co-dependent, and can have various features that are abusive. Those relationships can sometimes be healed, and sometimes they need to be ended. However, there is a difference between someone who does abusive things and an abuser.

An abuser is what American culture tends to think of as a “sociopath,” although it is extremely important to point out that not all sociopaths and psychopaths are abusers. Sociopaths and psychopaths are mentally ill people, and with good and effective treatment can live productive, rich lives, filled with healthy relationships.

An abuser, on the other hand, lacks empathy, a moral conscience, and is driven completely and totally by their own-self interests and in protecting their self-image. They will go to any length to get what they want, and they do not care who they hurt. They are primarily interested in maintaining control in their life and over the lives of their victims.

~~~~~~~~~~

One of the most important (and most complicated) questions should be talked about right up front: should you report it to the police?

The answer: “it depends.” The important thing to keep in mind, however, is that it is extremely difficult for police investigations to move forward without the cooperation of the victim– if the victim denies it, which they are quite likely to, then the investigation will probably stop there, and the victim will face punishment from their abuser for telling anyone “exaggerations” or “lies.” If the victim has confided in you about their abuse but are unwilling to report it themselves, then you need to be extremely careful about what you do with that information. Chances are you could endanger the victim even further. If you break their trust, then they are also unlikely to trust you in the future, when they might be more willing to go to the police with you.

If they confide in you that they are being abused– and they recognize it as abuse– then you should encourage them to make a report. Make sure they know that they have your support– that you will go with them, that you will be there, that you will defend them. That you will not leave them no matter what. That you have their back.

Do not say things like “if you don’t report this, then s/he could go on to do this to someone else. This is your duty.” It is not their responsibility to report their own abuse. Yes, the police can rarely ever do anything without them. However, their only “responsibility” is to themselves. They could quite literally die if they report it, and quite often they are the only defense between their abuser and other people, such as their children.

Individual circumstances might be different, however. If you believe that the victim’s life is in serious and immediate danger, then that changes things dramatically and you should probably notify the police. If the abuse has escalated to that point, then it is possible that a police investigation could be successfully conducted.

Again, all of this depends. Every situation is different.

~~~~~~~~

One of the first things I encourage people to do is “be a safe place.”

People, in general, don’t enjoy having their choices criticized, and while remaining in an abusive relationship isn’t actually a “choice” since their autonomy has been suppressed by their abuser, they tend to think of their relationship in those terms. If you criticize their choices, then they could respond defensively, and the only thing you’ve accomplished is entrenching them even further into their relationship. You will become someone who just “doesn’t see him/her the way I do” or who “doesn’t understand what is really happening.” Frequently, victims see themselves as being necessary to their abuser’s well-being. They are helping their abuser to get better. They’re not blind to the problems– they just see those problems in different terms.

Victims need to know that you love them. That you accept them. That you are trustworthy. That you take the time to understand. Sometimes, they might even approach you with “haha, my partner did this the other day, isn’t that crazy! They’re so funny!” They want someone to confide in, but they want to do it on their terms.

Listen. Be perceptive and alert. Ask leading questions, and see if they might be willing to give you details. Ask things like:

Have they done something like this before?
How does it make you feel when they do something like that?

Try to see if they can be honest about what their relationship is like and what the problems are. Establish patterns– that it’s not a one-off, that what they’re doing fits into things they’ve done before. It’s important to avoid the “every relationship has problems” pitfall, however. Yes, relationships take work, but there is a difference between two people working on figuring out their communication problems and abuse. Do they think that this would ever be “normal” in a healthy relationship? Contrast what they might be rationalizing as “problems that need work” with what are actual real-life problems that need work.

In an abusive relationship, a problem is “I must never, ever go to this person’s house ever again because they would not like it.” In a healthy relationship, a problem is “I should probably talk to my partner about why they don’t like it when I spend time with that person, and I have the ability to make up my own mind and form a compromise, if I want to. They trust me.”

~~~~~~~~~~

As a part of removing a victim’s agency and autonomy, abusers will do everything they can to remove any sense of self-worth, value, and confidence. They might make the victim feel as if they are illogical, as if their own thought processes cannot be trusted. That they are stupid. Ugly. That no one else will ever want them.

You must do the opposite. Let them know that they are a smart, funny, capable, competent, wonderful, valuable person. That you value your relationship with them, that their presence in your life means something to you. That you like them. That you believe in them. That you have hope for their future. That they are fine just they way they are, that they do not need to be “fixed” by their abuser’s “reforms.” Give them something to believe in besides what their abuser is telling them.

~~~~~~~~~~

Be watchful. Pay attention. Abusers can be extremely talented manipulators. They can be charming, friendly, and popular. They can seem extremely well put-together; fashion conscious, meticulous, educated, articulate. They can be someone you’ve known for a very long time. They can be a respected figure in your community, a self-giving public servant.

They can be anyone.

They are usually the person you would never suspect.

They don’t usually have beer-bellies and stubble. They don’t keep a baseball bat near-at-hand. They don’t have to be alcoholics. They’re rarely obviously stupid. They don’t have to be overtly aggressive and domineering, yelling and slapping people around.

It’s not at all unusual for you to second-guess your instincts about a person or a relationship. No one wants to believe that someone we know could be hurting someone else we care about, and we can go a long way in rationalizing behavior we see. Oh, they just had an off day. They’re stressed. It’ll pass.

