Studies of female domestic abusers, as noted two weeks ago (6/9/08), tend to include emotional abuse and stalking. Glass et al (2008) recently revised the Danger Assessment (Campbell, 1988) instrument, a tool for identifying victims of domestic abuse, in order to make it more relevant for use in female-female relationships. Glass et al's panel of lesbian, bisexual, and transgender "victims and perpetrators" suggested revising the item "Has he/she ever forced you to have sex when you did not wish to do so?" to "Does she try to control your sex-life, for example withholding sex or using coercion or manipulation?". In Phase 2 of Glass' study, 80.7% of women surveyed said yes to the revised item. No results are given for response to the original item by this sample.
I just had a big "WTF" moment while re-reading Yourell's Brain Blogger post. Yourell cites Stacey et al's The Violent Couple (1994) on men's high reportage of partner's "withhold[ing] sex to punish" on the "CSR Abuse Index". A quick search online found no mention of this instrument, or other citations of its results.
Who defines "withholding sex to punish"? Who defines the amount of sex to which someone is entitled? I've seen many women threaten to withhold sex as a punishment (there's very few quicker ways to get written off as a waste of skin, in my book, than publically threatening your partner) but I'm highly skeptical of withholding sex as a concept. So: convince me.
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- Dan4th
- ex-activist, ex-pagan, ex-vegetarian, ex-female, post-queer blogging addict. B.S. in theatre, studying for Master's in Psych. Day job in research administration.
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17 comments:
Not on the withholding sex, but withholding intimacy is common when fighting. I'm pretty sure if the question were framed "when your angry do you not show the same level of physical affection then when you are not angry?" the answer would be near 100% yes. But this make the withholding sex even more odd. It doesn't seem bad to not want to have sex with someone when you are angry with them.
See, the abuse-concept of "withholding sex as punishment" is all about emotional control of the victim.
The issue is that I'm concerned about people's ability to distinguish "she won't have sex with me because she doesn't really want to touch me right now" and "she won't have sex with me until I do what she wants."
and also: what's the difference between a bribe for "being good" and withholding the same desired action for "being bad"?
hrafn
2008-06-23 03:48 pm UTC
Positive reinforcement versus negative reinforcement.
Well, it works on parrots, anyway (using food, not sex!).
dan4th
2008-06-23 04:05 pm
*shrug* yup, that's the definition of positive vs. negative reinforcement. (it does drive me nuts when people use "negative reinforcement" to mean things like corporal punishment. Negative reinforcement is withholding stuff, not giving stuff, even when that "stuff" is unpleasant) However, that seems to be equating sex with food, and food with a single-source economy. I have a couple issues with this model.
1. People are monogamous (generally) by choice. In cases of duress/violence, I'm prepared to cede the point, but I think generally the single-source sex economy is voluntary.
2. Sex is not food. I go a bit crazy without it, but I don't die.'
3. People are not parrots. Doesn't trying to control/"train" an adult with positive and negative reinforcement deny them the assumption of cognition, or in more idealistic terms "basic human dignity"? (not a concept I *really* believe in, but I think it's applicable here.)
hrafn
2008-06-23 05:45 pm
1 and 2. Even if theoretically you can go elsewhere for sex, and you won't die without it, many people do consider it necessary for their happiness within the given relationship, and don't consider leaving the relationship to get sex an option at all.
3. I don't know that it has to be looked at/used as control or training, but just as a way of interacting that is likely to make everyone involved happier; I think people just do respond better when they get positive feedback as opposed to negative feedback. I know I am happier when I do something and get thanked for it, or hear "Wow, the livng room looks great now!" or something (rather than hearing nothing at all - gee, did you even NOTICE I cleaned up? - or being complained at), and I've had people I've lived with express similar things. Obviously you can apply reinforcement in a condescending manner; I'd be pissed off if my SO said he was trying to train me, and here were the methods, but I can't deny that it's happening regardless (and vice versa, though I'd rather call it "learning to live together" than "training").
dan4th
2008-06-23 05:51 pm UTC
so it sounds like (and correct me if I'm wrong) you consider it "learning to live together" for your partner to withhold something "necessary for their happiness" until the desired result is achieved.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing. However, I believe a lot of the literature describes this as controlling emotional abuse.
"However, that seems to be equating sex with food, and food with a single-source economy."
We've already established that, in fact, sex is a restaurant and orgasms are food.
