Repeating abuse
Emily had an interesting comment to that post about repeating abuse. Go ahead, read it.
Her comment left me thinking, but without any real answers. Why are men more likely to repeat abuse? What is it about being abused as a child for a man that makes it more likely to turn around and abuse? I’ve read the same statistics she has, and while it’s been a long time since I actively worried about being accused of abuse based solely on those statistics, I wonder if I’ll worry about it as my nephew and neices get older and I spend time with them without their parents.
I know I wouldn’t abuse them, or any other kids, so it is difficult for me to really answer the question about why men are more likely to repeat it. I have theories, much like Emily’s, but no real concrete ideas.
What ideas do you have?
for one thing it seems to me that all of the stats on victims becomming abusers are taken from those who abuse. in fact i have yet to see a predator get caught and not use the abuse excuse. why should we believe anything they say? information given by people who made a life out of deception should be seen for what it is an attempt to escape blame . by using the very crime they comitted as an excuse ,its an insult to survivors like me .
Bloody hell, Adam has something there. Of course statistics are basically useless. They only show how many recorded abuse victims have become abusers themselves. As we know in blogworld, there is a huge number of abused who do not tell and cases and offenders never get recorded.
So maybe the picture that men reoffend is simplistic. Still, it is a vile stigma for male abusers to carry and one that I don’t like at all.
As for abusers using the same excuse as a reason to repeat behaviour, well I agree it is not an excuse. In my case he definitely was abused, to what extent I was never told.