What an abusive relationship looks like in public can be very difficult to spot, especially if you didn’t know the other person before the relationship began. There can be signs, however– things like does s/he stop a sentence in the middle after their partner/parent gives them a significant look? Does s/he acquiesce to everything the other person wants immediately, even when it’s obvious that’s not what they want, and they don’t resist? If they disagree, is one of them consistently “winning” with hardly any input from the other? Do they try to anticipate what their partner/parent wants and seem stressed if they don’t know how to figure out what that could be? Have you ever seen small aggressions– pinching, pulling, being physically insistent, grabbing tightly, leaning in to whisper angrily? Have you seen them cuss their partner/child out, using degrading and humiliating language?

Keep in mind that while we tend to think of physical abuse as horrific and physical violence as unacceptable, verbal violence is just as damaging, sometimes even more so.

All of these, on their own and in isolation, could mean absolutely nothing, which is why they’re all easily to rationalize. However, if someone is making you uncomfortable, trust that feeling. If you think that something is off, pay attention. Just because they seem to be overtly affectionate in public most of the time, one act of physical aggression completely overrules a host of “I love yous.”

Start keeping a written record of everything you’ve personally witnessed, no matter how small it might seem at the time, and make sure you have a date/time and what the general circumstances were (“at so-and-so’s birthday party”). If they confide something in you, write that down, as well– and try to put things in chronological order. Abusers tend to escalate their behavior over time. Having a written record could be extremely useful later if they decide to report the abuse to the police, for personal reference, and for helping the victim establish patterns.

Also, for victims, the abuse is easy to all blur together and they can lose track of dates and events quite easily– did this happen at this outing, or that one? Was it in summer, or winter? It’s all a monotonous wreck to victims, so having a record can be extremely useful for keeping their memories clear, especially when they go the police who can be antagonistic and disbelieving.

~~~~~~~~~~

Don’t let the abuser isolate their victim from you.

This does not necessarily look like the victim suddenly cutting off all contact with you under orders from their abuser– although it absolutely can. More often, however, the abuser is going to be paying close attention to their victim’s relationships and friendships. Any minor disagreement, any falling out, any tussle, any fight– s/he will use that against you. Things that you would ordinarily never give a second thought about will become knives that the abuser uses to cut you out.

“Wow, she was such a bitch to you. Are you going to let her get away with that?”
“You deserve a better friend than her. She doesn’t care about you.”
“She’s just out to destroy us. She never liked me. She’s jealous.”

One of the most common ways that an abuser will isolate their victim is to make their victim start behaving in a way that makes you, their friend, not want to be around them. She used to be an incredible person– but since she’s been with him, she’s such a bitch. I just can’t stand being around her anymore. She’s changed. I thought our friendship was worth something, but I guess not.

And, it is quite possible that your relationship didn’t mean that much to them, and they really are just treating you badly. But Heaven knows I treated my friends like total shit– it’s an effective tool for isolating victims, because not only does it remove you from a place where you could see their abuse, it also makes you less sympathetic.

It could also look like the abuser saying things like :

“I just want to spend time with you. Just the two of us.”
“I don’t like big crowds of people. Let’s just stay in.”

And… they slowly drift away until you don’t see much of them anymore. Some of this can be due to the first-blush infatuation; people in love do like spending all of their time together, and tend to stop hanging out with their friends as much. However, if your friend completely falls off the face of the earth, reach out to them. It could be nothing– or it could be an abuser isolating them.

~~~~~~~~~~

And, lastly, get a bunch of information ahead of time.

Find the rape crisis centers in your area and collect their addresses/websites.
Get a list of the rape advocates in your area, their phone numbers and organizations.
Know where you could go to get them into a domestic violence shelter.
Know which police service has jurisdiction in what area. Sometimes it’s the city police, sometimes it’s the county sheriff.
Know who has jurisdiction at the victim’s house, at the abuser’s house.
Have the phone numbers to call to file a police report.
Know how to get to the police station.
Keep a list of local hotlines available (suicide, rape, domestic violence).
Gather brochures for shelters, crisis centers, etc.
Have a few books about what abuse is like in relationships, like Why Does he Do That?
Be familiar with public services for rape and abuse victims, like the SANE at a hospital.
Know what procedures are like; what the victim might have to go through to have a rape kit done, for example.

~~~~~~~~~

I realize that a lot of what I said here could be simple, non-abusive things. Sometimes people have social anxiety and they really, legitimately, don’t like big groups of people– or going out at all. That’s ok, and if their partner is consenting to that and wants to support them in that, that’s fine.

However.

There’s a reason why abusive relationships happen, and it’s because all the abuse can seem so totally normal. It can all be so easily explained, justified, and rationalized away. All of it. When taken individually, what they do isn’t even really that bad. And it slowly builds, and the abuser slowly escalates, and suddenly they’re “tripping” and falling down flights of stairs.

~~~~~~~~~~

That is all I have for now. I will probably periodically write more posts as more things occur to me and I receive more questions– they will be linked to this post.Please feel free to add your thoughts in the comments, to help make this post better.

