I can vaguely understand how the pressures of life can drive people to want to have control over someone else because everything else seems to have control over them but I still don't really comprehend how that can possibly worm its way into being part of what should be a loving relationship.
I can barely understand it myself, however having worked with sex offenders who are just as bad (if not WORSE) as abusers it's not only about control but the feeling... the euphoric feeling of power. A combination of both.
On FB I've joined a group called "Men Against Rape" and was reading some of the commentary. A LOT of it was juvenile and just an angry fist shaking rant about how rapist should be treated in jail and blah blah blah. Not that I don't agree with them... I just see it as a pointless waste of energy that could be best channeled into something more... constructive.
Anyway whether a man is raping or beating a woman it's still all about power/control. When a woman cries "stop", "leave me alone", "I'll do anything just don't hurt me" or any number of the defensive cries as it's happening it gives the abuser/rapist a sense of power and having that power over something you can (theoretically) control it. This provides the necessary rush of that so-called brain chemical (serotonin? endorphin? ) which gives a nice pleasant sensation coupled (pardon the pun) with the sexual climax (if any in the abuser's case... because it's not always about sex... yet it shouldn't be no surprise that they may beat-up on the wife/gf and go have sex with another woman because in his eyes she's lower than dirt).
What should be the mystery is why women stay. Yes, fear, yes insecurity, yes loss of resources necessary (sometimes) to leave i.e. money, car, et al., yes threat against loved ones, including their own children.
Yet with all the protective resources that are available to battered women now-a-days why is it still difficult. Probably because the protection is sometimes (sadly) not protective at all. Or at least not 100% effective.
A restraining order don't mean squat to the determined.
So until it is fixed the system is going to have to do and until it's fixed battered/raped women will have to continue to sadly suffer.
Here's hoping that changes will be made for the better in the near future.
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