There’s No Such Thing As A “Perfect Victim”

With the recent verdict in the trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, I had some thoughts regarding those who experience Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and how society reacts to them and their cases. Before I dive into my actual thoughts, here is some background on IPV in America and what is currently in place to support those who experience abuse.

The Center for Disease Control defines Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) as “abuse or aggression that occurs in a romantic relationship. Intimate partner refers to both current and former spouses and dating partners.” It can include physical and sexual violence, stalking and psychological aggression. The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey is an ongoing survey of sexual violence, stalking and intimate partner violence against adult women and men in the United States and was launched in 2010. The most recent survey was conducted between September 2016 and May 2017. They found that almost 1 in 2 women (59 million or 47.3%) reported any contact sexual violence, physical violence, and/or stalking victimization at some point in their lifetime by an inmate partner and 44.2% or 52.1 million men had reported the same in the United States. The true number of those affected by IPV will most likely never be known, since many people that experience the abuse do not officially report it. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was first passed in 1994 and was reauthorized in 2022 by President Biden, it is up for renewal every five years. According to the National Network To End Domestic Violence, the act:

“creates and supports comprehensive, cost-effective responses to domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking.” The most recent reauthorization of it “provides survivors, the thousands of local programs that serve them, and communities with much-needed resources for housing, legal assistance, alternatives to criminal responses, and prevention programming. The law also restores tribal jurisdiction, allowing tribes to hold non-Native perpetrators accountable, improves existing housing protections and increases access to emergency and short-term housing, and creates dedicated investments in culturally specific service providers to ensure survivors of color are supported.”

The Cleveland Clinic has a wonderfully detailed breakdown of the Power and Control Wheel, a tool first designed by victims of IPV in Duluth, Minnesota in 1984 and has been widely used as a model for understanding and responding to IPV. The National Domestic Violence Hotline provides assistance to those suffering from abuse. The National Network To End Domestic Violence can help you find a coalition against domestic violence in your area.

I first became more aware of the crisis that is Intimate Partner Violence after taking a sociology course focused on it my freshman year of college. Since then I’ve been very interested in the topic and how society handles it.

It frustrates me so much that people are still looking for “perfect victims” when it comes to cases of abuse. There’s never going to be a perfect victim. Abuse is complex and doesn’t always look the same. It’s so easy to sit back, unaffected from the situation and say “Why didn’t you leave?” “Why didn’t you ask for help?” “I wouldn’t let that happen to me.” Abuse is all about power and control, with victims facing psychological, physical, emotional and financial threats and abuse that can keep them trapped in the situation. Abusive situations are already difficult to leave from but if the victim has a child or pet, it becomes even harder because the perpetrator will often level threats or abuse at the child or pet. Many domestic violence shelters simply do not have the resources to accommodate victims with pets and many people are unwilling to leave a beloved family member behind. Perpetrators often isolate their victims from the outside world by exercising control over their finances, who they can see and talk to and where they can go. Victims tend to find themselves unable to reach out for help because they may have become so cut off from others that they were once close to, as well as for fear of retribution if their abuser found out they sought out help.

It is so difficult for victims to seek help because of how abuse is discussed and treated in the real world. How many times are there news stories about victims that had sought help, sought legal intervention—what’s often considered the “right” things to do in situations of abuse—and they still ended up murdered by their abuser? How many times have victims come forward and told their stories and have been dismissed and not been believed? The terms used to describe abuse and who is thought of to be abused are incredibly gendered and dismissive of the victims. Terms like “crime(s) of passion” and “battered women” create a particular image of what abuse should look like. Calling abuse a “crime of passion” diminishes the seriousness of the crime and paints it as stemming from love on the part of the perpetrator. Anyone can be a victim of abuse regardless of age, sexual orientation, gender identity, race or status. Abuse can also be more emotional or psychological than physical, just because a victim may not suffer a physical injury by their perpetrator does not make them any less of a victim and their situation any less serious. By using specifically gender language such as making it a “women’s issue,” it erases victims that aren’t women and creates a narrow thinking of who can be a victim and what they should look like. Even The section of “Using Male Privilege” on the Power and Control Wheel creates the idea of who can be a victim. The gendered language implies that it is only ever men perpetrating abuse in relationships. Women can be abusive to their male partners and abuse between non heterosexual partners does occur. The idea that men can’t be victims because they are often supposed to be these strong, dominant, and masculine figures in society and showing emotion or vulnerability makes them “weaker” and doesn’t align with these societal norms and expectations can prevent a victim from coming forward. It’s already so hard for women who are seen as the typical victims of abuse to be believed in their cases, so what would the response be to a man coming forward about his experiences? That slice should be changed to “Using Societal Norms/Expectations” to be more inclusive of all victims of abuse. Even the usage of the word “domestic” carries some negative connotations to it, these crimes were often considered to be “private” issues between couples where police or legal intervention was viewed as invasive. The term “victim” is also debated with some preferring the term “survivor.”

