03/10/2024
You're probably thinking I've lost it putting such a post up. But in Season 1 we had the indomitable Natalie Collins on the podcast talking about domestic abuse. October is actually . Do you know 1 in 3 women will experience domestic abuse at one point in their life?
Knowing this stat and knowing there'll be people we know potentially suffering domestic abuse we asked Natalie is how do we know when an action of a partner crosses into abuse (bar the more "obvious" types of abuse)? She gives the story of a partner who buys flowers for his girlfriend. He gives the girlfriend flowers and tells her he loves her. She's delighted.
They then sit down and have dinner and during dinner he suggests they have s*x that night. She declines and says she's not up for it that night. He then tries to verbally persuade her saying "Go on", and moans throughout the meal. She continues to say no. He then starts to touch her, she pushes him away. He continues to touch her, and in the end he holds her down and r***s her.
A shocking illustration but at what point did his actions become abusive? The answer, according to Natalie, is if he bought those flowers intending to manipulate his girlfriend into s*xual activity, the act of buying flowers was abusive.
That's because there are two elements to abuse - the impact and the intention. She argues the latter, the intention, is often the bit missed in our conversations with our friends and family around us, and we need to learn to ask better, deeper, more curious questions rather than assuming what they say on the face of things is an accurate depiction of their situation.
Natalie had so much more to teach us about this incredibly important and common situation so many women find themselves in, so if you haven't already check out episode 10 of season one https://open.spotify.com/episode/0vTq30vZ7qDuqIsjhOoaQM?si=oZ0BwP3xT4Crd1EAJxZpmw