:)
@m_big_mistake: hey now! Don't confuse what "The Touchy Tranny" says with what "Difference Blog" says. Those two parts of my brain aren't even on speaking terms! ;)
(for those unfamiliar, mbm is referring to a post on my personal blog: Sex and Dinner)
hrafn
2008-06-23 06:21 pm UTC
Oh, no; I think negative reinforcement is generally not productive or good. I suppose it could be, but, yeah, it does strike me as controlling emotional abuse. But in my previous response I leaped from "withholding sex" to "training" to "learning to live together.
dan4th
2008-06-23 06:32 pm UTC
Okay, I thought there were some jumps there.
So, back to the original point, by way of an illustrative example.
Bob carelessly breaks an heirloom pitcher that Alice inherited from her grandmother.
Alice is understandably angry with Bob.
That night, Alice and Bob fail to have sex.
Is Alice punishing Bob for breaking the pitcher, or is Alice not particularly in the mood? And how would Bob tell?
As with all things, I think there is a gigantic, confusing, and important grey area here. For example, here is a spectrum of ways in which a person could feel forced or coerced into sex by hir partner:
*Sie initiates and assumes I am willing unless I explicitly say no
*Sie acts very sad if I don't appear interested in sex and I feel guilty
*Sie says sie needs sex to feel connected and that we won't be able to have a relationship if I don't want to have sex with hir
*Sie is upset if I turn hir down
*Sie is angry if I turn hir down
*Sie will not speak with me if I turn hir down
*Sie storms out/yells if I turn hir down
*Sie threatens me if I turn her down
*Sie is physically violent if I turn hir down
Similarly, one might choose not to have sex with someone one has a relationship with for any number of reasons, from "I have a headache," to "I'm upset with you and can't stand the idea of being intimate at this moment" to "I want you to suffer for forgetting to take out the trash." In the end, each partner probably always has hir own perception of what's going on in these situations.
Anyway. I'm no use for convincing you about the idea of "withholding sex," because I firmly believe that no one, including my partner, is *entitled* to fuck me. Sorry! :)
forced, coerced, and manipulated I can totally buy - I've been on both sides of that equation, and it's an ugly one. It's witholding-as-punishment that makes no sense to me, because I think that depends too much on the victim's interpretation. And that worries me.
ukelele
2008-06-23 09:02 pm (UTC)
You *have* read Lysistrata, right?
dan4th
2008-06-23 10:38 pm (UTC)
I have. I actually considered mentioning it. It demonstrates that the idea has been around for 2400+ years, although I'm not sure it demonstrates its validity.
hrafn [in reply to "Alice & Bob example"]
2008-06-23 10:01 pm UTC (link)
I suppose Bob would have to ask, but it's possible also that the answer is "a little of both."
msmsgirl
2008-06-23 11:36 pm UTC
These factors This Is What a Feminist Looks Like kind of point around and illuminate what popped into my head at your question, dan4th -- my first-pass opinion is that if anyone, withhold-er or withhold-ee, is identifying with the statement "withholds sex to punish," as in 'yeah my partner does that' OR 'yeah I do that,' it is a warning flag of a potentially fucked-up, abusive relationship, or at least a rampantly unequal one. To me, men's higher reportage on this question is NO surprise, since men are socialized to feel so entitled to as much sex as they want, to sex with their partners anytime, etc. -- so if a man is answering yes to this question, it may reflect a high level of entitlement that may be contributing to a mutually abusive cycle in the relationship. I.e. the person may be doing these things listed above, and one way to get that information on a metric might be to ask, "does your partner withhold sex to punish you?" and see if they answer yes.
Whereas I think feminine-socialized and -identified women who self-report that they "withhold sex to punish" are also playing into a fucked-up cycle -- "withholding sex to punish" strikes me as a classic passive-aggressive power-grab tactic of a person with no real power. Exactly the premise of _Lysistrata_, actually -- women using sex as an instrument of power because sex is the only power they possess.
Though if you think about it in terms of manifest utterances and stated actions, it's hard to imagine how *explicitly* stating that one is withholding sex to punish one's partner could NOT be abusive, no matter what the genders. For example, "if you take that phone call from your friend, no sex tonight," or "I was going to have sex with you tonight until you left the pots in the sink, but now I'm not" or (in bed, one partner trying to initiate sex), "I would like to have sex with you, I really would, but I'm not going to because you bought that [expensive item]; maybe this time you'll learn," and so on. It sounds controlling, even kind of sociopathic when you phrase it explicitly. Like a lot of things. And people DO put stuff like this in terms this fucked-up and explicit.
Also, a LOT of the not-abusive/abusive distinction turns on the withholding partner's stated desire, or lack thereof: "I don't want to," versus the fucked-up position that tries to make this into negative reinforcement: "I want to, too, but I need to teach you a lesson so I won't."
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