'This Queer Life'
Boys who hit boys
Michael Rizzo
Issue date: 2/28/08 Section: Opinion
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I called him a few days after just to check on him, and he told me he'd decided to give the guy another chance.
"Everybody gets one mistake," he said.
And during that moment in the conversation, I scrambled to find some advice.
What I came up with: "If anything happens, make sure you hit back."
Scars
That was before I met 38-year-old Manuelo. I told him I wouldn't use his real name because, a little more than a year ago, he suffered for seven months as a victim of intimate-partner abuse.
"We would go out drinking," he said. "He would get really violent. I would take the hits and not do anything about it. I would go to work with black eyes. I had to go to work with a broken rib, bruises on my face, all that."
Manuelo never hit back.
But then the eve of New Year's 2007 happened, and he and his boyfriend went out. They had too much to drink. Tempers flared.
"I said, 'You know what? I'm tired of this,'" Manuelo said. "I beat the shit out of him. That was what I did. I lashed out at him."
The police came and they arrested Manuelo. He was in jail for 21 days. He was served a three-year restraining order, a $300 fine and 12 months of domestic violence counseling, which would cost him almost $1,500.
Marks
"An intentional and methodical pattern of abusive tactics used to gain power and exert control over the partner in order to meet the abuser's needs."
That's how the Gay Men's Domestic Violence Project defines intimate-partner abuse.
A July 2007 study conducted by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs found 3,534 incidences of domestic violence in 2006 that affected the queer community. That number, though, is just a drop in the bucket.
Only 12 American cities participate in the annual report (San Jose is not one of them), and it can't be assumed that all incidents are reported.
Abuse has no self-control, and it doesn't see orientation, gender or age. It is not normal behavior to intimidate or threaten a lover. It is not normal behavior to claim control over a lover's life. And it is not normal behavior to physically harm a lover.
Disorientation
Manuelo was fortunate enough to find classes geared toward the queer community. But when he got there, it wasn't what he expected. He was in the room with his counselor and only one other guy.
"There's got to be more gay guys out there that are having domestic violence issues," Manuelo thought. "Why aren't they here?"
Then a couple of weeks ago, a new guy joined Manuelo's counseling group. He was a transfer - from the straight group. The guy initially was put in the wrong class because the police and the judge never realized he was gay.
"When the cops come to a nightclub and there's two people fighting," Manuelo said, "all the police know is that there's two people fighting."
And since the new guy never spoke up, his sentence had been different from (and cheaper than) Manuelo's - only three months of counseling, not 12.
Resolve
I bet it's the first question defense lawyers ask when it comes to charges of intimate-same-sex-partner abuse: "Do the cops know you're gay?"
It frustrates Manuelo that his punishment was harsher because he was honest. But in the end, he's glad he was. He told me counseling changed his life.
"Before," he said, "if somebody wanted to argue with me for two hours, I'm like, 'OK. Let's go.' But I've learned in the last year that it is OK to take a time out. It is OK to not sit there and banter back-and-forth with somebody. Out of respect, not only for yourself, but the other person you do need to take a time out."
I asked him what he thought of the advice I had given my old friend and what he would have said.
"It'll be a little worse next time," Manuelo said. "Violence escalates, and I wouldn't put up with that."
Excuse me while I make a phone call.
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