April 22, 2014 by SamanthaField

Feminism

my abusive relationship was typical

[in PCC’s Student Commons, taken during the relationship]
{content note: abuse, sexual violence}

Last week, I wrote an article for xoJane and I shared some things about my past that I haven’t shared on the internet before. I don’t enjoy talking about my abusive relationship at all, and I especially avoid thinking about my last semester at PCC, which was nightmarish with exceedingly few good memories. I was extremely vulnerable in that piece, knowing that there would be people around the internet that would shit on it.

And shit on it they did. Thankfully xoJane actually moderates their comment section and they don’t allow rape apologia, so most of the truly horrific comments have been removed. However, several people expressed confusion about the events I had related in the story, and I was slapped in the face, again, with how much people just don’t know about what abusers do and how abuse functions in relationships. Most of them thought that the events, as I related them, falsified my story in some way and opened the door to some “other side” that could offer an alternate explanation.

Before I start talking about what these people don’t understand, I’m going to share a brief timeline so that the basic facts are clear.

I started officially dating “John” in February 2008, although we’d been casually dating since September 2007.
He’d always used emotional manipulation and coercion, but he escalated this in March.
The physical and sexual abuse began during summer break.
He proposed in August 2008.
He raped me in January 2009.
He raped me again in July.
We had a rather significant fight during the first week in September, and then another. On September 14 I told him that he could not call me a “goddamn fucking bitch” anymore.
He ended our engagement on September 25.
He began calling my dorm room/cell phone repeatedly, even after I told him to stop.
He began physically stalking me.
I was assigned a chapel seat near John at mid-terms.
I went to Student Life in early November, requesting a seat change. They refused.
I stopped going to the cafeteria for meals, afraid that he would be there.
He stalked me for six straight hours on Thanksgiving. The last two hours was a constant barrage of “why won’t you just talk to me?!” that ended with me screaming at him.
I started spending most of my time in my friend’s apartment.
I graduated in December 2009.
He sent me a facebook message on New Year’s Eve, which I ignored, which led to him sending me another dozen messages saying “Sam. Sam. Sam. Sam. WHY ARE YOU IGNORING ME.”
He sent me another facebook message during the summer of 2011, saying “I was thinking about you, if you ever wanted to talk…” I told him to never contact me again, then blocked him (again, not sure how he became un-blocked), blocked his entire family, and blocked any “mutual” friends we had.

To anyone who has escaped an abusive relationship, or to someone who knows how abusive relationships operate, this will all seem very familiar. There isn’t a single thing about this timeline that isn’t shared by thousands of other intimate partner abuse victims. However, to commenters on xoJane and reddit and other places, this timeline makes me seem like a liar.

He broke your engagement?
Why didn’t you break it off with him if he really raped you?
Why would you be engaged to someone like this?
Seems like you’re just a bitter bitch because he dumped you.
Why would he want to talk to you if he broke it off?

All of these comments revealed that an awful lot of people have absolutely no clue how abusers work. Which, in one sense, I suppose is a good thing. I learned first-hand, and I would never wish this experience on anyone. However, the one thing that these people desperately need to understand is that my story is typical. There is nothing unusual, or in the words of one commenter, “fishy” about it.

There’s plenty of amazing resources already written on things like the Cycle of Violence/Abuse (first written about by Lenore Walker in Battered Woman Syndome). We also know that it can be extremely difficult for people, especially women, to escape intimate partner violence– and that many women have attempted to leave their abusive relationship six or seven times. Complicate all of those factors with the ingrained belief that you are literally ruined for any other relationship and no one else will ever want you, and you have something close to approximating my situation.

Most of the commenter’s questions oriented around what happened after he ended our engagement, though– if he broke it off, why would he follow you all over campus begging to talk to you? Couldn’t it be possible that you were exaggerating how bad things really were and he’d had a change of heart? That he really did want to be with you? That he’d changed?

First of all: there’s a reason why the Cycle of Abuse is so damn effective, and that would be it. Women don’t start believing in the Cycle of Abuse because they’re in an abusive relationship– they already believe it before the abuse even begins. Every single time the abuser apologizes and they enter the “Honeymoon Phase,” that is exactly what the victims says to themselves. It’s not actually that bad. Look, see, he’s trying. I just have to make sure he doesn’t lose control again [hint: abusers don’t actually lose control]. And we believe those thoughts because they are given to us by our culture.

Second, abuse is about dominance and power. Abusers abuse because they want to control other people. Just because John had ended our engagement does not mean that he no longer wanted to control me– in fact, it was the exact opposite. When he broke it off, his justification was “I just can’t trust that you’re going to be a godly, submissive wife.” He ended our engagement because I was finally only beginning to realize that I could stand up for myself. I looked him in the eyes and said no and enforced that no. That was why he ended it– it was a tactic in order to re-assert control.

For a month, it even worked. For four miserable weeks I was eager to prove to him that I could be submissive. That I could obey. That I would be what he wanted. For those weeks he manipulated me– encouraging those thoughts, telling me that he didn’t really want our relationship to end, that he’d consider getting back together.

But then I got angry. Furious. It was like I woke up from a dream and I finally saw all of his fucking shit and I got mad. I was angry at him, angry at my parents, angry at my friends, angry at the world, but mostly I was enraged with myself. How could I have let him do that to me! I didn’t understand anything I know now– that I’d been groomed basically my entire life for an abusive relationship by complementarianism and biblical patriarchy. So, one night, when he called my dorm room at one o’clock in the morning asking if we could have a “do-over,” if we could just “erase everything that happened,” if we could just get back together like nothing ever happened—

I told him no.

