Also, spend some time perusing http://manboobz.com/ if you want a wake-up call about which sex glorifies/obsesses about violence against the other.

I hopped on to say something to this effect, and then mischiefmanager beat me to it. I tried (somewhat bumblingly) to say something about this over at one of the blogs that linked to the earlier post and I don’t think I was very articulate. I’m someone who believes firmly in nonviolent practice, and tries to cultivate lovingkindness towards others in my thoughts and feelings. I also think that the responses we have (even the ones we find unsavory or embarrassing or frightening) can be super instructive vis a vis understanding how we are affected by culture.

So I don’t think it’s “hypocritical” to have an emotional response to a story like the OP story that wonders whether there was long-term domestic violence involved (him against her or her against him). What WOULD be wrong is to have that response and not recognize the difference between that and the actual evidential truth of a specific case. What WOULD be wrong is to actually blame the victim, rather than acknowledge that our culture conditions us to suspect male-on-female domestic violence as a background for these stories. What WOULD be wrong is to call for actual bloodshed against all men and/or all abusers … or to use violent rhetoric toward men as a class. I don’t think it is wrong to acknowledge that human beings are complicated and we often have emotions that are contradictory and impulsive. We are at our best when we do not act on impulse, but separate fantasy from actual fact. Which is more or less what several folks have said here already.

My partner is the survivor of an abusive relationship, and when she is having a bad dissociative episode (or sometimes when she just mentions something off-hand that tells me how poisonous the relationship was) I have the immediate urge to do real physical harm to her ex-partner. I have occasionally voiced that urge because I think it’s important for my partner to know how categorically wrong I think the abuse was, and how strong my emotional reaction is. That does not mean I would ever actually act on the impulse to do physical harm towards someone who was not immediately threatening my physical safety.

Sometimes, I think the strange quasi-private, quasi-public realm of internet blogging blurs folks’ sense of what sort of conversation is happening in what sort of space. This is a public blog, yes, but it’s also a fairly personal blog … a collection of personal voices. Becky’s original post was not an official op-ed somewhere or a policy piece nor a call for actual specific actions. I think that it’s okay in the space of a blog like this to acknowledge our knee-jerk reactions and think about how those reactions reflect on the culture in which we live and on ourselves.

Kari, I don’t agree that revenge fantasies are unhealthy. I think that, like other kinds of fantasies, they can be a helpful way of processing feelings that can’t be satisfactorily addressed in real life. Bad things happen to good people sometimes, and justice isn’t always served. As long as you keep control of the fantasies and don’t let them take over your life, I think they’re a reasonable reaction to a world that can be violent, scary, and unjust.

One of the reasons I love murder mysteries is that they satisfy my personal wish to balance the scales. Lisbeth Salander gets revenge better than anyone.

I am also a victim of rape and routinely think about what I could do to scar my attacker for life. The law failed me in so many ways that sometimes the only way I can come down from being triggered or having a day when I think about it too much is to think nasty thoughts. Good to know that I should never, EVER post about that experience because it would offend some people’s sensibilities.

Also not helping victims? Telling them what actions, feelings, and thoughts are ‘appropriate’.

I would never claim that men can’t be victimized or are not victimized, although I will point out that even if you take underreporting into account, the stats show that female victims significantly outnumber male ones, particularly in homicide cases.

I also know from experience, there are many, many men who understand rape culture and empathize perfectly well what women are up against (most of them are, to my knowledge, not victims of d.v.). Some of those men responded in the original thread, but most of them were Harpyness regulars. It’s only when the links went up to MRA sites that the haters and apologists started showing up, and it’s them who I was addressing. I’m sorry if it read like a diatribe against men in general, including yourself; that’s not how it was intended.

The problem with I invite you to change places with me and try living with the constant threat of rape and violence and the knowledge that you’ll likely be blamed or ignored if it happens to you., though, is that in the case of California man, it’s exceedingly likely that he was living under the constant threat of violence, and he’s being used as the butt of a joke for it in the media, and being blamed for it here (at least, the implication is there).

A lot of it too, is underselling how much men understand these things. I won’t speak for anyone else who complained, but I have had abusive partners, and I was terrified of them. Not that I was afraid I was going to die, but I’m pain-averse enough that I was terrified nonetheless. And I perfectly well I’d be blamed, or ignored, or ridiculed, if I said anything about it. And so the “men just can’t understand thing” does rile my emotions up.

Here’s the link for a somewhat famous movie http://telling.psu.edu/ about dv. A detective involved in this case, Deirdri Fishel:

And you’ll never hear me in any of my cases that I prosecute, talk about a victim who won’t testify. Because if we could guarantee a victim that they would be safe, that the outcome of the court case would be better for them, then I believe that a victim would testify. But we can’t guarantee that.

This is why Becky is exactly correct to say she’s not being hypocritical in her blog posts. Because the system will not back up women.

That said, I really don’t think that my being honest about having revenge fantasies will invite more and more violence (e.g. the hateful comments that were directed at you). Or alienate allies or somehow provoke more violence against women.

Rapists and misogynists will hate/attack women whether we’re silent or we’re vocal—so why be silent? Doesn’t that just play into their hands? And if they want to make hateful comments, let them. It only shows them for who they really are.