Controversy in 'Dear Abby'

This is reprinted from a recent 'Dear Abby' column. The writer is unsure how to handle her grandmother's abusive treatment of her grandmother. I include this to illustrate how a popular news column can distort our ideas of abuse:

DEAR ABBY: I love my grandmother, but she constantly puts my grandpa down, even in front of the family. I know some of the harsh words she uses could be resentment built up over the years from past hurts. Still, if she talks so rudely to him when we're around, I wonder what she says when they're alone.

Grandma loves her family very much, especially the two of us grandkids. It just hurts that she's so mean to Grandpa. Immediately after she insults him, I'll ask her why she did it, but she acts like she has done nothing wrong.

I know it must hurt my grandfather to be treated that way so often by the woman he's been married to for more than 50 years. Should I address her about it in

private? -- WORRIED GRANDDAUGHTER

DEAR WORRIED: Your grandparents'

marriage has lasted half a century, so it's safe to assume that they have a fairly strong bond. It's possible that what you interpret as insulting is her way of communicating with him -- both in public and in private -- and that he tuned her out decades ago. You have already said she appears to think she has done nothing wrong, so unless your grandfather has in some way indicated that it is hurtful to him, my

advice is to leave it alone. It works for them in some way.

What do you think?  

Legitimacy

Someone asked me how I know these stories are true and accurate. Here is how I gauge that:

1. These stories are filled with detail that would be difficult to manufacture. 
2. The stories are published anonymously. 
3. When I spot something that seems amiss, or something that could be disputed, I have the option to leave it out, or to contact the writer for more clarification. 
4. Our writers have nothing to gain by exaggerating. Most of them have already been through the court system, so their story cannot be used in their defense. Also, when one considers the shame involved in being a victim, one doesn't want to exaggerate. Any excessive details wind up inadvertently casting the victim in a certain light. These victims don't want to experience more shame. They have been through enough already. 
5. There are other parties involved. Many times, there is a child or extended family who could be affected by any diversion from the truth.

The Key to Change

I think the only thing that will open people's eyes and create changes within the system are personal accounts. It's the same with any tragedy. I didn't know how to wrap my head around the devastation of Hurrican Katrina until I heard personal stories from the survivors. Just the same, I never understood the first thing about abused males until I read the stories.

I have a story about a guy whose wife had abused him physically and verbally. He was tremendous stress and had a heart attack. While he was unconscious for several weeks after, his wife arranged everything, and he woke up to find his life torn apart. She had arranged a divorce, forced him into a no-win custody arrangement, and when he tried to dispute it, she trumped up a false domestic violence case against him. He had no money to fight it all in court, and was left to languish, an invalid, with nothing, who never gets to see his children.

Sometimes people have the reaction that "well, he must have done something to deserve it." I'm pretty sure that no one on earth deserves the life this guy has now.

Other stories are more subtle, telling of subtle lies, deceptions along the way, unraveling a marriage by bits at a time. Here the abuse is harder to detect, but the end result is the same. The man has been left unable to trust and unable to enter into another relationship in a healthy way.

A man told me a story of being sexually assaulted by his wife, repeatedly. I never really gave it much thought. I thought it was impossible, but it's not. After reading the stories, I respond very differently to the issues.

The next level of abuse happens at the legal level. When the cases are tried in court, both sides can lose big. A false accusation of abuse is nearly impossible to shake. Even if you have bruises all over your body, the police can arrest you for domestic violence.

The only way to institute change in the system is to tell these stories. In other generations, we needed to get the first-hand accounts of violence against women to see that changes were needed. And that movement has come a long way, and now when a woman is hurt, no one dares say "she must have done something to deserve it." But once upon a time, that's certainly the common response you would get. The movement to stop violence against men is still in its infancy. It's still in its fetal development! But within our lifetime, if organizations like NOW have been able to bring new awareness to women's issues, then we may find a way to promote awareness of violence against men. It's entirely possible, and it starts with the victims speaking up.

Going to Extremes

There is a masculist movement in the world, which I have become a bit familiar with now. But it's about balance. You can't fight oppression by becoming the new oppressor.

Again, we run up against symbolism, and symbolic statements aren't going to do any good for abuse victims. It isn't any good trying to politicize any individual case of abuse. If an abuse case becomes controversial or complicated, it is tempting to levy a bunch of politics onto it. When a group wants possession of an abuse case, we got trouble.

Male abuse cases are untidy and much of the time, no one is comfortable reaching out to the victims, because to do so means you fall on one side of a political line. If you support a male victim, it is perceived that you have taken sides against the woman in the situation, and thereby, against all women. I'm not saying that everyone in the world thinks this way, but in numerous discussions, it's become a common theme.

Any anti-abuse movement is benevolent at its core. Ideally, anti-abuse movements have no enemies. Who would disagree with the idea? But when you introduce your ideas into the public, lines start to be drawn, and sides are taken.