I said fucking hell no.

And that’s when he started stalking me.

Because he’d lost control.

He knew that I’d woken up– that I knew who he was, and he was desperate to make sure that everyone believed that he was the victim, that I was the stone-hearted bitch that wouldn’t take him back, that I was the crazy one, that he was doing everything he could, but, well, I was the problem because I didn’t “want to make it work.” I became the bad guy, and he made sure everyone knew it. He’d lost control of me, so he’d control what everyone else thought of me. He would not allow anyone to believe me.

That’s what abusers do.

April 16, 2014 by SamanthaField

Social Issues

patterns of abuse

A friend of ours came to visit this weekend, and we’d intended to go up to D.C. to see the cherry blossoms, but very few of the trees are blossoming so we found some indoor things to do because it was raining all day. Handsome and I have been wanting to visit the Holocaust Memorial, but we didn’t realize that there are only so many passes given out in a day, so we ended up only seeing one of the temporary exhibits downstairs: “Some were Neighbors.” It’s devoted to answering the question “how was this atrocity possible? How could people have let it happen?” and it discussed the reality of collaboration during the Third Reich.

One of my chronic health issues reared its rather ugly head by that point in the afternoon, so I sat outside the exhibit on a padded bench while I waited for Handsome and our friend to finish. As I sat there, I overheard the conversations of people exiting, and most of them were about the same thing– if you had been there, what would you have done?

It was a powerful question, and probably one we should be asking ourselves more often. There are all sorts of evil in this world that we are complicit in for a variety of reasons, mostly apathy and ignorance. But what was interesting to me about the nature of these conversations was that most people focused on what they felt were two options: try to protect your Jewish neighbors by risking yourself and your family, or turn your Jewish neighbors in to protect yourself and your family.

Most of the people exiting had the luxury of being able to ask that question and have only two options. They have time, distance, and their comfortable lives in a democratic government. They’re not asking what should we do? while living under the totalitarian control of Hitler’s Third Reich.

Obviously, I have no idea what Nazi Germany was like, not personally. However, I have spent a significant amount of time buried in research about how Hitler motivated and controlled the German people– and one thing that has helped me understand that time in Germany’s history is to think of it in terms of abuse. This is a massive oversimplification, but Germany was in an abusive relationship with Adolf Hitler.

I’ve had the unfortunate experience of being in both an abusive romantic relationship, and I also spent the bulk of my life in a totalitarian, thought-controlled abusive community. To an extremely limited extent, I can understand what it must have been like to be a non-Jewish German citizen in the 30s and 40s. I know that for many people living under the Third Reich, the question what should I do? didn’t have two clearly different answers, and they weren’t asking the question under what seems to be extremely obvious terms to us: that sending people to concentration camps was heinously evil.

To someone living during Hitler’s regime, it is quite possible that sending people to the concentration camps was seen as a necessary evil– perhaps, to some, even a good thing. To us, that seems insane. How could anyone have possibly seen the concentration camps in those ways?

It could happen– in the same way that I believed, to the core of myself, that I needed to be hurt in order to become a better person. I was convinced that what my abuser was putting me through was making me into the person I’d always believed I needed to be. Yes, it was hard. Yes, it was painful. Yes, the people outside of our relationship didn’t understand— but it was necessary. I needed him to hurt me.

It could happen– in the same way that I grew up being taught that some people deserved to be tortured eternally for the sin of rejecting Christ. I believed that someone could reject Christ without ever knowing who he was, without ever hearing his name or knowing about his life. I believed that God held every human being that has ever lived, breathed, and died, accountable, and if they were not fortunate enough to live in a place that knew about Christianity, that they would be made to burn for the rest of eternity in a reality that would never cease to be the most excruciatingly painful thing anyone could possibly experience. I not only believed that eternal conscious torment was a reality, I believed that it was necessary. I believed that God’s righteousness demanded it. I believed that in order for God to be holy, that sin must be punished– and the only possible way for that to happen was a literal Hell.

Perhaps, for the people of Germany, it was something like that. Perhaps they received the same sorts of comforts I did. In my relationship, I had the honor and privilege of being good enough for him. I was proud to be his girlfriend, his fiance, and I was going to be proud to be his wife, of being worthy of that title.

In my church, I knew that we were special. We had the truth. We knew what needed to be done. We were called to live a life of holiness, of separation. We would not associate with Belial. And we were commanded to do that by our leader– the one God had put over us, the one who God had called to shepherd us. He was responsible for us. He would direct us. He would show us how to live clean, pure, godly lives.

In that way, I think I can understand. I can understand the simultaneous terror and wonder. Of being fearful of the consequences of disobeying, but caught up in the majestic promises, swept along with the victories . . . and willing to ignore the atrocities.

April 1, 2014 by SamanthaField

Feminism

what Fireproof and Twilight have in common

During my undergrad days, one of my friends convinced me to read the Twilight series. At first I rolled my eyes at the “vampire books,” but I did read them— flew through them, really.

I strongly, strongly identified with Isabella Swan– but when I tried to explain it to my friends, all that I could come up with was that “we were both clumsy.” My friends laughed at me, or rolled their eyes, so eventually I shut up about it. I was never able to figure out exactly what it was about Bella that tugged at me so much. I knew it had something to do with her relationship with Edward– I was frequently able to draw direct parallels to my relationship with John*.

