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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   31495 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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I think we might have to thank men and their inability to respond in kind to psychological manipulation. Consider the following interaction:

  • Wife: "Honey, could you vacuum the house, please?"
  • Husband: "Sure, no problem, I'll get round to it before lunch"
  • Wife: starts vacuuming passively-aggressively

There are two likely outcomes:

  • Husband A: grabs the vacuum aggressively "Jesus fucking Christ, Janice! I've told you I would get round to it before lunch! You know I hate this passive-aggressive bullshit! Just say 'right now' next time, I'm not asking you to explain the whole day's schedule to me, but I'm not a fucking mind-reader!"
  • Husband B: "Huh, I guess she didn't need my help after all"

No abuse whatsoever.

  • Wife 1: "Honey, could you vacuum the house, please?"
  • Wife 2: "Sure, no problem, I'll get round to it before lunch"
  • Wife 1: starts vacuuming passively-aggressively
  • Wife 2: thinking "You think you can manipulate me this easily, huh? You think two can't play this game?" "Oh, honey, I am so sorry! Please let me do it! You should do less chores, you've been so tired lately you even washed my white Pima cotton t-shirt with your latest Temu 'haul'. No-no, it's okay, you know I love you, sweetheart, and nothing can change that"
  • Wife 1: thinking "Seriously? First you refuse to help me and then you start acting like a petty bitch? I'll have to teach you a lesson"

Bam, a cycle of psychological abuse.

I looked years ago into the studies, but the data is pretty bad. Alcoholism is also the main driver, so I would say there is a big class difference which can be more important. A below average working class couple who binge drink will use violence as conflict resolution more often, regardless if they are homo or hetero.

And while Gay men report lower rates of domestic abuse, there are many kitchen-psychology explanations for that:

  • Does “Mutual assured destruction” lower the value of violence? Is there a difference between twinks and bears?
  • Or do Gay men have non-jealous/non-monogamous and chill relationship norms which lowers conflict potential?
  • Or as men dislike seeing themselves as “victimized” and abused do gay domestic abuse victims just suffer in silence?

See here for a discussion: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskGayMen/comments/1dfkn7z/gay_men_in_relationships_have_the_lowest_rates_of/

Anecdotally, I’ve known many gay men who were and are in abusive relationships, especially in relationships with large age gaps. I find that in a lot of relationships involving a young man and older man, the younger man is often physically, emotionally, sexually, and/or financially abused. It happens far more frequently than anyone would like to admit.

And in lesbian relationships higher rate of reporting could be because butch women internalized toxic masculinity. Or the violence rate could be higher but less dangerous and more low key (like disrespecting shoving, instead of beating up into the hospital). Or is it just an artifact of self reporting and women “exaggerating” small slights?

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6113571/#B108

Moscati (2016) ..” The sample comprised 102 lesbian women, mostly Italian (88.2%). Participants answered a questionnaire containing 29 multiple-choice questions. In over one case out of five (20.6% of the total), the interviewee admitted to be afraid of her partner coming back home. Further, 41.2% of women occasionally hid something from their partners because they were afraid of their reactions. In addition, 14.7% of lesbian women declared that they were always afraid of their partners. Almost half of the interviewees identified the damage resulting from a couple fight as psychological; physical damage was reported by 5.9% of the interviewees (Arcilesbica, 2011).

Imagine a fifth of all relationships of your friends being build on fear! These numbers are so high though that I am sceptical.

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