Do Women Ever Actively Seek-Out Bad Treatment? I Hope Not.

I’ve never hit a woman. I hate it when women get hit by anyone. In no way am I denying the problem of battered women or trying to downplay their grief. Violence in a relationship is reprehensible, but the mistake that's made is that the violence is seen as exclusively male in origin. Now that I've gotten that out of the way...

Ugh

I recall reading a book once (I believe it was called Russian Peasant Women edited by Beatrice Farnsworth. But I'm not 100% sure if this was the actual source of this passage, it may have been a different book.) There was a regrettable passage from a diary of a German merchant who lived in midieval Russia. He was one day asked by his sad-faced wife: "Do you not love me?"

"Of course I love you." He replied.

"Then why do you not beat me?" She asked. She went-on to say that husbands should beat their wives to show their affection. So... at the insistence of his wife, the guy started... (ulp)... beating her.

Urgh. That's horrible. This passage disturbed me greatly, as it should disturb anyone. I mean... it's just... wrong. I hate the fact that I have this knowledge stuck in my head, I wish I could wash it out somehow. But... I also don't fully comprehend why someone would consciously ask to be beaten, either. If I was the guy, I would've gotten a divorce; no way would I hit my wife. My history professor from college told me that similar experiences were reported by a number of other foreigners who lived in midieval Russia, as well.

Fast-Foward to Modern Day... We're More Civilized Now, Right?

According to a recent study by Dr. Jay Silverman of the Harvard School of Health... 1,977 high school girls were given questionnaires about their dating relationships. About 1 out of 5 reported violence in said relationships... One of out five has been “hit, slapped, shoved or forced into sexual activity.” This is the first study of its kind, so there’s no way to know if the numbers are increasing or decreasing with time... but if it's true, that is FAR too many instances of abuse.

This study doesn’t make a cause-effect relationship between the number of women who get slapped-around and the propensity of young men to slap. But in my mind, this study gives me two messages loud and clear:

One: I think that there are some serious problems with how young men are being raised. They need to be educated to respect women. They need to understand that you do NOT hit, slap, shove or put pressure onto a woman to have sex against her will. There is no excuse. The ‘boys will be boys’ argument is bullshit. Young men NEED to respect women, period.

Two: Women bear some amount of responsibility for this, because it is THEY who can veto what men they date. Laura Sessions Stepp, author of the book Our Last Best Shot suggests that perhaps young women who are taken with the whole "girl power" thing are overestimating their ability to get themselves out of a jam. She even suggests that young women overestimate their self-defensive capabilities and forget that they're vulnerable when they're with someone who's stronger and outweighs them by 100 lbs.

Women DO bear responsibility for whom they choose to date: they are most often the ones who say 'yes' or 'no' if a guy asks to take them out for an evening. Women decide whether or not to spend the evening with a particular man, whether they'll dance, and whether the evening will end with sex. A man may ask, but a woman controls the course of events through her answer. If a 6-foot, really hot guy with a reputation of being a brawling goon asks you out on a date and you say "yes", then you've just put yourself in harm's way. He should respect you, but not many other people can save the girl if the guy really is a brawling pig-idiot.

Women Sexually Forcing Themselves On Men

It's notable for me to state here that men are almost as likely as women to report unwanted sexual contact and coercion, according to a study of college students conducted by researchers from the University of Washington's Addictive Behaviors Research Center. The survey asked the students - 165 men and 131 women - about their sexual experiences over the previous year. The study appears in the July, 1999 issue of the journal Sex Roles.

Overall, 34 men (21 percent of the male participants) and 36 women (28 percent) reported being recipients of one or more of five types of unwanted sexual contact listed on a gender-neutral questionnaire used by the researchers.

Physical force was used infrequently. Just 5 percent of the women and less than 1 percent of the men said some sort of physical force, such as having an arm twisted or being held down, was used on them when they didn't want to have sex, whether or not intercourse actually occurred.

The male participants (and observing researchers) described attending parties and seeing women waiting around until "guys became drunk and then hitting on them when they were unable to make rational decisions about having sex."

Still, this study's sampling is pretty small, I think more research needs to be done on this.

Back to the Main Topic: Caveat emptor.

Let the buyer beware. Ladies, your own safety starts with YOU. You have responsibilities to look-after yourself, and the onus can't all be on the male because some males are just incapable of being trusted. In Karate Kid II, Mister Miyagi says: "Best block: no be there."

I've never hit a woman, and I never will. I didn’t date in high school very much. Come to think of it, most NiceGuys I met in high school didn’t date much either. Hmm... maybe that’s a factor behind the statistic that one in five high school girls report getting hit by their dates? Perhaps women aren’t attracted to non-threatening guys who won’t hit them? After all- women just LOVE men who are BIG, STRONG and AGGRESSIVE.

Consider the numbers: according to the study, a woman who dates in high school will have a one in five chance of getting slapped-around. A woman who dated ME in high school would've had a five in five chance of NOT getting slapped-around. I’m that low-risk a person to be with. Yet, women will NOT date me. It’s just so much more exciting to date a guy who might slap you, I guess.

I’m going to continue treating women respectfully, mainly because it’s not in my nature to hit or hurt someone else. I'm doing my part, ladies! Other guys should do their part. And women need to do their part, too. Let’s see if that violence-rate decreases in the long run. I hope it does, but knowing the dating habits of women, it probably won't.

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"Sheer badness attracts them; they are 'good girls' attracted to 'bad boys'." -- Sheila Isenberg, Women Who Love Men Who Kill.

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