http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/01/08/sl-letter-of-the-day-red-flagging Comments On: SL Letter of the Day: Red Flagging by Dan Savage en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:30:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
However, I would recommend that rather than say "This means he must be abusive!" that she break down what happened and why that can lead to abuse. When your new partner insults or puts down one of your best friends (as opposed to just arguing or disagreeing with them), not only is he doing something disrespectful and asshole-ish to the friend but he's putting *you* in a sucky position.

When boyfriend insults best friend, best friend gets angry, and rightly so. But boyfriend gets huffy at being the subject of negative attention. Now the girlfriend has to choose between defending her best friend or defending her boyfriend. Boyfriend is basically saying with his actions, "Who's more important? Me or her?" This leads to abuse when girlfriend said, "um.. my best friend? I've only been dating you a month.." and boyfriend makes a scene, won't be comforted or reasoned with, and threatens to breakup with girlfriend. It's a dividing and isolating technique. It can also just be practiced by assholes, but functionally, it's a very effective early relationship abuse tool.

Believe me. My abusive boyfriend had put down just about every person I had ever been close with by the time the relationship was over. But it started with the small things.
Posted by Kella]]> Sat, 26 Jan 2013 17:48:14 -0800 The Stranger
If it really was inconsiderate of them to talk about kink, he should say something like "Guys, Jesus; let's change the subject. I'm not talking about ass-chastity with my brand new girlfriend and someone I just met." Being grossed out or uncomfortable with the topic might be an explanation for his outburst, but it's not an excuse and it's definitely not enough to pin the blame on the LW and her friend.

Unless they slipped cocaine in to his drink (now THAT would absolve him), he's the one who went further out of line here and he's an asshole. Not a potential abuser necessarily, but an asshole.
Posted by Bonefish]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:36:28 -0800 The Stranger
Not THAT snippy obviously, but still. If he was sitting there silently, what stopped you from changing the damn subject and trying to talk about movies or TV or whatever?
Posted by Clara]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 09:59:07 -0800 The Stranger
Not enough data to decide anything here. I would recommend the writer be strong and do what is right for them.
Posted by Kylere]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 07:53:40 -0800 The Stranger
What we do know is that a conversation about kink happened, and the boyfriend did not put his two cents in until he started insulting the LW. You can imagine it as a marking your territory conversation. I called it Saturday when I was younger. The boyfriend is a dick, and the world doesn't revolve around him.
Posted by TheMisanthrope]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 07:07:00 -0800 The Stranger
But we aren't talking about a hypothetical in which they talk about shoes, or the chances of the local baseball team, or why the mother on How I Met Your Mother never appears, or some other normal topic which some people would find boring, and the new person left out of the conversation erupts. We're talking about a first meeting that went something like "Oh, hi. Listen, let me explain to your dumb little girlfriend why I am right about the joys of pee during sex and she is close-minded and wrong."

Both LW and girlfriend are at fault for not coming up with a better ice breaker. And since the dynamic seems to be the LW explaining how the girlfriend is wrong, I do assume LW started the conversation. (I can't imagine something like "Sweetie, this is LW. She is into cuckolding, but I don't feel comfortable with cuckolding. So we'll talk about it now.")

His reaction is assholish. But the set-up that led to it is hardly your standard ice-breaker getting-to-know-the-new-SO situation, either. It's very peeing to mark territory exclusionary (as illustrated by his only getting in 6 words prior).
Posted by IPJ]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2013 06:33:58 -0800 The Stranger
As for all the speculation about whether she was being rude to him first, while that's possible, mature people don't deal with rudeness in such a stupid way.
Posted by alguna_rubia]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 20:03:14 -0800 The Stranger
Reversing the genders, that'd make her a whiny immature bitch who will probably end up becoming a controlling bitch in the future. Maybe not a physical abuser (men are more physically abusive in general), but a mental one for sure.
Posted by TheMisanthrope]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:51:22 -0800 The Stranger
But we're just debating whether the guy in the described hypothetical-to-us scenario is an asshole or not, and whether he's a potential abuser (I think the latter is a bit of a stretch). The LW could be embellishing and leaving things out, or not. If we assume so, then the list of things she could be leaving out is endless (eg, she was condescendingly curt to him the entire time).

