delete this if you(the mods) want. or if you want to change the topic title...or edit it, or whatever...search didnt pick it up

i have a question to any MS members who have been victims of any particular type of abuse. primarily women.

if you were in a particular relationship where your partner was abusive(or even if it was completely random and you were not in a relationship with that person), did you ever tell anyone about this? and if so, did you tell someone right away, or did you wait around a good couple of years not knowing what to do? if the later is the case...why?

i'm just a little confused, and perhaps the reason to being confused is because i'm a guy, and i dont know what it is like being abused/taken advantage of or whatever. but as of late, i've had a few of my female friends come up to me saying that something happened to em. some were almost raped. some were raped. some were sexually assaulted. date rape, or if not anything sexual, then physically beaten up by their boyfriends, or male friends, or whatever. the thing is, all but one, told me about this a good 5-10 years AFTER this had happened. and i dont really know if i should feel honored to be the first person they told, and honored that they trust me enough to tell me this; or be pissed at them for not doing anything about it.


the most recent was my girlfriend. no, i didnt lay a finger on her. but before we started going out, she had an incident at her work place. some new guy sexually assaulted her. she only told her brother, me, and 2 other people, including the managers. she personally didnt want anything happening to the person, and therefore didnt want the cops to getting involved. and she specifically told me not to get the cops involved. humm...well, i MAY have listened to her, had that person not been assaulting other female workers at his work place. there were allegations about date rape drugs being used as well. regardless to say, he got fired before i was able to pull the plug on him. and what motivated me more for doing it was the fact that the managers who were well aware of his behavior, and yet they didnt fire him for that reason. they fired him without telling him why he was being fired.



i may have messed up in not listening to my girlfriend. and it may be a girl thing that i may not understand ever. but i'm just wondering if you were a part of this, or you had a friend, or a family member or someone you know, what did they do in that situation? and also, why?

like, my point is, it isnt the victims fault. they just were in a bad place at a bad time. but if it doesnt stop with the victim, then there will be more and more victims.

This topic is for the"Serious Discussions"subforum.

Quote:
but if it doesnt stop with the victim, then there will be more and more victims.

I couldn't get this. :

Well,I've never been abused in any physical way.

Written by Elodie Artour on 04.04.2008 at 19:42

This topic is for the"Serious Discussions"subforum.

Quote:
but if it doesnt stop with the victim, then there will be more and more victims.

I couldn't get this. :

Well,I've never been abused in any physical way.

what i meant by that statement is the following:
pretend john is the abuser.

john is currently going out with melanie. after a while, john says that he wants to have sex, but mel refuses, and john rapes her. they break up. mel doesnt tell anyone and continues living her life. john finds sam, does something similar, and sam doesnt tell either. and so the victims are doing nothing about it, while the abuser keeps on going unaffected and unpunished.

the way i see it, if john forces himself onto another person, he should either be sent to therapy, or be sent to jail, or some other alternative. but whatever the case, he should NOT be out in the public where he is free to do what he wants when he wants, and who he wants.

Yeah, shit like this seriously makes me sick to my stomach. I almost kicked a guys ass yesterday....I was in the park with my friend and my gf, and across the street, I see this guy man handling his girlfriend, like putting her in a headlock, and forcing her to kiss him, and she was trying to leave but he wouldn't let her. I couldn't stand watching for much longer, so I aprached the yard and said "What the fuck is going on?!" and I was about to jump that dudes fence and kick his ass. The only reason why I stopped, and I mean the ONLY reason, is because the girl (I sort of know her) begged me not to do anything, saying that she could handle it....but she was in tears, and frankly, I regret not going through with it and kicking his ass. But...I turned back, and now not only am I disgusted with the circumstance, I'm disgusted with myself for not having acted.

But yeah, this general behavior is a hot button of mine.

Written by Arian Totalis on 05.04.2008 at 06:51

Yeah, shit like this seriously makes me sick to my stomach. I almost kicked a guys ass yesterday....I was in the park with my friend and my gf, and across the street, I see this guy man handling his girlfriend, like putting her in a headlock, and forcing her to kiss him, and she was trying to leave but he wouldn't let her. I couldn't stand watching for much longer, so I aprached the yard and said "What the fuck is going on?!" and I was about to jump that dudes fence and kick his ass. The only reason why I stopped, and I mean the ONLY reason, is because the girl (I sort of know her) begged me not to do anything, saying that she could handle it....but she was in tears, and frankly, I regret not going through with it and kicking his ass. But...I turned back, and now not only am I disgusted with the circumstance, I'm disgusted with myself for not having acted.

But yeah, this general behavior is a hot button of mine.

well, at least you were willing to do something, thats all that matters. like, i think people who dont do anything other than stand and watch, and not tell the cops, or some sort of athority, are themselves guilty for committing some sort of abuse to the victim.

i personally think that if abuser should not walk freely in that situation. even if the abuser is drunk and doesnt know what hes doing, someone should tell that person of his/her behavior. violence on my end perhaps wont really solve anything. like, say a friend of mine is treating his girlfriend like that, i wont beat him up for it, but i would break them up(at that particular time) and take the girl away and then deal with the guy on my own.

but ironically, i dont know what i'd do if it was the girl that was being violent, and the guy, being a guy, wont even defend him self...:S

Written by Elodie Artour on 04.04.2008 at 19:42

This topic is for the"Serious Discussions"subforum.

...

Yes, it is. But it can only be moved there by a staff member. Every topic in "Serious Discussions" was started elsewhere.

I know a number of women who were abused or molested. In every case, the woman did not come forward for many, many years - sometimes decades.

