By Ily Gonyanes
Not often talked about in the lesbian community, domestic violence affects a reported 30 to 40 percent of lesbian couples, similar to that suffered by heterosexual couples. Like their straight female counterparts, lesbians tend to keep quiet and stay in “the second closet” out of shame and fear, not reporting what is going on and not seeking counseling.
Lesbians do not often speak about their struggles with domestic abuse, or seek help for these issues, due partly to a lack of recognizing and understanding the signs of abuse. Relationship abuse can take three forms: sexual, emotional, and physical.
The most recognized and acknowledged form of domestic violence is physical abuse, yet even physical abuse can be hard for some lesbians to define. Most people think of physical abuse as punching, kicking, and battering a partner, however, any kind of negative physicality is considered physical abuse, such as pushing, shoving, biting, hair-pulling, or holding a partner to prevent them from moving. Some lesbians in physically abusive relationships tend to brush off behaviors such as pushing and shoving, not realizing that such behavior can and will escalate in to more severe forms of physical abuse. “My ex-girlfriend would push me around and slam me into walls, but I didn’t think anything about it,” says Amanda, a 23-year-old lesbian in West Palm Beach. “Then one day, she punched me straight on the mouth and I was bleeding everywhere. That is when it first occurred to me that something was seriously wrong with our relationship.”
It is a common misconception among those outside the lesbian community that one woman cannot sexually abuse another woman. The reality is that 30 percent of women have reported experiencing sexual abuse by another woman. “Between the ages of 18 and 21, I had a girlfriend who would come home drunk and wake me up by penetrating me. I was asleep and she would penetrate me without my consent. It took me a while to realize that it was rape. In fact, if I hadn’t been reading a straight women’s magazine and come across an article on sexual abuse, I might have never realized it. There is no material directed at lesbian women to help them understand they are being abused and how to get out of an abusive relationship,” says Lourdes, a 35-year-old lesbian in Miami.
While physical and sexual abuse are not rarities, studies show that emotional abuse is probably the most common form of abuse in lesbian relationships. “My worst experience in a relationship, probably ever, was subjecting myself to a woman who abused me verbally, emotionally, and psychologically, to the point where my self-esteem was nonexistent,” says Vivian, a 29-year-old lesbian in Aventura. “I was young and naïve; she was older and an excellent liar. It got to the point where she convinced me that I was worthless and that no one else could ever love me.”
At times, especially with younger lesbians, extreme jealousy and possessiveness are common. Due to the prevalence of this type of behavior, many young lesbians do not realize that they are in an abusive relationship until years after the relationship has ended. Controlling behaviors such as checking phone call logs, text messages and emails, and dictating whom a partner can talk to or socialize with, are forms of emotional abuse. Lillian, a lesbian in Miami, recalls this type of controlling behavior, “My girlfriend would unplug all the phones in the house and put them in her car. We had iron bars on the windows and an iron gate on the front door. She would lock me in the house. I couldn’t leave and I couldn’t call anybody. If there had been a fire, I would have been dead. And she would have been the one who killed me.”
Apart from being ashamed and scared, lesbians have an extra problem to worry about in regards to seeking help, which straight women do not encounter. “I remember one time that I actually called the cops; it had gotten that bad. She had hit me so hard that my eye was bruised shut; I couldn’t open it and my lip was split and bleeding,” says Lillian. “The cops came, took one look at us, and started laughing. They asked me why I didn’t just fight her back.”
There are no protections for lesbian victims of domestic abuse. Due to a fear of encountering homophobia or prejudice, many lesbians feel that they have no legal recourse. Most battered women’s shelters will not turn lesbians away, but these shelters are hetero-centric. They are not equipped to deal with the particulars of a lesbian domestic abuse victim.
While it is true that abuse is abuse, regardless of sexual orientation, lesbian victims do experience domestic abuse in a particularly unique way. “I am a butch and I was getting beat up by my femme girlfriend,” recalls Lillian. “People, including the cops, would ask me why I didn’t just beat her up; it was obvious that I was stronger than her. They didn’t understand and I couldn’t explain, there was more to it than who was stronger or who could beat up who. Even though she was hurting me, I didn’t want to hurt her.
