When I wrote last week about a California man whose wife cut his penis off, we got an avalanche of response from the interwebz, especially thanks to linkage from some men’s interest blogs and a few MRA dudes. I was called a “hypocrite,” “scum”, and a “dick-hating bitch” (the more hateful and rape apologist comments didn’t make it out of moderation, but we kept some of the milder ones in). Some claimed that I didn’t condemn the attack, which is untrue. I did, strongly, in the concluding paragraph (a hint: next time try reading the whole post until you get to the “very, very wrong” part). The other criticisms were that I was somehow being hypocritical or exercising a “double standard” when it comes to violence against men vs. violence against women and that I semi-jokingly said I kept a list of men who I might like to see meet the same fate. I’ll unpack those last two, for the record.

I don’t know if the woman in this case was a victim of domestic violence. I pointed out that she told police her husband “deserved it” and that our society is pretty fucked up if we start wondering about domestic violence and whether the man had it coming immediately upon hearing about such a crime. On that, I think we can all agree. At no point did I say he deserved what happened to him.

But I am not being hypocritical when I said that I understand the urge for female victims to react violently against men who hurt them. Fighting back against your attacker—yes, even violently—is not in any way hypocritical. It’s a completely rational response for any person, particularly when you cannot get justice or protection by other means. Violence may not be the ideal response, but to act as though the ideal response is for women to “rise above” and passively accept victimization—especially when law enforcement fails them—shows either a superhuman tolerance for violence and injustice, or outright support for the attackers.

Now, when I said that I have a “list” of men who I think should be parted from their penises, I was being somewhat flippant, and I understand that flippancy rubbed some people the wrong way, particularly given that we don’t really know much about this particular case, and it doesn’t seem like the man in question has a history of raping and abusing his wife (unlike, say, John Wayne Bobbitt).

However, I am not going to apologize for entertaining some “Dexter”-like revenge fantasies about vigilante justice. We live in a world where one in four women is the victim of sexual assault and domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women ages 15 to 44. Restraining orders sometimes protect women—but often don’t. Female victims are routinely dismissed by law enforcement or slandered by the media, while abusers and rapists are acquitted every single day. Men like Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Roman Polanski, elected officials, and police officers frequently use their money and influence to escape justice for their crimes against women. When these predators don’t go to jail, it’s naive and illogical to think they won’t attack women again—and continue to get away with it. They will, and as a result, women will continue to lose faith in the justice system and be less likely to report assaults.

So is it any wonder that women like me entertain revenge fantasies after being bombarded with proof that society will not protect us or condemn our attackers? When justice is denied, hell, when we’re told we don’t deserve justice because we were foolish or drunk or dressed slutty or dating an asshole or just should have known better…of course we are enraged and, yes, we might even think violence sounds like a good response. Hence, my mental list of dudes who have it coming. Frankly, if they’re not imprisoned, the only way to be sure some men won’t continue to harm women is if they are dead or dickless. I like to imagine that happening, even if I wouldn’t actually take up a gun or a knife myself.

To the men who found what I wrote so objectionable, 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. See if you wouldn’t occasionally fantasize about fighting back by any means necessary. In return, I promise that when you do, I won’t call you a hypocrite.

11 Responses to “On Revenge Fantasies and Accusations of Hypocrisy”

I’m not going to call you a hypocrite, but I am going to express my sense that entertaining and publishing violent revenge fantasies is not a useful or healthy response to this particular incident. I feel it contributes nothing to the larger culture except more violence, and it will invite more and more violence (e.g. the hateful comments that were directed at you).

I am not a rape survivor myself. I am a woman, and aware that this makes me vulnerable to rape in specific ways. I have entertained violent fantasies against rapists as a way of dealing with a friend’s rape, or when rapists get away with their crimes. I may have confessed these fantasies to one close friend, but I would not put them out there in a public forum where they will engender more violent responses and possibly alienate allies against the rape culture.

I would not expect the public to tell me it’s okay to have these thoughts — I don’t believe it is. I believe that revenge fantasies can be natural or inevitable, but I don’t believe they should be indulged. Instead, I treat them as a (private, internal) stepping stone toward talking about the rape culture in a productive and non-violent way, and supporting the victims of assault (sexual and otherwise).

I’m definitely not comfortable with the content of these posts — the publishing of violent fantasies in a way that seemed to ask for approval, and then a published-violent-fantasy-apologia. You have every right to feel what you’re feeling, and you certainly have the right to post on your own blog, but I’m afraid I can’t entirely support the way this has played out.

Kari, that’s totally fair and I respect your opinion—we clearly have different reactions to the same feelings, and different comfort levels with expressing them in public.

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.

There’s a really good point you brought up here: I am not being hypocritical when I said that I understand the urge for female victims to react violently against men who hurt them. Fighting back against your attacker—yes, even violently—is not in any way hypocritical. It’s a completely rational response for any person, particularly when you cannot get justice or protection by other means. This is the key piece that gets lost in many dv cases. Similarly people say, why did she stay? This is the answer to why, partly.

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.

The attitude “If Bobbit didn’t want his dick cut off, maybe he should’ve refrained from raping his wife” might not be ethically perfect, but it’s certainly the one I take too.

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.

Thanks for that, Brian. Your experience is something I hadn’t considered, and should have. The way society treats male victims of d.v. is another example of how the Patriarchy hurts men too—male victims are mocked as not sufficiently manly enough. Which is both victim-blaming AND subscribes to the sexist notion that men are meant to dominate women and are somehow a failure as a man when they don’t.

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.

I don’t know where these MRA guys get off, because if you ever read the comments section of one of those blogs and how they talk about female victims of violence and all sorts of revenge fantasies they share about their ex-wives, it seems to me that THEY’RE the ones being hypocrites, really.

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’.

Wait a minute. Any kid can go into a store and buy a video game in which women are maimed and killed and people were calling you out for having revenge *fantasies*?

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.

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.

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.

I really hate it when, in response to an act of violence, cruelty and/or oppression, a person who is not necessarily even the victim of said act(s) expresses the desire to get stabby or burny with the perpetrator of said act(s), and a third party claims such revenge fantasies make that person just as bad as the act(s) that inspired them.

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.

The revenge fantasies didnt bother me, I chop up some driver cutting me off in my mind each commute. Whats interesting though is the original post seems to do what we all want to stop doing, it seems to blame the victim for causing his own tragic circumstances, or its what came to mind first. Like thats some universal human trait we need to work on overcoming.

Except for retaliation, collateral damage, wrongful application due to mistaken identity, undermining the administrative efficiency of the state, and just generally freaking people out, vengeful violence can be pretty awesome.