It’s always “believe victims” and then the victims come forward, talk about their experiences, have eye witnesses and have visual evidence of abuse and it’s still not enough. It’s not enough because people must always throw in some sort of doubt to the victim’s story, there’s always some thing used to detract from them, whether it’s the amount of time it took for them to become free from that relationship, how long they took to report the abuse or if they come across as “unlikable.” One of the very common ideas tossed around when someone comes forward with their experiences is that they’re only speaking up for “attention” or “fame” or “money.” No person that has dealt with abuse has made the incredibly brave and difficult decision to speak about what they went through for those reasons. Coming forward about what abuse they faced is not an easy experience, they are putting themselves in a very vulnerable position, reliving painful moments in order to tell their story. There is no glory or great reward for them speaking up; victims are often scrutinized in the media, their stories picked apart and dissected at every angle, doubt is cast if those events actually happened and their “motive” for speaking out is questioned.

While there were notable victories at the start of the #MeToo Movement in 2016, many victims still have not received justice and the systems and thinking surrounding abuse have largely gone unchanged (It is worth revisiting the TIME 2017 Person of The Year Profile and considering what has and hasn’t changed in the nearly ten years since). Many abusers that had allegations brought against them have continued to succeed in their fields and haven’t been held accountable. For instance, Łukas Gottwald, more commonly known as Dr. Luke, was accused of abusing the artist Kesha when she was signed to his label, Kemosabe Records. In 2014 she filed a civil suit alleging infliction of emotional distress, sex-based hate crimes and employment discrimination, he in turn filed a suit against her and her mother alleging defamation and breach of contract. After years of court filings and dismissals, the two reached a settlement in June of 2023 before the case went to trial the following month. Kesha’s contract with Kemosabe Records ended after the release of her album Gag Order and in December of 2023 she parted ways with the label and RCA. She has since launched an independent label named Kesha Records and her album . [Period] is set to release on July 4. Dr. Luke has continued to work in the industry including working with Doja Cat (she signed to his label in 2014) and Katy Perry’s recent release 143 (He had worked as a producer on her 2010 and 2013 albums (Teenage Dream and Prism) but not on her albums released in 2017 and 2020 (Witness and Smile) both of which failed to have the commercial successes of the previous two.) Additionally the actor Johnny Depp has continued his career after being found guilty of assaulting Amber Heard 12 out of 14 incidents put forth during a trial for libel in the U.K. (The more widely publicized 2022 case and trial based in America found Heard liable for defamation). Supporters of Depp claimed that these allegations of sexual assault had “ruined” his career; in 2023 he starred as King Louis XV in the film Jeanne Du Barry that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and is starring in the upcoming film Day Drinker. Another notable man who has continued to have a career despite allegations of abuse is the musical artist Chris Brown. He and the artist Rihanna were in a relationship in 2007 and in 2009 he was charged with felony assault and making criminal threats after he physically assaulted Rihanna to the point she ended up hospitalized. The two split after the incident but rekindled things in 2013 before splitting up once again. Brown has a lengthy history of violence in general and has multiple other allegations of intimate partner violence against him from other women. Most recently he was arrested in England for assault and charged with “grievous bodily harm” and he ended up settling the suit with the victim. Despite the numerous allegations and arrests Brown has continued to have a successful career; at the 67th Grammy Awards he received a nomination for Best R&B Performance and won for Best R&B Album and he is currently in the midst of the Breezy Bowl XX Stadium World Tour. It is interesting to note that with both Dr. Luke and Depp, they sued for defamation in response to the allegations and did not actually go to trial for the alleged abuse. It is also notable that in the cases of Depp and Brown it is alleged that violence was perpetrated by both parties in the relationship, which some believe that their violent response was justified because of the violence against them. The notion of a victim fighting back is not uncommon, the research article In Her Own Words: Women Describe Their Use of Force Resulting in Court-Ordered Intervention provides an interesting look at why some respond with violence. A victim responding to violence with violence complicates the notion that is widely held regarding those who experience abuse and makes an already complex situation even more so. One of the more disturbing things to witness when it comes to cases of intimate partner violence is the way the cases and victims are discussed on social media. With the recent trial against artist Sean “Diddy” Combs many people made light of the allegations made against him. There were numerous jokes about baby oil and freak offs that served to diminish the seriousness of the crimes committed.

