Apropos various bits of discourse I've seen lately about the physical "discipline" of kids and the ongoing wealth of celebrity sexual harassment and assault cases, allow me a thread about abuse.
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For example: "My parents hit ME, and I turned out fine! It taught me respect! How DARE you say that spanking is child abuse!" Meaning, in essence, "I don't view myself as a victim or as someone who experienced trauma, therefore what happened to me can't possibly be abuse."
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Now. At an intuitive level, I understand why people make this argument. They're reacting to what they feel is a universal claim - X behaviour is abuse, and abuse = trauma - with hostility, because they feel it's negated by their personal experience.
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The problem is that, when they respond by asserting that X behaviour NEVER = abuse, because THEY experienced X and have no trauma, they're doing the same thing that pissed them off in the first place: making a universal claim that contradicts the experience of others.
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A truth that's frequently difficult to acknowledge or articulate, but which is very relevant to this discussion: not every person who experiences abuse, violence or other types of disaster is traumatised by that experience, even if it informs their later behaviour.
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To give a personal example: I was sexually assaulted twice while at university by strange dudes, and while I was pissed off, I wasn't traumatised in the moment. They upset me in retrospect, esp. when I think how easily something worse might've happened, but that's not trauma.
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But does that mean those dudes weren't committing assault? HELL no. Does my lack of trauma mean that I'm somehow "stronger" or whatever than someone else traumatised under identical or similar circumstances? HELL THE FUCK NO.
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Abuse is not defined by how a victim reacts, or whether or not they view themselves as a victim, or what sort of trauma they have or don't have. Abuse is defined by WHAT IS ACTUALLY DONE and the context in which is happens: by our independent judgement that doing X is wrong.
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To give a tangentially related example, the fact that some soldiers aren't traumatised by war doesn't mean that the ones who develop PTSD are "weak" or flawed somehow. Objectively, war is fucking horrific, and that remains true despite (and because of) people who thrive on it.
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There are people in the world who were hit as kids or sexually assaulted as adults who carry no trauma (or who perceive themselves as carrying no trauma), and who reject the idea that they're victims. And they're allowed not to feel victimised! But what happened WAS STILL ABUSE.
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And while we're on the topic of boundaries and assault: in light of what happened with Ansari, I want to return momentarily to the subject of my own assaults at university. Trigger warning for the tweets that follow.
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Assault the first: a random guy in my college dorms mistook (he claimed) my unlocked bedroom for his. It was after a college-wide party, so we'd both been drinking. He only realised my room was mine when he got into bed and was surprised to find me there. (cont.)
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I was very tired. I asked him to go. He plead that he, too, was super tired and could he just sleep there? I said yes, because I'm cool sharing beds and wanted to go the fuck back to sleep. About ten seconds later, he started kissing me and trying to feel me up. (cont.)
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I told him, annoyed, to knock it off and get out. He apologised, said he'd stop but pleaded again to stay. I grumpily said fine and let him. About twenty seconds later, he started again. That time I *did* kick him out, and he went. I locked the door & went straight back to sleep.
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Assault the second: while attending a party at a neighbouring all-male college, I went into the halls to find the bathroom. One of the doors to a nearby room opened as I passed, revealing a dude who I vaguely recognised from earlier. He called me over to him. (cont.)
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He said he needed to tell me something in private. When he beckoned, I leaned in to hear it. He grabbed me, kissed me, and tried to pull me into his room. I shoved him away and stepped back. He apologised, grinned. I glared. (cont.)
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He then asked me to come closer again, so that he could apologise properly. I declined; he insisted. I still wanted to find the bathroom and wanted this exchange over with, so obliged. He did the same thing again: grab, kiss, pull. I shoved him again and walked off.
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As stated earlier, I have no trauma from these events. Each time, I was annoyed at what I perceived as a guy trying it on out of nowhere - but then, I had zero literary on what constituted assault, and had internalised a lot of bullshit about what male behaviour was as a teen.
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I wasn't traumatised because, at the time, it never occurred to me that I was in any real danger. I had no yardstick for thinking a laughing, sheepish dude might suddenly turn violent and coercive, and I was used to the idea that guys were inherently opportunistic.
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And that, here, is the key word: opportunistic. In both cases, drunk dudes saw my presence as an opportunity to have sex. They initiated touching out of nowhere & persisted past my first no "just in case", but because I was a random opportunity, they were content not to push it.
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I don't know when "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again" became the mantra of male sexual/romantic overtures, but to me, it's this attitude that fuels the opportunism of way too many assaults. Because in my position, another person might easily have frozen in terror.
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The fact that I didn't freeze doesn't make me brave or strong: it means I had one of a possible range of normal human reactions to a particular incident. And the fact that I was able to get both dudes to leave me alone doesn't mean what they did was remotely OK. It was assault.
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The thing about laws is that they're based on ACTIONS, not reactions TO those actions. A genial person might get robbed of their liquor and cigarettes during a break-in and not be too fussed at the loss, but what happened to them is still a crime.
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Likewise, a person might be hit in their childhood and grow up to have a good relationship with their parents, but the fact that it worked out okay FOR THEM doesn't mean it wasn't abuse.
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As part of learning how to human, kids test boundaries. You tell them to stop throwing a ball, they do smaller throws instead. Tell them to stop again, they move the ball from hand to hand. If you don't react to that, they might decide you don't mind anymore and escalate again.
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This sort of opportunism is part of their learning process: they're learning how to ask what "no" means by testing its boundaries. Does "stop throwing the ball" mean "stop throwing it really high inside," or "stop throwing it where I can see it?" But adults KNOW what it means.
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Adults, unlike little kids, are able to read context cues and are eloquent enough to ask for clarification in the event of confusion or uncertainty. Like a child, an adult might not WANT to stop throwing the metaphorical ball, but they still understand what "stop throwing" means.
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But when it comes to vulnerable people, a great many adults regress to that childlike, opportunistic selfishness where their own wants are deliberately put ahead of what they otherwise understand.
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A parent who teaches their child to say "please" and "thank you" at home might easily deny those courtesies to a service worker. A bro who reacts with hostility to being hugged or touched by relatives without warning might persistently grab at unwilling girls at parties.
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I've wandered away from my point a bit, but to summarise: - abuse/assault are defined by actions, not traumatic reactions - selfish opportunism fuels a lot of abuse & shitty behaviour - different people react differently, but we still need common standards for law & courtesy
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