I spent a lot of time dealing with the victim of violence. That betrayal only a lover can express, the sinister switch from affection or at least the performance required to invent love, to twist into a tantrum of rage. The bruising and cuts, a secondary blistering to a pain that seldom heals. Perhaps can not heal.
“I would die for you, I would kill for you,” such men squirm, maybe they believe it. At least when they are forged inside of their own egotistical certainty. Yet, despite such promises, they don’t protect their lover-victim from themselves. The imbalance is perhaps a calculation of ownership, ‘she’ in this case is a possession, to be owned and kept. No self ownership or agency for herself, just a being to be protected, a prisoner to such affections.
The idea of self owner ship has in itself been eroded by ideological coercion, before that it was defined by a religious one. And in this case it’s enslaved romantically.
When I coached and helped those who had experienced such intimate violence, near all ladies, find their voice from beneath the dried tears, hidden bruises. Help them, as one put it when she saw me bashing the heavy bag, “I wanna be able to do that,” it was with consideration to such betrayal and distrust. If the man who claimed to love, who said. “I do,” and even shared children with could beat, bludgeon and in some cases rape with hateful spite, then how could one trust anyone else?
To sleep with the enemy, or torturer. To share a life and house with an abuser. Was in the past common. It’s less accepted now. It was in the era before women’s liberation and liberal values, it’s an obligation in some cultures for the feminine to yield. In many parts of the world, rape, violence are masculine rights. Whether through culture, religion or even mutations of both are empowered by the writ of law.
Yes, women can and do abuse men. Domestic violence occurs against men. Males have been killed and beaten, or maimed by their female partners. John Wayne Bobbit, was after all for a time a household name. I am well aware of this. That does not relate to the particular interactions that I am about to share.
As an inflection of hearing and doing my best to help some ladies over come their betrayals and experiences, I had a conversation with two men who had been the attackers. I came across each for books that I was writing.
James, seemed likeable enough, a little flabby with a salt and pepper beard and the body shape of a man who liked to lift heavy weights but never said no to a late night snack. Or beer. It was the beer, and other forms of alcohol that he claimed to be his demon. The excuse needed to rationalise a temper and inconsistent arrogance.
“I had a problem, I’m better now,” he mentioned about his drinking.
He never served time for what he did to his wife, now ex. It did make it hard for him to see his two kids. He told me that one of them was present for one of the beatings.
“I can admit now that it was wrong, that’s easy for me to do so. Around the time that it all happened, I would never even think about it. I had so much anger and then I felt ashamed, or I would need to get drunk and feel sorry for myself.”
His wife had a broken nose and black eye after one of the attacks. He said that he only hit her on three occasions, at least that he recalls.
“I was only charged for the time she went to hospital. In some ways, she enabled me. I mean, not to blame her. It was all my fault, I mean she let me do it again and again.”
“What was she meant to do? Fight back?” I asked him coldly.
“I don’t know, not let me come back to her. Not accept my apology. It was when she kicked me out and stopped me from seeing our kids, that’s when I got sober.”
“The violence and abuse was all a self-help exercise for your benefit?”
He chuckled with unease, “no, I mean, you know, I saw who I was really after.”
“Because you faced a consequence for your actions?”
“I guess.”
“And when your eldest daughter saw you hit her, what do you think that did to her?”
He fidgeted, “It happened fast, I didn’t know she was there. Listen, I would never hit my kids. I could never hurt them.”
“But, you could your wife?”
“I’m not that person now.”
I was meant to be interviewing James for my book, Degenerate, he was in the BDSM realm. The violence for him after his ex was now seemingly consensual. He liked it rough, at least to be the one doing the violence, not to receive it. I doubt his pug-like jaw could take a shot. It did not take much for him to open up about his past, his own trauma as he saw it.
“I have so much guilt for what I did.”
“You should.”
He nodded, a cigarette in his fingers, as he stared at the road while we leaned against his car.
“I am not like that now.”
The rest of the conversation ran into subject matter for the book. A conversation that I did not include in the book, and it would be inappropriate to pollute this writing with any of it. For him, perhaps in some way, the sex and violence or at least how he expressed himself was entwined.