The language used to talk about abuse and the manner that those who come forward about their experiences needs to change. As a society we need to be more empathetic and respectful of victims and not make jokes about the circumstances in which they were subjected to. We need to reshape the systems that are intended to hold people accountable, call out abuses of power when they occur instead of enabling or tolerating them and create more welcoming and supportive environments for those to come forward with their stories. We need to fund and create more resources and spaces for those who have experienced abuse to turn to for safety and help. We need to broaden our narrow definition of who can be a victim and understand that every single case is different. Violence and violence against women in particular has become normalized in our society. Women are taught methods to defend themselves, how to dress to not “invite” attention or harassment, to carry mace, pepper spray and alarms on their persons, to never accept a drink from a stranger or to leave their drink unattended or uncovered because someone could spike it, to be extra cautious when out at night, buying extra locks and devices to secure their doors in hotels. I could list a handful of other small notions that have been given as advice to women as they move about their daily lives. We have created a culture of fear in our society, one that perpetuates gender stereotypes for women and has found profit off the stories of victims thanks to the true crime genre that now encompasses podcasts, television programs, films and the sensationalization of crimes like murder and assault. While these crimes are serious, we have in a way become desensitized to them and accepted them as a normal part of society and when it comes to cases of IPV there is often a sense that justice isn’t often delivered. Test kits for rape sit on shelves in police departments across the nation, untested. Restraining orders are violated and in some cases the person who sought it ends up murdered. Police officers are reluctant to arrest perpetrators and a significant number of officers themselves perpetrate violence in their own relationships. I highly recommend reading through Leigh Goodmark’s investigation into IPV Hands Up At Home: Militarized Masculinity and Police Officers Who Commit Intimate Partner Abuse to learn more about the violence perpetrated by those who are intended to prevent and stop it from occurring and the New Yorker piece “What If Your Abusive Husband Is A Cop?” is also worth the read.. The system that is supposed to investigate these crimes and bring justice to victims often fails because the structures put in place were designed by those in power and those who enforce it commit abuse against others themselves. There needs to be a change in how we respond to issues of domestic violence when it occurs, the resources and support for those who have experienced abuse need to expand, there should also be a shift from punitive to rehabilitative when it comes to the perpetrators of violence, and at large a shift from “cancel culture” to accountability culture where people are held accountable for their actions and given the resources to amend and rehabilitate themselves while also providing justice to their victims. Society’s attitude toward violence needs to change. Instead of teaching one group how to minimize their risk for possible danger, why don’t we treat everyone regardless of gender or sexual identity how to respect each other, recognize everyone’s personhood, healthy communication and consent? Why don’t we prioritize empathy, kindness, care and equality instead of power, control and domination? Why don’t we work on changing the way we respond to difficult situations to a healthy reaction that gets our points across instead of having outbursts of anger that manifest as physical or verbal attacks? Why don’t we create an environment that makes it easier for people to come forward instead of feeling that nothing will come of them sharing their experiences or fearing what might happen if they do? Why don’t we change the way we discuss and approach those who have come forward with their experiences, why don’t we first offer them support and help without immediately trying to poke holes in their stories? Why don’t we work to stop cycles of violence and the structures that enable it to occur? Why don’t we try to be better and help those in need regardless of who they might be?

The systems currently in place do not support victims and make it incredibly difficult for them to receive help and justice, and until we discard this notion that a victim needs to look like x, y or z or be perfect, victims are going to continue to be silenced and not receive justice.