Warning: This post has adult themes and describes abusive and violent situations. Those who are underage or who may be triggered by this are advised against reading this post.
Abuse has a long history of disguising itself as religion. People have been saying "spare the rod, spoil the child" as an excuse for child abuse for centuries. People have been quoting the vow for wives to "obey" their husbands as an excuse for having controlling and often abusive marriages. People have used the Bible to back up their beliefs in slavery or to excuse extreme homophobia. It's a shame and disgusts me to no end how often people will ignore the commands to love others and treat them as we would like to be treated and instead try to use the Bible to excuse our own hatred. It's nothing new unfortunately, but there is a new movement in Christianity that is much more proud and upfront about their abuse, and its often tied to bdsm and sexual perversion.
What I'm talking about is called Christian Domestic Discipline (though there's nothing Christian about it in my eyes) and it's an insidious movement of abusive husbands and brainwashed wives. It's truly one of the most awful and evil things I've ever come across.
In these CDD marriages, the husband is viewed as the head of household (often shortened to HoH) and has full authority over the wife in all aspects of their lives. He is responsible for her spiritual well being as well as her physical, sexual, mental, emotional, and financial well-being. She is supposed to submit to him in all things. They claim there is biblical evidence for this, and unfortunately because of Paul, they aren't entirely wrong. Of course, I think that's complete and total bullshit, but I'll get more into that in a different post.
Quick side-tracked rant though before I move on: It really IS bullshit. It's also bullshit that the Catholic Church won't allow women to be priests. Jesus didn't just choose male followers, he chose women as well, and revealed himself first to the women when he was resurrected. The earliest leaders in Christianity were women, slaves, and the oppressed. Women were priests in the earliest days of the Church. Paul partnered alongside them and then forgot them and took over. He was a typical man in that sense. Jesus didn't say that women should be subordinate to their husbands or silent in the church, Paul said that long after the crucifixion and resurrection. While women were forming the earliest churches and gathering believers, Paul was still persecuting and executing Christians. Nothing pisses me off more than this. NOTHING. Rant over though, because this is another post for another day.
Alright, back to the point. In order to enforce her submission to his authority in all things, the husband reserves the right to literally beat her into submission. Often this takes the form of a list of rules he creates for her to follow. Some examples of rules I've seen include informing him if she goes out, coming home by a set curfew, asking his permission to do certain things, avoiding certain dangerous things such as texting while driving, eating a healthy diet he's approved for her, wearing only modest clothes that meet his approval, abiding by a budget he's set for shopping, fulfilling all household duties such as completing errands on time, keeping the house clean to his standards, preparing dinner on time, etc., only using respectful language while talking to him and/or others, not swearing, going to bed by a certain time, avoiding certain activities such as certain websites or television shows or staying off the computer after a certain time, etc. Does this sound like a list of rules parents would have for their children and then ground them if they break them? Because that's what it sounds like to me. It sounds like the husband treating his wife like a child. There is no equal partnership in a marriage like this. There is no respect for the wife as an adult and an individual. It's literally treating your marriage like a parent/child relationship. It's disgusting.
If she breaks the rules or otherwise acts "disrespectfully" then he has the "right" to "discipline" her. The "discipline" often takes the form of grounding, time outs, writing lines, or spanking. You know, like she's a fucking little child. Except I don't believe in spanking children, but regardless, these punishments are exactly that; this is treating her like a child. When I say spanking, I don't even just mean with an open hand. Some of these couples go so far as to include paddles, belts, whips, canes, etc. Some wives don't even have to break the rules for their husbands to decide to beat them. Some couples participate in "maintenance" or "reminder" spankings, which essentially means even if she follows every single rule, does everything according to his standards, treats him with full respect, and always submits to his authority, he will still give her regularly scheduled beatings anyway just to make sure she never forgets that he has the authority to beat her if it becomes necessary and that she should submit to what he decides is best for her even if she doesn't think she deserves a beating. I've seen husbands schedule these beatings as far apart as monthly and as often as a few times a week, though not all participate in the maintenance/reminder spankings. Some of these women literally get beaten by their husbands every single day of their lives.
Some of the couples I've seen participating in this are young newlyweds. Others are of retirement age and already grandparents who recently got into the movement or who have been practicing something similar to this for decades but never had a term for it before. Some were couples headed toward divorce that decided to try this to save their marriages. In my personal assessment of the situation, I would say that the vast majority of these couples, or at the very least the vast majority of the men, are people who have a sexual fixation on giving or receiving pain. I'd imagine the majority were first interested in bdsm, then felt guilt over sexual perversion, and decided to try to find a way to justify it as something "Christian" instead of something sexual. Either that, or the husbands know damn well they're only in it because they get off on beating their wives and they needed to find an excuse to get their wives to agree to it instead of running to a domestic violence shelter as fast as they could (which, by the way, is undoubtedly what should be happening because these marriages are some of the worst domestic violence and abuse cases I've ever seen).
The most despicable thing of all is that there are ministers and preachers out there who know this is going on and encourage it! There are counselors and therapists out there who give advice on how to do this instead of advising the women to leave and telling them that it's abuse. I'm not just talking about maybe one or two people, but it's actually a growing movement. Even if the wife tries to talk sense into her husband by going to her priest or marriage counseling, it's becoming more and more likely that they'll agree with him. There are many women who seem deeply brainwashed into the movement who now have blogs encouraging other couples to get into it and even publishing books about it, claiming that when their husbands beat them its a sign of love and devotion to her well being, its a sign he cares about protecting her and saving their marriage, and that CDD changed their lives for the better. They claim they're still pious people and that this is what the Bible says marriage should be like and what marriage was like for the majority of human history (unfortunately, they aren't wrong...). They claim it has nothing to do with bdsm or sex. I call bullshit on all of it. This is 100% bdsm, and just like the rest of bdsm, it's 100% abuse. The underlying biblical and historical "evidence" for it is also 100% misogyny, plain and simple. This is hatred for women and severe abuse disguising itself as religion. It makes me sick.
One final note: If you are a man who would ever consider getting involved in Christian Domestic Discipline, leave my blog, never speak to me, and please never get married. If you're already married, just file for divorce. Stay away from women. Go fuck yourself.
EDIT: I originally wrote this in October because it was National Domestic Violence Awareness month, but as usual for me, it sat in my drafts until November. However, unfortunately, discussing domestic violence and spreading awareness about it needs to be a year round thing anyway, so I'm posting it now. If you are a victim of any kind of domestic violence, there is help for you. Even if you initially consented to a relationship like this, I promise you can still get help getting out of it. You can visit this website for more information (which includes a link you can click on the page if you need to quickly exit the site for your safety) or call the national hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE). Make sure that you call from a phone that your partner can't trace.
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