Men who have been abused by women have certain enemies in this world. And the movement does too. Law enforcement practices. Legal procedures. Political agendas. It is unpopular and shameful to admit you were abused. Humiliating, for men or for women. But the movement will only move forward when you tell your story. There are no court cases, no news stories that will change things. It's you. It's your story.

Before I started this job, I never knew that male rape existed. I never understood how domestic abuse cases have procedural structures that need to change. I thought that justice was served in abuse cases, and I was convinced, before I read the stories, that most men who got abused were very deserving of it. I thought they themselves were the abusers. When we go to extremes and divide ourselves in order to take a strong stance against abuse, we need to eliminate the bias. If we set ourselves against abuse itself, then we can find common ground. If our movement is set against either men or women, then we lose ground. And we'll have a long way to go.

Fairness

I once held a job as an ethicist. Part-time. Seriously, I was employed as a writer and civic ethicist. Which doesn't mean I'm completely ethical. No one is. We are all leading the right life, as best we can, and that's essentially what I took away from that two years of working in ethics.

The word we continually threw back and forth was 'fairness.' Justice is essential to who we are, and how our culture is meant to work. I don't know if there is such a thing as true justice, but there are attempts at fairness and balance that get us closer.

In divorce, I am convinced that there is no fairness, there is no balance. Not within our legal system. No one is going to feel satisfied at the end of divorce proceedings, because everyone has lost something. Without being married, you don't have equal rights to the children or the assets you have between you. So an unmarried couple has little legal recourse when it comes to divvying up property or custody. They really don't have the cooperation of the law. And married couples are subject to the rule of the court, which is never fair. So the system doesn't want you to break up. The system will punish you for not staying together.

The system wants you to get together and stay together. Married couples are the key to the economy. Everything is geared towards the marriage experience. Married couples consume a great deal of resources. Single people do too, but not in the same amounts. Married people will order the all-you-can-eat special, whereas the single person orders a diet coke.

Fairness in divorce proceedings never feels fair. And in abuse cases, even less so. An abused man is not validated for the trauma he suffers. In previous generations, it was the other way around. Abuse against women was seen as putting-her-in-her-place, just as now, abuse against men is spun as serves-him-right.

It's the symbolic v. the concrete. In the symbolic world, it seems that when a man is physically abused, it is some kind of abstract justice. Justice for women who have been abused. In the concrete life, a person has been hit or had something thrown at them. In the symbolic world, when a man is granted limited custody in a court decision, it is often seen as an act of justice. Not for him, but for men all over the world. In reality, a person has been granted limited access to his children.

Fairness is always in question, and as I said, divorce is never fair on either side. But perceived fairness is dangerous. When an act of injustice is perceived as fair, it warps our sense of justice altogether. 

I've Been to Some Strange Places

I've been working as an editor here for about 6 weeks. It's been an eye-opener, and every day I stumble into someplace new. My search for stories of abuse has taken me to support pages for Pagans. That wasn't so strange, but my interactions with a moderator were beyond belief. It's documented in one of my earlier posts.

I stumbled into one of the most popular forums for men, which was started by a Penis Enlargement Equipment provider. The stories were just as heartbreaking and unsettling there as anywhere, but there seemed to be no moderator there with any training. Most of the advice for guys who were hurting (from a relationship, not from the Equipment) got advice like "Hey bro, just call up your buds and get some beers." Guys do that. No doubt. It's where a lot of good therapy takes place. I didn't join the forum as an official member. For numerous reasons, but mainly because I didn't want to get a lot of spam in my inbox. Every pun here is intentional. I repeat: I didn't become an official member because I didn't want spam in my inbox.

Many of the online support groups for men have a strong anti-feminist slant. A masculist slant, a revolt against the female bias in the media when it comes to legal process in abuse cases. I understand what could drive someone to become angry against the system. But you can't fight propaganda with other propaganda, so it becomes a bit dicey. I think what both sides need is to engage in a dialogue, with a decent moderator, like Alec Baldwin or Rachel Maddow.

I have landed in some Christian forums, and the reason I joined is that these forums was that I recognize the important role the church has played in getting help and therapy to abuse victims. A lot of churches provide services that other agencies don't.

Name-Calling and a Rant About Name-Calling

In my search, I have run across a ton of great terms having to do with abuse. There is a ton of vitriol flying back and forth, and here are some of my faves:

• "Psychopath" - Found on a British web forum, a term applied to any abuser. Anyone who starts out nice, and ends up CRAZY!
• "Psychobitch" - An abusive woman
• "Vaginocracy" - female-dominated culture
• "Baker-Act" - A state law requiring a criminal to submit to psychological testing. Can be used as a verb, as in "They Baker-Acted me for no good reason."
• "Envelopment" - the opposite of penetration. The proper word to be used in cases of male sexual assault.   

My search has taken me all over the world. I have landed in Second Life, in abuse support groups, in anti-feminist, "masculist" think-tanks, all over chat groups and facebook groups and extreme fringe chat sites where people really speak their mind.

What strikes me is when people are politicizing abuse, we get into trouble. A man gets abused, and many people say he must have deserved it. Just like in previous generations, if a woman was hit, people would have said she did something to deserve it. We are still caught in the same cycle of blame.

