Fighting off an Unwanted Advance Is Not ‘Mutual Domestic Violence’

Lynn Beisner wonders if commentator Chris Cuomo understands that fighting off your rapist when that person is your husband is not domestic violence but self-defense against marital rape.

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Words matter.

I am overjoyed that as a nation we are now talking more seriously than ever about domestic violence. But the words we choose to have that discussion, to introduce this topic into the American conversation, are terribly important.

This morning as I was exercising on my treadmill, I happened across the “New Day” show on CNN. On the show, Chris Cuomo characterized the incident between Jonathan Dwyer and his wife that resulted in the football player’s arrest as one of “mutual domestic violence.” According to ESPN’s summary of the events:

Dwyer head-butted his wife and broke her nose after she refused his sexual advances, and punched her in the face the next day, police said Thursday ….

In the first encounter, police say Dwyer attempted to kiss and undress his wife, but she refused. Someone who heard the argument reported the assault to police, who showed up at the apartment but did not make an arrest. Dwyer hid in a bathroom and the wife denied he was in the home because the running back threatened to kill himself in front of her and their child if she told police about the assault, police said.

The next day, Dwyer punched his wife with a closed fist on the left side of her face, according to police. He also punched walls and threw a shoe at his 17-month-old son, who was not injured, police said.

USA Today’s report states that:

… the incident began at about 8 a.m. on July 21 when Dwyer and his wife got into an argument. Police say Dwyer tried to kiss his wife and remove her clothing. The woman told Dwyer to stop several times, police say, and bit his lip when he wouldn’t. Investigators say Dwyer then head-butted his wife, fracturing her nose.

Neighbors called Phoenix police to the couple’s apartment near Baseline Road and 48th Street, records show. Dwyer’s wife told police she and their 17-month-old son were the only ones home and she had been arguing with a family member over the telephone.

Investigators say after police left the apartment, Dwyer’s wife fled the home with their son. She returned when Dwyer sent a text saying he did not want to live anymore along with a picture of a knife, records show.

Authorities say Dwyer punched his wife in the face the next day when another argument ensued, records show. Dwyer also punched walls before picking up a shoe and throwing it at their son. The shoe hit the boy in the stomach.

And yet, given these descriptions of a woman enforcing her right not to be violated, Chris Cuomo offered the following on CNN this morning:

Suspending him for the rest of the year, right? The case, not to be ugly about it, good chance he does not get hooked for this case. Because there’s mutual violence, these domestic violence things, they get very messy, in court as well. It is the right move to suspend him for the rest of the year when he may not go to jail for the offense.

I am first of all concerned that the police ESPN are employing the euphemism of “stopping unwanted sexual advances” when what we are talking about is an attempted marital rape. And when a man then head-butts the woman that he has been trying to rape in the face and breaks her nose, he is continuing his ongoing assault on her physically and sexually. He is telling her, using the language of violence, that her body belongs to him, and that if she does not give it to him willingly, he will batter it. He allegedly broke her nose because she foiled his rape attempt by fighting back in a way that was painful enough to kill his boner.

What the wanna-be-rapist did NOT do is participate in a situation of “mutual domestic violence.” We need to be very careful not to allow the kind of language that would make this a mutual struggle enter the conversation.

If we do, we are saying that women do not have the right to fight back against their attacker. What language about “mutual violence” does is say is that if a woman is being raped by her husband, and she fights back, she can be accused of joining in the violence and at the very least, making the issue messy for law enforcement and the justice system. The problem is, if a woman does not fight back, she will be asked why she didn’t resist if she intends to press charges. And that creates a no-win situation for women. Fight back, and you’re partly responsible. Do nothing, and you have no case.

If we allow struggles against marital rape to be framed as mutual violence, perpetrators will indeed get off the hook for everything, including raping their wives.

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My reaction when I heard Chris Cuomo describe the Dwyer situation was one of shock. I was, at first, quite sure I had misunderstood. So when I got off the treadmill, I pushed the record button on my Tivo so I could watch the segment again. When it turned out that I had heard correctly, I got in touch with an editor at The Good Men Project. He wanted to see the video, so I recorded it on my cell-phone and posted it to YouTube.

Every time that I watched it, I became more concerned by how Cuomo had characterized the event. I worried that since he had not qualified it with “of course this is how the defense will portray it” or “not that I agree with how this will be portrayed” other people would begin using that language. So, via Twitter, I tried to contact his show and its producers. It was my hope that they would offer a quick back-track and perhaps some clarity.

Instead, Cuomo responded to me directly:

.@LynnBeisner that it is so untrue and unfair. I pointed out the obvious problem prosecuting these cases and pushback from player.

— Chris Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) September 19, 2014

But in point of fact, he had not done that. The only qualifying statement that he made was “Not to be ugly about it …” And he had used a very troubling term—mutual domestic violence— without qualifying it in a way that did not clearly point to the intention he later stated on Twitter. In situations where language matters so much, it is incumbent on broadcasters to be very clear, and to offer on-air clarifications if their words can be taken to mean something offensive.  His ongoing tweets read like a playbook for how to attack someone who has pointed out a serious mistake that you have made: Raise questions about the other party’s motives: He tweeted his doubt that I was actually trying to end victim blaming. After that, his acolytes were quick to say that I was maligning him out of jelousy.

.@LynnBeisner I hope your motivation was to expose wrongful blaming of victims. But you are off here. suggests a different motivation. — Chris Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) September 19, 2014

Refuse to admit any wrong and place all blame the other person for hearing what you said and taking it at face-value.

@LynnBeisner @zaneaskins @NewDay @CNN I agree u made a mistake.

— Chris Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) September 19, 2014

Amplify the voice of your followers who call your interrogator a bully. Cuomo retweeted people calling me a bully. This led to some general ugliness and turned into a threat.

@LynnBeisner @ChrisCuomo Mrs. B, You are spinning it AND trying to bully people. #DoBetter #DoMuchBetter — Duane *Big D* Vigue (@K5VGU) September 19, 2014

Ask people to feel sorry for you.

.@thenurse75 @bigfranky75 I try to take on realities of making change in #nfl and I’m accused of condoning rape. U wonder why it’s avoided — Chris Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) September 19, 2014

Imply that by questioning what you said, the person is making the plight of domestic victims everywhere much worse. In the tweet that I quoted above, Cuomo implies that people do not want to talk about domestic violence because we raise issues with how they discuss it. He goes on to make this assertion clearer in another text where he agrees with someone calling me ignorant.

.@moveebuff1953 @bigfranky75 still infectious and toxic and wrong. U must support those fighting the good fight if u want to #dobetter — Chris Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) September 19, 2014

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I started this essay by noting that words matter, and they do. But what also matters is how you handle mistakes. I think that we all expect broadcasters and pundits to make a lot mistakes as they begin to wade into the heavily fraught subject of domestic violence.

There is also a learning curve for the public at large when it comes to domestic violence, and broadcasters have a responsibility to contribute to their education. As far as Mr. Cuomo goes, I am going to bet that he did not consider that Dwyer’s wife was defending herself against spousal rape. I am going to bet that he was simply repeating what he had heard from other people. I sincerely doubt that he had any ill intent.

The problem is not that Mr. Cuomo made a mistake this morning. The problem is how he has responded to it, without even the slightest curiosity about where he may  have gone wrong and with no desire to correct it. I believe Mr. Cuomo has a lot to learn about domestic violence, and that is okay. What is not acceptable is his hostility towards learning.

Photo—J/Flickr