I guess if I know that people are engaging in consenual violence, within certain limitations, it’s none of my business. But I don’t really want to know people who act like that, and coming across this situation by chance I’d have to assume it’s not consensual. The limitations are that it’s not great violence anyway. Even if it’s consensual I can’t stand by and watch two people kill each other. And I detest the idea of an unfair fight, so no way I let the big one beat the the hell out of the little one just because they can.
I should add that they didn’t knock on the doors of anyone else who called and those people didn’t come out to speak to the police.
I’ve never dealt with this, but I know more than one person who has, and fairly closely.
There are a lot of reasons why someone would want to stay with an abusive partner. Some are financial; the abused partner may be so completely dependent on the abuser that she can’t afford to leave. She may not have worked in a while and doesn’t have the skills or the support system to get one, because the abuser cut her off from anyone who can pitch in to watch the kids. No money means no separation, and social services often means some busybody who pries into her private life.
Some are due to fear or threats. Most, if not all, abusers are wonderful at mind games. Even if they do not make direct threats, they make their victims feel like they have been threatened directly, but the lack of direct threats makes the abuser much harder to prosecute, and the abuser generally knows this. In fact, many abusers know the limits of the law and know how close they can get without crossing those limits. It’s very difficult to leave if you know or think you will be physically hurt if you do, and you may not trust anyone else to keep you safe, even a domestic violence shelter, and the lack of threats and relatively minor acts of violence (a pinch here or a smack there or other acts that don’t leave visible marks) make it difficult to take legal action since no one saw or heard anything.
And some are due to cultural or family issues. I once met a woman who was in an abusive relationship. She came from a cultural and religious background that held that you never leave your husband, ever, and that if your husband is abusive, it’s because you’re not a good-enough wife and mother. (I can’t remember the specifics, but it’s some uber-fundie sect.) He beat her almost to death in front of their kids, claiming that he needed to put the fear of God into her. A neighbor called an ambulance, and the hospital called the cops and social services. Hubby was sent to jail for a while, and the wife – with the help of social services and private charity – was able to leave the community with her kids and start a new life elsewhere.
Domestic violence is a complicated problem, and sometimes, there are no good solutions.
You may beat your slave often, but chances are you only had to beat him into complete submission once. Thereafter you needed only raise your arm and he would submit.
When you’re beating someone into complete submission, it’s not uncommon to continually tell them things like, “No one gives a shit about you! No one cares! No one is coming to help you! I could kill you right now and no one would ever know! No one can hear you!” The two things, combined together, damage people in ways you cannot even imagine.
People stay in ongoing violent relationships sometimes because they have been beaten into submission. They are convinced no one can help them, no one cares, no one even notices what’s happening to them. The oppressor, in this circumstance may begin to feel cocky and take his violence out into the open, where others can see. When no one reacts, reports or notices, it totally reinforces the beaters message to the victim, that no one cares.
I don’t care if, when the police show up, they get shined on. I don’t care if they want my name, I’m happy to give it, I’ve done nothing wrong. Should the beater make overtures to me, I’ll call the police on him too.
I am not capable of just walking by, when I see violence being perpetrated on another, it’s not in my make up.
I think that’s a huge stretch and extraordinarily easy to say if you’ve never been in an abusive relationship. Having been in a physically and emotionally abusive relationship, I can tell you that I was terrified out of my mind to leave him. He threatened to kill me and my family and, given that he raped me repeatedly and beat the shit out of me on a regular basis, why would I suspect he wouldn’t? And I felt like I was absolutely nothing - completely powerless and unimportant to anyone and everyone.
Also, I was in high school. I really didn’t think I could tell anyone what was going on and, looking back, I simply wasn’t emotionally secure enough to know that I had any power whatsoever over the situation. It’s kind of frustrating for me to see this mindset because it’s so very simplistic (no, I’m not calling the poster “simple”), like telling someone who’s depressed to just snap out of it.
As for “consensual” domestic violence, it’s so hard to tell. If I think someone is being hurt, I’m probably going to call the cops one way or the other.
Well good on you then, if someone really wants help I’m glad to do more than call police. But I’m not going to waste my time if it is clear I’m just going to become a pawn in someone’s drama game. There is only so much time in the day.