When our relationship ended in disaster and I realized not terribly long after that our relationship had been abusive, the connection between Meyer’s books and my relationship hit me square in the face. I’d identified with Bella because she was in love with an abuser. She felt the same way about her abuser that I’d felt about mine. She’d used all the same exact justifications, the same coping mechanisms, everything. Everything was ok, everything was fine– after all, Bella had gone through the same exact thing with Edward, and they were the perfect couple.

I remembered trying to explain this sentiment to a friend, and the best thing I could come up with was that our relationship had a lot of “passion,” and that while it was a “roller-coaster,” I would be “bored with anything less.” She stayed mostly quiet, but I could tell that she disagreed with me– I just didn’t fully realize about what. Now I knew. While Bella and Edward’s relationship had parallels with mine, the abuse John* put me through was so much worse. Everything he ever did was a tactic to control me, to get me to comply with all of his commands, no matter how extreme– even if he had to scream at me, had to physically hurt me. And it worked.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don’t recall exactly at what stage John* and I watched Fireproof together, but it was sometime after he’d proposed. One of the married couples from church had loaned it to my family, and it was being hailed all over my college campus as a relationship-must. Its accompanying book, The Love Dare, was making the rounds among most of my friends, and was touted as one of the best books written on Christian relationships. I didn’t think that my relationship was struggling, but I was an avid believer in having the tools before you needed them, so I figured it couldn’t hurt.

After the movie ended, John* was upset. He pulled me into the hallway leading to my room and demanded that I explain to him what that had been all about. “Are you trying to say that I’m like that? That I do that? You think I’m some kind of a jerk like he was?”

And I protested, no, no, of course not, I hadn’t seen it yet, I didn’t know what it was about– and, after all, it was really the wife’s fault. He was just responding to her indifference and disrespect. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but fear was tingling in my fingertips and wrenching my stomach. I could feel his fingers clamping around me arm, I watched as rage enters his eyes.

“You’re right. If you ever treat me the way she treated him, well. . . . ” He didn’t have to finish his sentence. I knew.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Last week, one of my favorite bloggers, Sarah Moon, live-tweeted her viewing of Fireproof and Courageous. Reading through what she said brought that memory back, and it was almost impossible to stop myself from re-living the experience of looking into his eyes and knowing that he was capable of beating me if he felt like it. One of the scenes she highlighted– the part where Kirk Cameron’s character backs his wife up against a wall while he’s screaming at her– I remembered vividly. I remember it in a way that I don’t remember the rest of the film. I can still recall the basic plot and my mother saying something about how Cameron’s wife stood in for the actress during the last kissing scene, but everything pales in comparison to that particular scene.

I remember the exact way I felt while I watched Cameron’s character scream at his wife. I remember seeing the expression on the wife’s face, I remember forcing myself not to shrink away from John*. I remember wanting to stop the movie– right then– and go do something so I could eliminate the anxious, twisted feeling that felt like a horrible presence in my head, taunting me.

But I also remember the way I felt after the movie ended. I remember what I believed about my relationship with John* after it was over. I adopted what the scriptwriters and producers had just spent the last 90 minutes trying to convince me of– that all relationships, even ones that are emotionally and verbally abusive– need work, that both people have to participate, that you should never, ever give up no matter how bad it gets. They put an abusive relationship on that screen and got me to believe that lie that if I just worked, if I just dared, that I could fix my relationship. Leaving him wasn’t an option– that was only what the “world” (and, apparently, in Fireproof-land, the “world” is exclusively made up of black women) would try to get me to abandon my relationship. But that was not loving. That was not what a Christian would do. No, a Christian woman who is being emotionally and verbally abused by her partner will stick by him and give him one more chance . . . and then another . . . and then another . . .

John*, as a highly skilled manipulator and abuser, didn’t really need that much help in making sure I remained submissive and compliant. He didn’t need help– but he got it anyway. He got it from dating books and purity manuals and the Twilight series and Sherwood Baptist Church. And I’m realizing that one of the answers to the question “why don’t you just leave your abusive husband/boyfriend?” is to point at all the things in American culture that scream at women don’t leave him, it’s not that bad, if you just work and do what he says things will get better. It’s in our most popular books, it’s in our movies . . . and it is a deeply held belief in Christian culture, too.

In all of the dating and relationship advice books that I’ve read, in all the sermons I’ve listened to about marriage, it is extraordinarily rare to hear anything that could help a man or woman in an abusive relationship. Abusive husbands and the wives they hurt are invisible. No one wants to talk about them. It’s a hard, desperate reality. And so, a pastor gets up on Sunday morning, delivers a message for married couples, and ignores the fact that if his church has 50 married couples, 10 of them are physically abusive— and half of these people are being raped, usually in a degrading way purposefully intended to humiliate them.

I know this isn’t a reality we want to talk about. I desperately wish I could live in a world where none of these things happen.

But, the reality is that one of the biggest reasons why women are abused and raped is that we never say anything. And if we do say something, it’s to create a movie about an abusive husband and tell the wife that leaving him would be wrong.

November 19, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

songs and ballads and True Knights

from HBO’s Game of Thrones, Season 3.

trigger warning for emotional and physical abuse

Just a heads up– tiny spoilers for Storm of Swords.

