#culture abuse

[esoteric-aesthetic-lyrics]

Bee Kind To The Bugs - Culture Abuse

[lgbtlunaverse]

The world exists in such a baffling state of simultaneous sex-aversion and sex-hegemony. Every social platform on the internet is trying to banish sex workers to the shadow realm but I can't post a tweet without at least two bots replying P U S S Y I N B I O. People are self-censoring sex to seggs and $3× but every other ad you see is still filled with half-naked women. Rightwingers want queer people arrested for so much as existing in the same postal code as a child and are also drumming up a moral panic about how teenage boys aren't getting laid enough. I feel like I'm losing my mind.

[apollon-ryzek]

when i heard the gun shots outside

i heard the news and i tried not to cry

well I've heard a lot of things that i never thought my friends would have to say

gotta gotta gotta live

the way you wanna

gotta gotta gotta be

the way you're gonna

gotta gotta gotta love

just who you wanna

gotta gotta gotta go

a kid got gunned down by SF Police

it's no longer far away it's right down my street

well it makes me wanna get my gun

makes me wanna cry

we cant let them win

gotta gotta gotta live

the way you wanna

gotta gotta gotta be

the way you're gonna

gotta gotta gotta love

just who you wanna

gotta gotta gotta go

[emotionaleating]

pls don’t flirt with me i want to be nonchalant so bad but i unfortunately crave connection so intensely that i will give you my entire soul and forgive you over and over until i’ve lost myself completely and feel like i’m drowning

[teaboot]

When I was a kid, I regularly lost reading privileges for "having an attitude" and "acting out".

It wasn't as simple as being told not to read during other activities- one of the first times it happened, I remember being six years old, watching my stepfather pull fistfuls of books off my bookshelf and throw them to the floor in a heaping mess while I cried and asked him to stop.

It was weird. Every other adult I knew described me as exceptionally well-behaved, but at home, it was the opposite, and it was blamed on "learning bad habits from that shit you're reading".

Because I couldn't read at home, I spent all my free time at school in the library, reading with my friends.

When I grew up and moved away, I realized that my family life was toxic and abusive, and the "attitudes" I was being punished for were standing up for myself, standing up for my younger siblings, and resisting actual, real-life psychological abuse. Because I'd learned from what I'd read that my family wasn't normal, not like my parents said it was, and in my stories, the heroes were the people who spoke out when it was hard to.

It is insane to me that there are students right now who can't access books. It is insane that books are being outlawed. It is perverse that we are stealing away an entire generation's ability to contextualize their lives, to learn about the world around them, to develop critical thinking skills and express themselves and feel connected to the world or escape from it, whatever and whenever and however they need.

That is not how you raise a compassionate, thoughtful, powerful society.

That's how you process cattle.

It's fucking disgusting.

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

No one is doomed to abuse people. There isn't an "abuser gene" or "evil chromosome". There aren't "cursed bloodlines".

There's a culture that frequently enables, romanticizes and eroticizes abuse, and individual human beings who choose to take advantage of that, or not.

Even someone who has abused others in the past has a decision about whether or not to continue that harm. Further abuse isn't inevitable, it's a choice.

The idea that abusers can't help it just further enables abuse culture. If someone is abusive, they are making a choice.

[saltlakehardcoreflyers]

[hyperlexichypatia]

I'm not, generally speaking, a fan of punishment as a solution to social problems. Punishment is often overly harsh, ineffective as a deterrent, and doesn't solve the actual problem. The punitive mentality is more focused on making sure the "bad guys" "don't get away with it" than on actually solving the problem.

But I get a lot more worried when people talk about "alternatives to punishment", or when they support their proposed solutions because "it's not punishment."

Because what that means, in practice, is "I'm conceptualizing this form of coercive control as 'not punishment,' and therefore not subjecting it to the rigor, due process, or evidentiary standards of punishment."

The U.S. loves punishment. It's one of our favorite national pastimes. But we do have, both legally and culturally, some limitations on punishment, at least in theory. Punishment isn't supposed to be "cruel and unusual." It's not supposed to be inflicted without "due process of law." You're supposed to be convicted by a jury of your peers.

But if you call it "not punishment," none of that matters!

You can force people to register under a law that didn't exist when they committed their crimes, because it's "administrative," not punitive.

You can subject disabled people to shocks similar to a cattle prod -- which would surely be cruel and unusual punishment -- but it's okay, because it's not "punishment," it's a "treatment" called an "aversive" (that's therapist for "punishment").

You can have people locked up and forcibly drugged solely because they can't afford housing, but it's okay, because it's "help," not "punishment."