My best friend when I was a kid molested a girl when he was 10 years old - and she was 7. I only learned about the abuse when the girl told me 15 years later. (This ex-best friend of mine wound up getting a teenager pregnant and was forced to marry her.) I never had a clue what he was doing.

can we get a female perspective in this? im sure if not a female member, then her friend/cousin/family member was, or almost was molested in one way or another.

if you feel comfortable, and brave telling, i would like to hear your side of the story.

Written by Arian Totalis on 05.04.2008 at 06:51

I'm disgusted with myself for not having acted.

There have been reports of people saving women from their abusive boyfriends and the gratitude of these women has been the following....instead of saying "Thanks for stopping my abusive boyfriend." they sue the people who helped them or called the cops saying "These people attacked violently my abusive boyfriend who may be abusive but I love him very much after all so dare to touch my abusive boyfriend and I'll make you go to jail."

There was an article bout medics who were witnesses to many similar cases....once there was a heavily beaten and injured woman sitting in the hospital waiting in queue for the medics to come and help her....next to her was an elderly lady who asked "Who did this to you?" The beaten one answered "My husband." The elderly lady said enviously "MY!!! Now this is an expression of TRUE LOVE!"...Just like the "olde times"....

I dunno how many people have heard the phrase "The more heavily he beats the fuck outta you, the more sincere and true his love is."

That's what people say....if anyone thinks I support abusing, then for sure I don't.....I'd never raise my hand against my wife or girlfriend....if I had one....

My coworker got fired when a woman reported him urinating on her apartment building, which we later found out to be a place for abused women. Irrrrrrony

@Harmonic:I knew about that long before.Just wanted to make sure the mods would recognize that this subforum was not the right one for the topic.

Well, you have to understand why women don't tell anyone until lots of years have past. My mom is a lawyer, and she sees lots of abused women cases. She explained to me that many women don't say anything to the police because of this:
Let's say John beats Melanie up, so she goes to the police and the police arrest John, but John doesn't necessarily have to stay in jail, since he needs to be convicted by a judge or jury first, before he goes to jail for good. So the judge lets him go until the day of the trial, or he pays bail. So John, pissed off because Melanie called the cops, goes to her place and beats her up, again or even worse, kills her.
This kind of thing happens a lot, so women prefer to stay quiet, resist being beaten up, but at least they keep their lives.

okay, i see where this is going. but what about women/girls who get abused by complete strangers, or have a 'stranger relationship' with this person, eg, a teacher, an instructor, or a janitor. i have a few friends who were molested/sexually assaulted by random people. and even then, they said nothing. so, if they were to call the cops or something, then i highly doubt that those teachers/janitors etc wont come back to hurt them more.

Written by Soliloquy on 04.04.2008 at 17:33

if you were in a particular relationship where your partner was abusive(or even if it was completely random and you were not in a relationship with that person), did you ever tell anyone about this? and if so, did you tell someone right away, or did you wait around a good couple of years not knowing what to do? if the later is the case...why?

probably most common reason: because they want to forget it rather than spend hours giving a detailed account of the situation to the police and a in a courtroom. They don't want to relive it and recall all the gory details.

Written by -tom- on 07.04.2008 at 00:48

Written by Soliloquy on 04.04.2008 at 17:33

if you were in a particular relationship where your partner was abusive(or even if it was completely random and you were not in a relationship with that person), did you ever tell anyone about this? and if so, did you tell someone right away, or did you wait around a good couple of years not knowing what to do? if the later is the case...why?

probably most common reason: because they want to forget it rather than spend hours giving a detailed account of the situation to the police and a in a courtroom. They don't want to relive it and recall all the gory details.

I agree with that, and also with what DreamWeaver said about fearing revenge.
Fortunately I don't know anyone who's been a victim of abuse - not that I know of, anyway - but more often that not some stories come up and I see fear is the reason for victims to keep their mouth shut. Fear of the agressor's reaction if the cops call them; fear of losing their household and/or children in a trial; fear of losing their husband/boyfriend/whatever's money support if they part ways; fear of being pointed out in the street as 'that abused woman'... Fear is indeed one's worst enemy.

is it more fear, or embarrassment, or is it more of liberal way of saying 'if i seek revenge on him/her, i would be no better than him/her'?

but what if the couple broke up, and the victim knows that no matter what, the abuser wont harm the victim again, yet will harm others? obviously different people work differently, but i would like to think that if i was in that particular situation, i rather get hurt more, as long as the pain is inflicted upon me, and no one else. i mean, why have 100's of people suffer when it can end with just one person suffering for that brief amount of time.

regardless to say, when i called the cops on the go-worker that sexually assaulted my now girlfriend, he was not only fired, but it went onto his record, and thus, he will never work in canada under the entertainment/retail/sales industry. he wasnt arrested because the police needed a hard copy evidence of the event. and though the incident happened in front of cameras, by the time the police were able to do anything, the cameras were washed over, as the cameras are switched once every week. but either way, he is on probation now. i highly doubt he would retaliate or seek revenge either considering he doesnt even know her name. it was a strict act of random predatory targeting. on top of that, he is from a different side of the city, and worked at a different branch. him and my girlfriend only spent about 10-15 minutes before he did anything.

There was recently an incident in Israel where a driving instructor who was a former military officer and praised war hero was fired from his position because he had been soliciting sex from students in return for a passing grade ( yes, getting a driving license here is quite the competition ) but also using force when he didn't get his way.

Of course, no one addressed these assaults because he is such a highly respected man - as soon as someone did divulge his actions, someone went undercover in coordination with the driving board and taped this man's actions as solid evidence. this guy's actions were posted on the news and he had been fully exposed for the bastard that he is. Because of this he will probably never have a proper career again and is facing hard jail time. In a small country like this, its impossible that this man will have a normal life....

Of course, it doesn't stop there but to constantly support the victims of the matter, because they were directly affected.