re: abuse, accountability, and the possibility of change
there has been a lot of feminist writing about harm you might not know you’re doing. like, why you should pay more attention to your sexual partner’s non-verbal signals because they might be verbally consenting but not actually comfortable with what’s happening, stuff like that. how anybody can practice bad consent. lots of borderline stuff, lots of stuff that people might not realise the full ramifications of.
and obviously it’s really important to emphasise that the popular conception of abuse and assault is not all that it is. that a lot of truly fucked-up shit passes as normal. that having an idea of yourself as a good person is not enough. that sticking to the letter of the law doesn’t mean you didn’t do wrong. and I even think it’s okay to go softer on people than they deserve if that’s the way to get through to them and stop their abusive actions. safety first.
but sometimes I think that we have let ourselves think that this is how abuse or assault usually happens. that it’s an accident, caused by carelessness from generally well-meaning but ill-informed people. that all that is required is an understanding of what they’ve done and a genuine apology and problem solved!
and I’m just not convinced that’s the case. I actually think that most abuse and the most harmful abuse comes from people who know exactly what they’re doing and have rationalised it to themselves or just don’t care. (see for example predator theory.) and we don’t focus on these people because it’s hard to know where to start, and we want to put our energy where we can actually do some good. but in fact they are dangerous and manipulative and everywhere, and it’s not forgiving and radical but simply obtuse to assume good faith from them.