I’ve been reading through A Song of Ice and Fire by G. R. R. Martin for the past few months. Ordinarily I speed through fantasy novels like a hot knife through butter, finishing entire series in a matter of days, but I haven’t been able to do that. Game of Thrones was incredibly difficult for me to read, especially after you-know-what for anyone who’s read the books (or seen the show. I have not watched it yet). They are not your typical epic fantasy fare– it’s not that they’re so much darker than other fantasy novels I’ve read, it’s that they are . . . so very deeply human. I’m sure anyone familiar with the series is already brutally aware of this, but none of Martin’s characters are especially good– or especially bad. There are characters you’re rooting for all through Game of Thrones, and character you absolutely despise, but then you get to Storm of Swords and you’re reading the book from the perspective of the “evil” character, and you realize . . . no one’s particularly “evil” in these books. There’s no bad guy.

But, at first, one of the characters I fiercely hated in the first book was Sansa Stark. After the incident in the woods with Arya, especially, and the whole mess that resulted from that. I found myself nodding my head when The Hound constantly insults her with “little bird,” telling her that she’s just a silly little girl that is naive and silly and who romanticizes everything even when her situation should make it clear that Joffrey does not love her and Cersei does not have her best interests at heart. She seems to play a constant game of make believe, seems to purposely delude herself.

But then I read this scene:

“I want you to tell me the truth about this royal boy,” said Lady Olenna abruptly. “This Joffrey.”

Sansa’s fingers tightened around her spoon. The truth? I can’t. Don’t ask it, please, I can’t. ” I . . . I . . . I . . . “

. . .

“Calm yourself child,” the Queen of Thorns commanded.

“She’s terrified, Grandmother, just look at her.”

. . .

Sansa felt as though her heart had lodged in her throat . . . a shiver went through her. “A monster,” she whispered, so tremulously she could scarcely hear her own voice. “Joffrey is a monster. He lied about the butcher’s boy and made Father kill my wolf. When I displease him, he has the Kingsguard beat me. He’s evil and cruel, my lady, it’s so. And the queen as well.”

After the end of the chapter, I had to stop reading just to cry, because it suddenly hit me. I could feel my heart pounding against my bones, everything throbbed– I felt hot and cold flashes everywhere.

I was Sansa Stark.

I’d been raised with the expectation that I would marry a knight in shining armor, or a prince. All the stories I had were in places like Lady in Waiting and Stay in the Castle. All the images I had, all the metaphors, all the stories, fit inside this narrative. I was a princess who had locked herself in a tower to protect herself from “the world,” and I would spend my life waiting for my “one true love” to come and claim me (with permission from my father, of course). This knight-errant, this prince, would be good and noble and just, a “True Knight,” like Sansa would call him. He would follow honorable codes of conduct, be respectful of authority. He would be handsome, and kind. And we would live happily ever after.

So, when I met John*, I instantly saw in him all the traits I’d been taught to look for. He was gallant, charming– a gentleman in every respect. He held the doors open, he stood in the cafeteria line, again, just to get me a cookie. He found the biggest bouquet of stargazer lilies for our first date, remembering after I’d mentioned once that I liked lilies. He wrote me poetry, and songs, he played his guitar for me over the phone, he passed me notes written on 3×5 cards between classes.

Everything, everything, was exactly as I’d been told it should be.

So when he started emotionally manipulating me, I was so utterly blind to it. He was kind and devoted— so when I was up, huddled on the cold tile of my bathroom floor, until two or three in the morning, listening to him rage and sob about how terrible I was being, that I just didn’t understand how much he loved me, I had no way of processing what was happening. Even when he started physically hurting me– twisting my arm, squeezing my knuckles together, pinching me, I was so deeply buried in the story that I believed with all my heart– that I was blind. He was my True Knight. He was rescuing me from myself. He was teaching me how to be good, how to be self-controlled, how to be the meek, quiet, gentle wife I’d been taught I was supposed to be but couldn’t manage to become on my own.

So when Sansa spoke those words, when she said, out loud, what Joffrey was– that he was a monster, and cruel– it was a flash of recognition so strong it bowled me over. There were people around her– people like the Hound, who were trying to show her what was happening, but she couldn’t see it. It wasn’t necessarily stubbornness, or willful ignorance. It was that she didn’t have any other way of viewing her relationship with Joffrey. The songs and the ballads were all she had. For her to admit, really admit, that Joffrey was not the True Knight she desperately wanted to believe he was– I’ve been there.

I was helping with the dress rehearsal changes of a dramatic production the first time I saw it. John* had been made director, and I had actually helped him cast the short play immediately after he’d broken our engagement– and become friends with two of the women in his play. During the final rehearsal, when I was pinning on her wig, she was ranting.

“I don’t know how you were ever in a relationship with him! He is such a jerk!”

I tried not to meet her eyes in the mirror, concentrating on making sure the wig was appropriately disheveled. “What do you mean?”

“He’s so manipulative! It’s like he’s always had everything he’s every wanted, exactly when he wanted it, and we all have to bow and scrape and be his little slaves. It’s like we all have to be mind-readers. If we don’t do exactly what he wants, exactly what he wants, then he completely looses it and starts screaming. It’s a freaking tantrum!”

I laughed, nervously.

“Did he ever do that to you?”

My throat tightened. I couldn’t swallow. My ears were ringing. “Yeah . . . yeah, he did. A lot.”