Gavin had been in an out of the remand centre for assault, domestic violence and drug related offences. On home detention when I spoke with him, his stories bubbled in and out of any believable truth. I found when someone wants you to like them, they will attempt to finish your sentences in agreement with you, or change what they have already said to align with your words. Gavin did this on a few occasions.
I was going to write a follow up book to, Degenerate, and call it, Dangerous. The premise being I would find and investigate and interview people who indulge in criminal behaviour or, have particular beliefs and world views which go against the societal grain. I had made some contacts and did begin with that expedition but, burn out and an inability to spend money and time on an enterprise that would go unread deterred me from pursuing it.
As for Gavin, he had tattoos crawling up his neck, and inked words on his knuckles and up his forearms. The usual poetic mastery such as “loyalty,” “honour”, “FAFO (Fuck Around, Find Out)” and “I love Mum.” Maybe not, that last one.
At times his eyes held a yellowed hue like egg yolk, his breath puffed with whatever vape he was sucking and with the marinated perfume only green teeth could produce.
“We were having a break, and she betrayed me, was hard to tolerate,” he sucked the kiwi-strawberry scented vape form his couch.
His on again, off again, girlfriend had been seeing him for about six years. He had been charged with assault against her, and she even had a restraining order against him but the romance or co-dependency ensured that she would come and visit him while he was on home detention.
“Was this the first time you assaulted her?”
“Nah, she made all that shit up. I was done because I wrote threatening things to her in text and left a voice message.”
“That’s why you were charged.”
“Yup.”
“And the more recent time?”
“We had a break, and I was seeing a younger bird. She was all messed up and needed to have a hit of the pipe before we fucked. That girl has a head full of mess. Was fun but she was attracted to this,” he pointed to his bikie aesthetic, the tattoos, jewellery, and lifestyle. Perhaps free ‘gear’ also. In her case it seemed to be nitrous oxide. Two bottles stood erect on a nearby bench top.
“And your ex was seeing someone else?”
“No, she was chatting to a bloke from another group.”
I have refrained from mentioning which bikie group he belonged to and the other man was involved with.
“She seems to have a type.”
“I know right,” he began to pack his pipe with the putrid leaf of weed.
“And it was because of this, you felt betrayed?”
“Yeah, she knows what my business is. You can’t fuck around with rivals like that.”
“She doesn’t mind that you were sleeping with another girl?”
“Nah, we were taking a break.”
“And when you found out about this other guy, that’s when you snapped?”
“Yeah, bro. She was pushing me and getting in my face. I just lost it and hit her a few times to calm her down. She left crying and threatening me.”
I really try not to insert myself into such conversations while attempting to be objective, so I let him continue. According to his house mate, a child hood friend of Gavin’s, he had also threatened to cut her head off with an axe as well as break her fingers so that she could not text anyone again. Another reason why writing a book like, Dangerous, was going to be so difficult for me, because retaining any objectivity would be too hard.
I wanted to rip his throat form his head. I am no white knight, just a man. Here, I am trying to pack aside that inclination and use my pen, or keyboard instead.
“Then we were over, I told my mates and they said I had done the right thing. No need to have a bitch like that.”
“Did you or do you still love her?”
“Yeah, I do. That’s why I am so angry.”
“If you loved her, then why can’t you let her go and not keep putting her and you through this cycle of violence and screaming?”
He sucked the pipe, plumes of smoke wafted about his face while he stared at me with glassy eyes, “because I love her.”
“She isn’t your possession.”
“I know what’s best for her.”
“Hitting and threatening her, is best for her?”
“I didn’t want to do that. I just lost control.”
“Are you in control now?”
He nodded.
“And if she walked through the door, and told you what she had been doing and who she had been speaking with and it was not something you wanted to hear?”
“I’d be fucking pissed.”
“And what would you do?”
He rocked back and forth in his seat, “I don’t know.”
“Would you remain in control of yourself?”
He could not answer. I knew the answer. His ex knew the answer. Maybe, beneath the ink veneer, the lies he told himself and the stench of weed, he also knew the answer.
