• AmidFuror@fedia.io
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    13 days ago

    “My statement was obviously an exaggeration. It was not meant as advice to be taken literally,” he said. “The overwhelming majority of men are not violent and are not criminals.”

    I guess better advice would be how to get background information on prospective partners and, if there’s no history in the courts or from former partners, what some red flags to look for might be. How do you differentiate the safe men from the dangerous ones?

    From the article, the chief and the reporter got threats afterward. A bit ironic to want to do violence to someone who warned that relationships can become violent.

    • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      There is no way to predict the future. A lot of violence in relationship takes months/years to appear. Plenty of violent and abusive people have no criminal record or red flags. And the ones who are really good at it… know how to manipulate people and tend to be very charming and attractive. There is no ‘standard profile’ of an abuser.

      Further lots of bad partners only drop their good person act once they have reached a level of security in the relationship. I had one girlfriend who only started physically attacking me once we had reached the stage of moving in. Because she finally felt she ‘had’ me and she could be her ‘real self’, and that ‘real self’ was a terrible person and her fake self had been wonderful. Her ‘feeling safe’ with me was what allowed her to slap, punch, and kick me. She was totally shocked and BETRAYED that I left her for her physical abuse, because I was a stupid man who didn’t understand that “I had made her really angry and she couldn’t help herself because she loves me so much!”

      • AmidFuror@fedia.io
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        13 days ago

        I think it’s fair to say histories and red flags are not enough. But they are something. You will have false negatives (the guy hid it or his personality has changed for the worse) and false positives (the guy has changed for the better or the red flag wasn’t a good indicator).

        You can’t predict behavior with certainty, but you can improve your odds.

        • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          You can also generate a lot of false positives and shut yourself off from good people by assuming they are guilty into proven innocent.

          • AmidFuror@fedia.io
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            13 days ago

            Can we agree that women put themselves at enhanced risk if they date men convicted of murdering past girlfriends?

            • GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca
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              13 days ago

              This might be going too far. I mean anyone could murder their girlfriend in the right circumstances. I think it’s far more reasonable to suggest a red flag after they’ve murdered perhaps three girlfriends. Certainly four.

              • AmidFuror@fedia.io
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                13 days ago

                You’re right. There’s just no way to be certain. Without certainty, we know nothing.

      • super_user_do@feddit.it
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        13 days ago

        There’s plenty of men in similar situations. I have heard men basically describing that they have been sexually assaulted without them even understanding that they are victims. I got friends who would be considered victims of domestic violence if they were women