A few years back, someone here told a story about trying to get some guy (a total stranger to the Good Samaritan Doper) to stop wailing on his girlfriend outside of a restaurant, whereupon the couple did indeed disengage from assaulting each other, and both of them started hitting the meddling interloper…
If people want to be honestly consensually violent toward each other, they need to shut the fuck up while doing it and do it in private, or take up socially-acceptable sports that allow them to beat the shit out of each other. Kendo (essentially Japanese fencing) left me with some impressive bruises, and my friends and I would compare them after practice.
Similar to what Nava mentioned, I knew a couple (friends of friends) who just freaking loved having screaming fits at each other, then having crazy make-up sex afterwards. Good for them, right? Yeah, not so much when it leads to stuff like:
- screaming leads to noise violation/domestic abuse call while the lovebirds were staying in my friends’ house temporarily while they’re looking for a place
- screaming fit and then disappearing for make-up sex while they’re hosting a cookout for a bunch of friends in their backyard (at least they went into the house for both, but you could still hear the yelling) - we had to sit there and roll our eyes, then avoid making awkward remarks later
- having a little girl and continuing their behavior with her around, so she gets to live in fear of her parents’ volatile nature/‘why do Mommy and Daddy fight, is it my fault’/learn this oh-so-healthy model of adult romantic relationships.
No, good on you for being able to distinguish real violence from ‘consensual’ on sight. You should offer your services to the police.
I never claimed that, I thought I made it clear I was talking about couples where police are there more than the pizza guy.
Nitpick: The verb you’re looking for is “whaling,” not “wailing.” Although someone whaling on you may lead to your wailing in pain.
I dunno, maybe “wailing” is some strange non-physical emotional bukkake.
Agreed. If I can hear someone being beaten, I’m not really that interested in whether or not they’re being beaten up “consensually,” (which according to some in this thread seems to mean “not having left an abusive relationship yet,” which seems like a pretty broad stretch of the term “consensual”). I’m calling the cops and letting them sort it out. If you don’t want your consensual beating to attract the attention of the police, then don’t let the neighbors hear it.
Sorry if I misunderstood.
So how, when you walk past something in the street, do you distinguish between they, ‘really want help’, and, ‘becoming a pawn in someone’s drama game’?
Are you asking questions? Do you know them personally? Judging by their clothes? Watching for a while first? Decide she’s asking for it for being such a shrew? Seen them before, must just be their way?
You’ve been trying to imply shit forever, when none was implied by my OP.
I made the topic because I find the topic frustrating to deal with, but obviously I really think the shrew deserves a few good smacks.:rolleyes: Gimme a break.
I’m not implying anything, actually, just trying to get to the actual pith of whatever it is you’re trying to say.
Is there some reason you can’t answer the question I asked you? You seem to be able to distinguish something called ‘consensual’ violence from ‘run of the mill’ violence. I’m just trying to understand how you do that.
(You’re welcome to put in as many roll eyes as you need, if that helps.:D)
Those seemed like legitimate questions to me.
Well first of all if I walk by people fighting on the street I’d call the cops if possible, why wouldn’t I?
A example of the frustrating crap I’m talking about is one of my wife’s distant cousins who lives a few doors down. He has had a decades long “relationship” with a woman who doesn’t live with him and who he has no kids with, she also is not dependent on him financially. However they occasionally get together to get high, have sex, fight and attempt murder.
She has set him and his room on fire, doused him with kerosine and set him on fire. He refused to press charges or even discuss it with the police saying it was an accident.
She once slashed himup with a knife(she probably got slashed too) and he was forced by family to go to the hospital. Once again he refused to speak to police, they even put him in the psych ward for suicide attemps.
He has yanked her out of a moving car, they both beat each other up in public all the time. ONCE this lead to himgoing to jail because cops just happened to be passing and saw it, they usually take off before police arrive.
After the fire incident he got into a fistfight with a male family member who said the insanity had gone too far. They have called the cops when sighting her, she was always gone when they got here. They tried to take out a restraining order against her to no avail. She has one against him and has sent him to jail over it once.
Its not the USA and the cops now laugh over it and don’t even bother to respond usually. Every so often you hear them going at it.
So what do you do? It is frustrating as hell.
Ultimately, you cannot save people who don’t want to be saved.
For some people it’s a dance they consensually indulge in again and again, for other people it’s an abusive shock. DianaG makes an important note that there is point where staying even after getting beaten or abused is a choice.
The weird thing is that if you actually watch these dynamics unfold in some (certainly not all) cases the nominally abused person is quite deliberately trying to get rise out of the abuser even though the result is going to be highly unpleasant as if the drama and attention that will ensue are worth the explosion. It’s a weird and complex tango some people dance.