Women Who Want to be Beaten by Chris Brown?

      There has been a lot of reaction to these tweets by young women about how they would let him beat them up whenever he wants to, that he is "flawless."

      There was in a comments section at Black Male a black woman who pointed out that "she noticed" most of them were young white women-perhaps feeling this reflects well on black women? It;s an unfortunate attitude but that's where I suspect that commentator was coming from. For this comment and more see

     www.singleblackmale.org/2012/02/13/chris-brown-can-beat-me

      There certainly are plenty of black women who tolerate abuse. Indeed in some ways the ethics of the African American community make it harder rather than easier for black women to say no to that sort of abuse. The reasons I say this are complicated based on the very specific dynamic of the African American community.

     There was starting in the 60s a feeling among some that black women should put their loyalty with black men much more than white women. There is also a certain resentment of white women on the part of black women-I admit this is my opinion but I think it's justified, suggested even in that comment about how most of the women tweeting about wanting to be beaten up by Brown are white. Is she gloating that white women are masochists with no self-esteem and that no proud self-respecting sister would allow that?

    There's a feeling that black women should stand behind black men and even if there are problems maybe not be too quick to call up (the white) police against a brother-aren't they enough black men in jail? On my way to work I have become used to seeing a young attractive black woman with a guy a little older who treats her like a dog. As it turns out he's a criminal and has her hustling on the street for him-she goes around asking people for money and then gives it all to him. Again I think that the solidarity black women feel they should have with black men makes it harder to put a stop to this-in some ways. The reality is that in each culture women have their own issues with this.
     
     What do I make of these twitter comments? Does it send feminism back? Does it say something about where our young women are? I'm not sure.

      Honestly these were just jokes. I mean there is a long gap between what you really want and quips like this. Zizek once pointed out that to rape a woman who has "rape fantasies" is an even worst violation than raping a "truly assertive" woman who never imagines such a thing. Of course I use the phrase "truly assertive" somewhat ironically as of course a woman who dreams of rape may well be very assertive in her real every day life. You don't know that they would how many of these women would really let a man beat them in real life. Then again, Rihanna herself has certainly muddied the water by her song S&M where she spoke of enjoying whips, chains, and pain.

      Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with this-normally you may not make much of it but with the history it's a little striking-did  she enjoy the pain she suffered at the hands of 'Brown?  Now she has had a collaboration with him which is also problematic.


     Ultimately I guess I'm not sure if this whole episode denotes anything bad about young American women today or not. On a scale of 1-10 it could be anywhere. From 1 being no problem at all and 10 being a very big problem I can't say. Maybe it's like a 4 or 5-not totally serious but somewhat. After all everyone makes jokes, guys do it too. And there are men who fantasize of being submissive-not raped so much of course due to the very different physiologies of the two sexes.

     So I'm not going to give a declarative answer but will say that the question deserves more consideration and I will certainly listen to anyone who has an opinion. certainly can't rule out that it is a major problem.