Police can kill people in cold blood -- judge, jury, and executioner -- and it's fine, because it's "self-defense," not "punishment," even if they argue after the fact that the victim "deserved it."

It's also a matter of cultural attitudes. If you said "The punishment for trespassing should be life in prison," or "The punishment for loitering should be permanent loss of the right to control one's body, money, or living space," or "The punishment for turnstile-jumping should be lifelong forced ingestion of drugs that numb basic cognitive functions," most people would think this was horrific, much too harsh a punishment for a relatively minor crime.

But if you change it to "Instead of jailing and punishing unhoused people with mental health issues, we should respond to their minor crimes by Getting Them Help, like institutionalization, conservatorship, or outpatient commitment," people now think this is completely reasonable.

Even being the victim of a crime can get someone not-punished far more severely than the perpetrators are "punished." People might serve jail time for financial fraud, but not usually a life sentence. Being the victim of financial fraud, however, can lead to a life sentence of institutionalization -- which fraud investigators have cited as a barrier to getting victims to report fraud. I personally know of multiple disabled young adults who were afraid to report being the victim of sexual assault or other kinds of assault because they knew that if they reported it, the perpetrator might or might not face some kind of punishment, but they would definitely face some type of "not-punishment" coercive control, like forced therapy, forced drugging, supervision, or having to leave school.

You want a society with less punishment? Me too. But only if you acknowledge that "punishment" includes all forms of coercive control. If you do something to someone against their will, if you restrict someone from their right to live as they choose, that's a punishment, regardless of whether you call it that.

[sparklecryptid]

Look, I think we can all agree with the fact that abuse thrives in darkness. So explain to me why a 21 year old used the word pdfile and pronounce it exactly like that when we were talking about child abuse. Censoring the word does nothing. It literally took me several seconds to understand what she was saying. Clear communication is vital when someone comes or tries to come forward. It can be the difference between them feeling seen and heard and refusing to divulge anything. When you censor words like that in real life there can be consequences because you are obscuring information and hurting communication. Use the proper words. And if they make you so uncomfortable you can’t use them then maybe you shouldn’t be having a conversation that requires use of those words.

[cruelbrutality]

I have no empathy, remorse, guilt or compassion.

That is how I experience things, as a result of my personality disorders.

If you are going to support personality disorders then you also must include people with these symptoms as well and not just the glorified version the media attempts to convey.

[emotionaleating]

[narcitism]

my abuser had brown hair im a victim of brunette abuse :(

[icedsodapop]

[autopsyfreak]

‘how do you expect people who have been abused by someone with NPD to refer to their abuse then?’

by calling it what it is: emotional abuse.

it’s not difficult.

slapping the word ‘narcissistic’ on the front of abuse is blindly assigning blame and associating the abusive behaviours with NPD, despite the fact that nowhere in the criteria does it state any abusive behaviours as a symptom.

i understand that people who are severely mentally unwell are more prone to abusing others, however to point the blame at a disorder (and therefore at everyone with the disorder) is ableist, irresponsible and grossly misinformed.

to put it into perspective as to how bad the stigma surrounding NPD is, i have been diagnosed with NPD and have been told i should be killed because of it, that i will inevitably abuse my partners i have had, i’ve had partners in the past be harassed by people saying that it’s ‘just a matter of time’ before i abuse them without any of these people ever even knowing me. i see endless amounts of things online calling all narcissists evil, as well as having my own experiences with abuse disregarded because they do not believe someone with NPD could be anything other than a perpetrator, despite the fact NPD is induced by trauma. the list goes on.

your choice of wording does matter and it does damage people with NPD.

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

I really think we need to be having conversations more often about how to figure out if you're being abusive, and how to address it if you are.

Abuse isn't just done by one demographic, or in one specific way. Most abusers justify their actions to themselves and do not think of what is happening as abuse.

It's dangerous to just assume that you don't have the ability to abuse someone due to your Pureness of Heart, oppressed status, or status as an abuse survivor. Thinking this way can make you more likely to harm someone.

I have known people who know a lot about abuse, have read a lot about it, and have been abused themselves, who become abusers and don't notice because it doesn't occur to them that they could ever be an abuser. They assume that if abuse is happening, they must always be the victim, because they were in the past.

This perception can make reasonable boundaries feel "controlling" and respectful conversations about harm feel like attacks. In trying to avoid painful feelings, it's possible to become controlling without even realizing that's what's happening.

You can abuse people. I can abuse people. Abusers are human beings who choose to harm and/or exert control over others. Not storybook monsters you have nothing in common with.

Let's talk about how to make sure we keep our friends, loved ones, and other community members safe from harmful behavior, not just from Total Irredeemable Obvious Monsters.