The big case recently was this guy who was tied to his bed, and his wife cut off his penis with a 10-inch knife, and threw it down the garbage disposal. Symbolically, this means that there is a kind of abstract justice for the wives of cheating husbands. But in the literal world, a man has had his penis thrown down a garbage disposal. A cheating husband deserves to be divorced, yes. He deserves that. But no one deserves to be mutilated. That's where the argument ends.

There is the "you go girl" response. That is a bit dangerous. There is the non-response. No matter what kind of response you have to the event, you are bound to get into a debate. The symbolism of the event does not reconcile itself with the actual event.

The words I put down above have been collected over time, and there are others. There are buzzwords and keywords that get bandied about.

Ask the victim what happened. They aren't usually the ones getting political about it. Some victims are mistreated by the system, and don't get the justice they might deserve. That's when they rail against the system. Some of them still love the person who hurt them. And it hurts them to have to go to court in the first place.

Put a name to your experience. Verbal abuse. Physical abuse. If you can classify and pinpoint what has happened to you, then you can be viewed clearly. The moment that the politics get involved, it gets really murky.

The Shock

Sometimes I read a story and I need to take a step away from the desk for a minute. I have been compiling some of the most intense stories I have ever read.

I send out invitations to people, many of them who are already telling their own story. If they are part of a group or a forum discussion, they may already be looking for an opportunity to speak out about their experience. Many of them have been looking around for books on the subject.

It takes a huge effort to dredge these stories up. It takes effort for men to write the stories in the first place. Many come to us, having been through grueling court battles. Some have recovered well from their experiences, and have gone on to live better lives, in new relationships. Some say they will never love again.

As an editor, I proofread and make small corrections. The writer's tone remains, and their words are incredibly compelling. This week I read a story of sexual abuse from Great Britain. Another story from Canada, which was interesting. It's wild to see how different legal systems deal with the problem. Much of the time, the legal policies are the same. The man is not often treated fairly in these cases. If he can prove he was abused, through medical records, police reports, then he has something he can use in court. Verbal and emotional abuse are harder to quantify.

A man in a forum asked How do I regain my sense of masculinity after what I have been through?

One reply recommended he move to Thailand, where men get a fair shake and great treatment by the law. I hear it's nice in Thailand, and I wouldn't stop anyone from finding peace anywhere they can. But it's not happening, in most cases. Most men have to stay and fight. Some have been so exhausted by the courts that all they can do now is write to us. They have no one else willing to listen.

I don't consider myself one of the abused. I have always been a good friend, someone who you can go to for relationship advice. Most of my advice has been good. Only once did I recommend that the guy moves out. I hated saying it. I was there when they first got together, and now I was telling him to split. It was devastating.

I hold no degree in social work, though the guy I work for is incredibly accomplished and accredited. I'm learning a lot. And some times it's overwhelming. Editing true stories of sexual assault against men. Stories of degradation, stories of being stuck. Much of the time, the abused partner stays in it longer than he/she should. Often because of children. Often times, they feel they must be the one to care for their spouse, even when the spouse is abusive. They are dehumanized after a while, and they actually think they deserve it.

Our agenda isn't anti-woman, by any means. We don't want anyone abusing anyone. The system is unbalanced, and abused men are swept under the rug, except in strange cases of penile abuse. If a guy gets his wiener chopped off, we will hear about it. But most people react first by saying "he must have done something to deserve it."

If he was abusive, he deserves to be prosecuted. No one deserves to be hurt.

Why Tell Your Story?

When it comes to gathering stories, we are looking for the needle in the haystack. Or more like a needle in a million different haystacks. It's like looking for your wallet in a lost-and-found. We post to craigslist.org, Facebook, and Yahoo! groups, asking the general public to share.

My boss uses the analogy of a rifle shot v. a shotgun blast. We can post out to the public and invite stories in a public forum, which is the shotgun blast. Maybe less effective.

The rifle shot approach is when we find someone who is already telling their story, and we invite them to join us. It can be frustrating and time-consuming, but when the story is found, it's gold. The direct approach is always the best.

A lot of guys need the permission to be able to talk about their abusive relationship. The reasons they don't share:

• They have been told not to. 
• They feel they are less of a man if they do.
• They have been laughed at or ridiculed for being in the situation in the first place. 
• They are worried about their professional reputation, or any personal fallout from sharing their stories. 
• They don't consider themselves writers. 

The reasons they do post:

• The story is eating them alive and they are dying to share it in a safe environment. 
• They want the catharsis, the release, the therapeutic relief that comes from getting something major off their chest. 
• They want to help other guys who have been in the same situation. 

The reasons you should post:

•  You are part of a community of men all over the world who can benefit from your honesty. 
•  You will feel better after you do.
• If you don't consider yourself a writer, that doesn't matter to us. We have a lot of good tips for how to tell your story, in your own words. As an editor, the stories we get from guys who don't consider themselves writers are often the best things we have ever read on the subject. Why? Because they're personal stories, in your own words.