Abuse of Power

Well, it seems Rihanna has reconciled with Chris Brown. Pause to let my eyes finish rolling.

Unless you’ve read so much about Octomom that you forgot the original story, Brown allegedly battered Rihanna last month, sparking so much chatter some of us forgot we were in a recession. Well, Rihanna took him back, perhaps giving up her self-respect in the process.

Almost everyone I talked to about it just couldn’t believe a young, pretty, talented, and wealthy woman would go back to someone who physically abused her, no matter if the man is a heartthrob. Okay, forgiveness is a good thing. So is atonement if it’s sincere. But is their reconciliation sending a bad message that physical abuse can be tolerated?

As straights are debating this, it makes me wonder how big of a problem abuse is in the LGBT community. I suspect it’s largely a silent problem. It’s funny that reflecting on anecdotal evidence, I only can think of two LGBT people who were in physically abusive relationships. One was an ex and one was a friend of a friend. Both stayed with the significant other for awhile afterward.

Reliable statistics about domestic violence among same-sex couples are hard to come by, experts say. According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, there were 3,534 reported incidents of domestic violence against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender persons in 2006, the most recent statistics available. The data, however, is taken from major cities where anti-violence programs are found, such as Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Houston. Imagine if rural and outer areas were included.

The Campus Violence Prevent Project, affiliated with the University of Wisconsin, assembled some statistics in 2006 from national surveys done a few years earlier. They concluded:

· The prevalence of domestic violence among Gay and Lesbian couples is approximately 25 - 33%.
· Each year, between 50,000 and 100,000 Lesbian women and as many as 500,000 Gay men are battered.
· While same-sex battering mirrors heterosexual battering both in type and prevalence, its victims receive fewer protections.
· Seven states define domestic violence in a way that excludes same-sex victims; 21 states have sodomy laws that may require same-sex victims to confess to a crime in order to prove they are in a domestic relationship.

So it seems we can neither get married legally (in most places) nor get fair legal protection for domestic violence. Great. If we don’t feel the law gives us a fair shake, I imagine some LGBT abuse victims would never seek help in the first place.

Also I suspect there are many silent sufferers of abuse. And having a same-sex dynamic complicates things. I imagine some men and women are too ashamed to go to anybody if they’ve ever been abused by someone of the same gender, primarily because society gives us a snicker instead of sympathy. People think a man should be able to protect himself from another man, and so on. Traditional gender roles can interfere with abuse being taken seriously and being dealt with swiftly.

I hope no LGBT friend or family member has been an abuse victim and is remaining quiet. If the Rihanna situation at least has brought domestic violence to the forefront – at least for a moment – let’s hope the questions of how we need to deal with this linger long after the next tabloid fixation.