If we assume not, our assumption that the boyfriend is an asshole might be inaccurate (or not!), but this doesn't really matter because 1) he's an anonymous stranger who suffers no consequences from our assumptions, and 2) this allows us to debate who is the asshole in the situation described, rather than debating the myriad of things that were "possibly" left out of the article that might change this.

54: If the genders were swapped, I'd call the "girlfriend" an asshole.
Posted by Bonefish]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:28:50 -0800 The Stranger
@52: No, it doesn't give her an abuser flag. A person confronted with assholery is entitled to call the other person an asshole without being labelled one, just as a person confronted with bigotry is entitled to call the other person a bigot without being labelled one.

@51 Some people are assholes and some people are abusers and calling them that is a legitimate and objective description. And less face it, she was asking for advice - just back off and leave them alone, or say something to her girlfriend? - i.e., is this serious enough to warrant an abuse warning or not really, in which case she should mind her own business. Her concern for her friend is laudable, her uncertainty over the proper course of action is reasonable and the letter is not a MarySueish hack job.

Dang, some of you are really projecting.
Posted by Alanmt]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:57:06 -0800 The Stranger
Furthermore, the boyfriend explicitly stated that he was "here for his girlfriend." He may have been clumsy and somewhat rude, but he was trying to defend his girlfriend from perceived attacks on her vanilla sexuality. That doesn't make him an abuser. He was actually trying to be a good guy!

I can't say the same for the LW.

Posted by BlueFlag]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:44:43 -0800 The Stranger
It is entirely possible this guy is an immature asshole, and that he would turn abusive (isolating from friends, belittling) if given any more time. But the set-up--you haven't exchanged 6 words with the guy, you're supposed to be hanging out, and "let me explain my noble thoughts on kinky sex" is the conversation opener you come up with? And stick with in the face of his silence? That's pretty damn rude.

As 35 suggested, swap the genders. Have LW be a male, meeting his buddy's 20 year old girlfriend for the first time, and he spends the next 30 minutes explaining the correct way to have adequately-kinky sex to his friend while ignoring her. And then she gets mad, rather than looking at her feet. I wouldn't claim it's the best reaction, but it's maybe an understandable one from a 20 year old who felt both belittled and undefended ("Can't talk to you babe, my special buddy is only halfway through 'why pee is fun' and I need to listen to the whole thing.")

As Raylan put it on Justified, you meet assholes all day long, the asshole is you. (Which does not remove some of the people you meet from joining you in that category.)
Posted by IPJ]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:31:16 -0800 The Stranger "Nothing too specific, just general ideas. I was defending certain kinks" really was? My guess is fem-dom or cuckoldry or something that made him feel humiliated/threatened, and presented in a way that make him think LW was somehow selling GF on the idea.

Don't get me wrong, I think the way he handled it was assholery. But it was classic 20-year-old corn-fed phobic assholery, not necessarily "whoa, now THAT's a red flag, he'll be beating you by the end of the year." I may be giving away the punch line, but when Dan bolded that particular item in the red flags list-- " Put down people, including your family and friends, or call them names." -- what struck me is that Letter Writer spent the entire letter doing a rather more subtle job of doing exactly that. If that was enough to pin the Red Flag of Abuser on him, then it's enough to drape her in it as well.
Posted by avast2006]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 12:58:48 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Old Crow]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 12:46:00 -0800 The Stranger
There also aren't very many justifications for his outburst. Whether this was due to insecurity, or disapproval of their topic, or disagreement with some point she made, it's still an asshole way to behave.

Sure; her description of events could be false; she could have subtly insulted him during the conversation, she could have interrupted him and kept him out of it, he could have been abused in a way similar to the kink she was describing, she could have egged his house the previous night or the entire letter could be a made-up scenario. But her letter is all we really have to go by (and as Dan says, every letter is a hypothetical to everyone except the LW, so why not take it at face value). And I know that if I witnessed something happen in the way the letter describes, I would consider the boyfriend an asshole; no question about it.