And, suddenly, her hand was touching mine, holding it still, and I met her eyes in the mirror. She was crying. “That’s not all he did, is it?”

I shook my head, and then she was holding me, and I was sobbing in the dressing room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After that night, though, somehow– things were better. Worse, but . . . better. Freer, in a way. I’d said it. I’d told someone. I’d finally told someone, and even though I didn’t tell her anything specific, it was like saying those words out loud helped me break out of the cage I’d been in for years.

He was a monster.

A liar.

He’s evil and cruel, my lady.

October 3, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

sexual abuse, rape, and sexual coercion

trigger warning for sexual assault, abuse, descriptions of rape, victim blaming, and emotional manipulation

Yesterday, one of my readers bravely allowed me to publish her story as a guest post, and I am fiercely proud of her for that. Telling your story in a public space is a daunting, overwhelming thing. Especially since there are people on this mostly-amazing internet that come to places like this one and jump in, feet first, with statements along the lines of “what happened to you was your fault. You should have ________.”

And, honestly, I expected a comment like that on her post because of part of what is in her story– part of what is in so many stories. And, lo and behold, I got one. I decided not to publish it because the women and men who will come here and read her story must have a safe place. They don’t need to hear that. They hear it from everyone else, and I won’t tolerate it on that post.

But, I wanted to write this because there was a part of Alena’s story that resonated with me on a deep, visceral, whole-body, gut-wrenching level. If you’ve ever experienced sexual abuse in a relationship, you might recognize it, too.

When he held me down, I was confused, even cried and begged him to stop, but he would keep going, He would try to coerce me, saying things like “don’t you like this?” I was weak in my protestations, speaking softly, trying to explain why I wasn’t okay with his actions even as he ignored me and did whatever he wanted. He drew reactions from me I couldn’t control, and that robbed me of the ability to think clearly. I judged myself weak and wanton, because he made me feel things against my will. . .

That part, right there, is the part of her story that grabbed me and wouldn’t let go, because I’ve been there. And I know, from experience, that so many of us have been there. For many of us, this part of our story is what keeps us trapped and silent.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first physical thing that John*, my rapist, ever did, he did without my consent. We were in the orchestra pit, rehearsing for an operetta, and we were the only percussionists. It was dark, we were in the back . . . I stood up to flip the sheet music, and when I sat back down on my stool, his hand was there, palm-up, waiting to touch my rear end. He arranged it so that I would completely unknowingly sit on his hand and give him the opportunity to grab my ass.

At the time, I didn’t think much of it. I blushed, slightly uncomfortable, but . . . he hadn’t really done anything. It was perfectly innocent, right? He didn’t mean anything by it. Of course he didn’t. And so, I didn’t correct him, didn’t even comment on it.

He did that intentionally.

Like most abusers and rapists, he set up a situation in order to gauge my response. How would I react when he did something without asking me first? Would I call him on it, or would I let it go? If I did get upset about it, how easily could he convince me that it wasn’t worth getting upset over?

I didn’t say anything. I let it go.

And it escalated. Slowly. Little things, harmless things, innocent things– all things that on their own I could brush off and ignore. I wasn’t asking for any of it, didn’t want any of it, and any time he did something my reaction was never positive. It was clear to him that I didn’t want it, but the only thing that he cared about was if I was ever going to say anything. How far were my limits? How far could he push me?

We dated for almost three years. And in those three years he sexually assaulted me well over a hundred times and raped me twice. But, to people like the man that left that comment here last night, I am being “unfair.” He didn’t actually assault me. He didn’t actually rape me. It’s my fault, because I didn’t tell him no “clearly” enough. I didn’t “stand my ground.” I didn’t make sure he knew I didn’t want what he was doing.

To women who have been in sexually abusive relationships, that is a gigantic, heaping mound of horse shit.

Because there is no “No.” It’s a word that doesn’t exist, because our abuser has purposely stolen it from us; robbed us of the ability to think it, let alone say it. There’s actually a term for this predatory behavior: it’s called sexual coercion. Simply put, “sexual coercion is the act of using pressure, alcohol, drugs, or force to have sexual contact with someone against his or her will.” Pressure, in the case of sexually abusive long-term relationships, usually comes in the form of emotional abuse and manipulation.

In my relationship with John* I performed many, many acts against my will. I had no desire to engage in the sexual behavior he insisted on. The thought of performing fellatio on him nauseated me in the extreme– but I still did it. I did it without him hitting me, or forcing me in any physically violent way. Any time he touched me made me sick. The thought of kissing him turned my stomach into knots and made me want to vomit. But I kissed him anyway. I “let” him touch me intimately because I had been groomed, for months on end, to “let” him do whatever he wanted because he wanted it. What I wanted didn’t matter- not even to me.

When he had escalated the physicality to the level where he would touch me intimately is where everything goes crazy inside of my head. Because, for a very long time, he didn’t ask me to do anything to him. He didn’t force me to stroke him. He didn’t force me to perform fellatio. He didn’t force me to do anything– to him. What he did do, however, was force reactions from my body that were completely outside of my control. He would hold me down, and he would start convincing me. “I just want to make you feel good,” he would say, over and over, all while never caring if I even wanted it. Oh, but he knew exactly what he had to do in order to trigger a chemical response from my body that I didn’t want. “Doesn’t this feel good? I can feel you getting wet,” he would say, over and over and over and over . . . And he would never stop, not even when it became painful, not even when I started flinching and pulling away. “Just let me make you feel good,” he would start until I just gave in and stopped trying to resist, confused and afraid and lost.

