FUCK you Chris Brown. And I'll say it again.

I'm having this really visceral reaction to these recent photos of Chris Brown enjoying life after beating the shit out of girlfriend.

It's as if this didn't happen:



or at the very least-doesn't rise to the level of importance where he would have some more sensitive PR work happening.

I know the photo of Rhianna is shocking and controversial-or maybe not anymore since it's kind-of old news and everyone has seen it. To me it's humiliating and sad and seems like it should be private. But I think it's good for young women and all women to see-this is what it looks like when you get your ass kicked inside of a relationship. Unfortunately, for this woman pictured above she's famous and so is her abuser so she's all of sudden become the de facto face of domestic violence-at least for now.

I volunteer at an organization that helps women leave abusive relationships and find emergency shelter and advocacy assistance-and while that doesn't making me an expert in this area-I know that abusive relationships are a dance of sorts- of codependency and unhealthy/dysfunctional patterns that allow the abuse to continue. That said-NO partner should kick the shit out of the other partner-regardless.

I don't know the details of what happened in this well publicized case-I don't know if she was hitting at him or provoking him. Things I've heard brought up to somehow (subtly) justify the abuse or explain Brown's behavior as being somewhat rational.

I was in a long-term severely emotionally dysfunctional relationships. It pains me to even call it abusive because A. It's embarrassing to think of myself as a victim in that sense and B. I really did love him and felt like it was normal at the time. I think of myself as a really strong, capable woman and what person wants to think or believe that they too are vulnerable to emotional and/or physical and/or psychological abuse.

But looking back I see how it happened. This cycle of codependency and control, humiliation and neglect. When I began a relationship with my husband I was stuck in that place still-I began a dance with him vacillating between extremes and I attempted to provoke him-several times through words, through actions, through so many things. We had all out brawls, neither one of us was very healthy (I did piss him off-OH MY GOD-did I piss him off to the point where he punched a punching bag OFF the ceiling it was hung on, kicked a table and cracked it in half, punched the back off a chair, threw shit at doors, and broke a handle off a pot by throwing it against the wall). It's like I was fucking daring him to fuck with me-and even though breaking shit isn't that most appropriate response he has not laid one hand on me. NOT ONCE has he grabbed me, pushed me, or tried to hurt me physically. Over time we've had to work really hard through our problems-which meant that BOTH of us had to come to the table acknowledging our roles and taking responsibility for our behavior. It sucks, but it's worth it and it doesn't allow one of us to be the "bad guy" and the other the "victim."

I could easily have ended up looking the Rhianna in the photo above. And I know that when I was in an emotionally dangerous relationship-if I had looked like that-I would have gone back. Just like she has.

It's not pretty.

And saying that does not mean that women are always victims and men are always aggressors (not to mention that abuse that happens in same-sex relationships) and it doesn't take away from the complexities and complications that I know-that I've experienced-exist in relationships.

But at the end of the day-when someone has a photo with their eyes closed and bruises all over their face put there by the hand of their partner-that isn't real love.

Chris Brown is a damaged person-sitting on his jet ski-seemingly without a care in the world.

And that is when the woman in the picture below him starts to look like a victim and he really starts to look like an unforgiveable asshole. And that pisses me off-him making it so easy to hate him and feel sorry for her.

So-I say-FUCK you Chris Brown and your stupid woman beating/shit eating grin.
FUCK you.