Besides; even if he WAS being kept out of the conversation, this is an immature overreaction even for a 20-year-old. Most people would at least say something like "hey guys, are you gonna let me get a word in here?" before just calling one of them an idiot and going on some melodramatic "I don't care what you think!" tirade. He sounds like a passive-aggressive whiner AT BEST. There's not much to be lost by dumping him.
Posted by Bonefish]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 10:48:20 -0800 The Stranger
"and I don't want to be rude to him"

Sounds like that youtube video: "two meek girls, one asshole"


Posted by debug]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 10:41:23 -0800 The Stranger Dan then pulls something off the web and applies it to the wrong person. Dan calls him an asshole, recommends forwarding a link, but in an uncharacteristic passive way won't go as far as saying yes, I agree that he looks like a future abuser. Just, wow.
Posted by Avery Greynold]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 10:41:12 -0800 The Stranger
This is one of those ink blot letters. Was he rude because he's tired of being treated badly by the LW? Or because he's a douche? Was the "I don't care" comment one born of insecurity? Or was it a blunt and necessary statement to a woman who has been slagging him to his own GF every chance she gets? I haven't a clue.

Posted by seeker6079]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 10:18:42 -0800 The Stranger Shouldn't a guy make an effort to be nice to the friend of his new girlfriend? Um ... shouldn't two friends not monopolize the conversation - whether it's about sex or any other subject - that leaves the new boyfriend out? Who knows, perhaps the boyfriend thought the LW was belittling his girlfriend for not being oh-so-daring and kinky. Or doing the female version of cock-blocking (hmmm, what to call that?).

[I believe the LW is female, simply because of the word choices and drama. However, perhaps it might be an idea for Dan to ask ALL future advice seekers to the column to identify themselves clearly.]

Posted by Helenka (also a Canuck)]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:32:03 -0800 The Stranger
"Some of my best lovers would never have dreamed of having public discussions about sex with me and other people"

And if they were assholes about how they let you know, they'd still be assholes. Nobody's saying this dude is bad at the fucking, because being good at sex is obviously unconnected to being a flaming prick.
Posted by come on now, yo]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:22:50 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Annanicoleredpony]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 08:17:03 -0800 The Stranger Posted by mshawn]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 07:08:26 -0800 The Stranger
LW should tell her friend that he is an asshole, although it sounds like friend already understands that from her response to his remarks. Because he is an asshole, because of what he said and did, regardless of whether the conversation was banal. Whether he is also abusive shouldn't matter, except as an issue of risk management. Girlfriend should dump him immediately, because at that age, that is the severity of the message he needs to understand that a change of behavior is necessary.
Posted by Alanmt]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 05:46:05 -0800 The Stranger
But maybe this is, indeed, Dan's way of linking the Red Flag Project, as someone suggested, which appears to be a noble, necessary endeavor. Along those lines, might I also suggest the self-help book Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men, written by one Lundy Bancroft, who makes his living trying to reform these men (sometimes under court order).

It is exactly what the title says. It's highly readable and accessible, chockful of information, and clearly explains the inner thinking of the abuser, it describes how they act, the tricks they use, the warning signs to look for, the social myths of domestic abuse and how society breeds and fosters the abuse, the personal attitudes that keep abusive men from changing, practical steps the woman can take to free herself (and her children, if that's the case) from the abuser, it lists various resources she can use - it's just an awesome book, it's what I'm saying, both for women trapped in these relationships and friends/families who are concerned and want to help.
Posted by floater]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 00:33:53 -0800 The Stranger
I think the Letter Writer is a bit of a condescending asshole, and her friend's new boyfriend is a bit of an insecure and petulant asshole. Odds are pretty good the friend is a bit of an asshole--after all, her boyfriend and her friend the Letter Writer are assholes, and she did engage in a long conversation with her friend while letting her new boyfriend seethe in silence.

So we have petty drama among young people who are all, probably, assholes. How about a great big Grow The Fuck Up and Knock It Off With Being An Asshole (GTFUKIOWBAA) to all three of them?
Posted by Functional Atheist]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 00:00:43 -0800 The Stranger