But, according to men like those from last night, I had the power to stop it, right? I could have said no. I had the option of not letting it continue. Secretly, I must have wanted it. I was sending “mixed signals.”

The first time he raped me– men like those who left that comment last night, if they were standing in that room, probably wouldn’t even call it rape.

We’d gone to a funeral, and made it back to his parent’s home well before he expected them to arrive. He pulled me into the room I’d been sleeping in, told me to get down on the floor and begin masturbating. And I did it. When he told me to pull my underwear down, I did. When he got on top of me and told me to stroke him, I did. When he told me to start trying to put him inside of me is when I hesitated— and instantly the same tired threats began. He started cursing at me, verbally abusing me, making it clear what would happen to me if I didn’t do exactly as he said right fucking now, and so . . . I started to try.

But I stopped. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to have sex with him. I started sobbing, begging him not to make me do it. I pleaded with him the entire time while he started stroking himself and forcing himself inside of me.

It was the first time I’d ever really said no. It was the first time I’d ever said “no” and he didn’t even bother trying to convince me. He’d done what he had intended to do all along. He’d taken “no” away. He’d made “no” meaningless. He’d made it so that when I said “no,” all he heard was “push harder.”

So, you, men and women of the internet who think that all we have to do is “say no”?

You can go fuck yourselves.

September 6, 2013 by SamanthaField

Social Issues

the importance of being a safe harbor

I emerged from the student affairs office, exhausted, wrung out, and battling my desperate need to curl up into a ball and cry. The conversation I’d just been forced to have had been so invasive, so demanding, so controlling that it had left me feeling battered. Everything inside of me was telling me to find a corner somewhere and hide until it was safe to come out again, but I didn’t know where to go. Nowhere on that campus felt safe– it was like I could feel people staring at me around corners, and I had to fight against the urge to constantly check over my shoulder.

When I got out into the hallway, thanking my lucky stars that it was between classes so the hallways were empty, I ran into Andrew*.

During the course of my three-year relationship and engagement with John*, my rapist, I had lost most of my friends. In what had been, at the time, “my own decision,” I had cut myself off from almost all of my friends for one reason or another. By the time I finally and mercifully escaped that relationship, I realized that losing my friends had not been my decision at all– I’d done it because John had told me to, and that was it. He had felt threatened by the friends who were willing to tell me the truth about what they were seeing.

Andrew, for some reason, was an exception. It’s not that John hadn’t felt threatened by him– because he had. He had forbidden me from talking with him, and I actually had. I’d cut off all contact with him whatsoever. Refused to even look at him when I passed him on the sidewalk, or in church, or in the cafeteria.

But that day, after John had broken our engagement and I’d been dragged into student affairs more than once and it felt like I was reaching my breaking point, Andrew was there, in the hallway. He didn’t say a word. He took one look at my face, and he hugged me.

For a moment, I was frightened– what was he doing? He knew physical contact between genders was against the rules!

But that lasted for a microsecond. In an instant, I went from terror, to devastation, to the simple knowledge that I needed that embrace more than I needed air to breathe. I needed him to not say anything, to not offer me advice, or a word of comfort, or a solution, or a way to fix me so I’d feel better. I needed him, as a friend, to hold me, and give me a place where I could exist for a single moment in safety.

Over the next few weeks, Andrew continued being that safe place.

He never asked questions.

He never gave me any words of wisdom on how to deal with a breakup.

He never tried to help me.

He was just . . . my friend.

And it didn’t matter that I hadn’t spoken to him in well over a year. It didn’t matter how I’d treated him, how I’d slighted him. He was there, and that was what I needed in one of the darkest times of my life. In the few months it took to repair some of the damage wreaked on my other friendships, he got me through it by taking me to dinner with his group, by making church less miserable, by shielding me from John when he tried to verbally attack me in public. He never pried into some of the things he’d known or witnessed, he never took me to task for the things I’d done while being controlled by an abusive manipulator. He knew he didn’t need to understand anything, or to know anything, to support me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That was over three years ago, and it’s taken me that long to realize the importance of being a safe place for someone, a harbor they can come to in order to escape a storm.

The compulsion to help is a strong one, but very often, our definition of help is not helpful at all. Because we see help as only being helpful when there’s a concrete, evidential improvement in the circumstances of someone’s life. So, we give advice, and believe that if our friend takes it, their circumstances will improve. Or we give money. Or a thousand other things that we do in an effort to truly help.

And we forget that sometimes, none of that is important.

Sometimes, all a person needs is a respite. It could look like not saying anything, or completely ignoring the problem, whiling away the time in productive things, or non-productive things. It means asking the question “what do you need?” and then listening for the response. It means not sticking our oar into a problem that we are not capable of understanding, because we are not our friend.

Sometimes, all our friend needs is a place to come to where they’re not going to be hammered with constant interrogations into their motives and reasoning. A place where they can come and have their agency as an adult recognized. A place where they are not demeaned, but respected as someone capable of making their own decisions. A place where they can be empowered and strengthened in their autonomy, a place where someone they care about cares about them, and not the fabrication of who they “should” be.

May 24, 2013 by SamanthaField