Don't Worry, This Is A Loving Punch

 Violence is never an act of love. It's a myth that we have been force-fed, especially women and female-presenting people. That the reason that boy is being mean to you is that he just likes you. We've been conditioned to expect violent behavior out of the people closest to us. Almost everyone has some type of experience this with this, I'm pretty sure. 

In Finnish, there's this saying that translates to "it's out of love that the horse kicks you, after all". I remember hearing it for the first time in kindergarten, though it was in elementary when the phrase was actually directed at me. Funnily enough, it was always about boys – that if there is a boy in your group or class that is "giving you a hard time", it's because he has a crush on you. As a lesbian, this doesn't really affect me in any way. The same statement was never aired about girls, though. I wonder if there is a reason for that. 

i just like you a lot.

 "If I bully you, it's because I like you."

I wish I had screenshotted every time this sentence has popped up on my feed in the form of an Instagram Create mode meme or something similar. There is a very special place in my heart for everyone who says this – in the most volatile way possible. It's a beautiful combination of victim-blaming and normalization of violence in relationships. There is nothing affectionate in violence, and the fact that we are still trying to romanticize it makes me incredibly frustrated. As long as we keep parroting this rhetoric, we are going to be teaching each other to accept abuse as a normal part of life. 

Try showing affection to your partner and other loved ones by some other way than attacking them and subjecting them to your abusive tendencies. I'm sure that kind of change would make you a lot more pleasant of a person to be around. 

Because there really is no such thing as a loving punch. There is no such thing as affectionate bullying. It is all to excuse abuse, and I hope one day we will realize this.

So that girls wouldn't have to expect violence from their Friends and Lovers – of whatever gender. 

Kissing your bruises instead,

ichigonya

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CHAPTER 7: VALID – BEGINNING