Getting ugly on September 7, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I am 22 years old and never had a relationship. Every guy I met has used me for money and sex. I have always been so nice and caring, the most sweetest person to men, even helping them out financially when they need it. (I don’t want to get into the amount of money I gave men, because you probably will be shocked.) From the age of 17, I started sleeping with men just for the hopes of a relationship, so they’d like me, etc., plus they told me all the things I wanted to hear. Me being very shy and unattractive, I would become very happy from hearing a compliment. I also learned that if I said no to sex, the guy would leave and I’d never see him again. However, last year one guy did not accept “no” and I was raped. The whole court ordeal lasted one year and I was not able to date anyone. Yes, I did go to rape therapy for that year. It helped, because I still didn’t give up on men after that. I basically just dealt with it and accepted it. When I was finally able to start seeing men again, my friend hooked me up with this guy. It took me a while to trust him, but finally I did and I slept with him (which was a pretty big step for me at this point). Of course, he didn’t want to be my boyfriend, but to me that was “normal.” I just blamed it on my looks. I found out he was married. This devastated me because again, I trusted someone and shame on me. I think I have heard all the lines by now. I saw another guy for two weeks right after the married one, but he didn’t want to be my boyfriend either, even though I spent every day with him. I took care of him when he was sick in bed for several days. I gave him rides all the time in my car. He told me he loved me, even though sometimes he put me down about my weight and how I looked. But I never slept with him, so he ended up leaving me. He got in a relationship with some one else within a matter of days. I could go on and on about the many other guys I’ve tried to be with, but I’ll spare you the misery. They all have practically the same scenario, same ending. I really feel that all I am good enough for is sex and my money. It hurts to think that all I did for each guy didn’t mean nothing to them. Sometimes it hurts to look in the mirror. Please help me.

–Melanie

BG’s advice after the jump!

Sorting it out on September 7, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have been with my boy for 2 years and I really love him. We were supposed to get married this year, but decided we were perhaps pushing things a little too far too fast and postponed the date to an as-yet-undecided future day. We both want this relationship to work but to do so, I feel we need to resolve a huge problem that is overshadowing us:

I don’t like to be physical with him very much anymore.

I was sexually abused when I was very young and I know this impacts me in some way(s) every single day, though how it manifests itself in my day-to-day life, I am never sure. I have never tried to block the abuse from my life, to ignore it or pretend it never happened. Nor have I ever tried to use it as an excuse or a part of a poor-me martyrdom act.

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Here’s an overdue and essential shoutout to Tiger Beatdown‘s supersmartie Sady Doyle, who here in the Atlantic nails precisely what’s cluelessly, even callously, off the mark in Caitlin Flanagan‘s recent anti-“hookup culture” screed. Unencumbered by sociohistorical accuracy, Flanagan suggests that today’s  girls pine for boyfriends — nu? this is new? — as a welcome source of escape from the disappointing, depressing, even damaging wham-bam of casual sex. But can a shining-armor boyfriend really take them away from all that? Doyle: not necessarily. “Flanagan’s biggest error is in suggesting that the Boyfriend Story, or boyfriends in general, are of necessity healthier than hook-ups: safer, kinder, less risky. This isn’t an issue of opinion; it is actually, and demonstrably, untrue,” she writes Boyfriends — like marriage, BG might add — are not magical. They are not a panacea. Sometimes they hurt worse.

Doyle [with emphasis added by kowtowing BG]:

If the facts backed Flanagan up — if withholding sex for boyfriends could actually solve the problem of girls being hurt by sexual partners — I would join the crusade against the hook-up culture tomorrow. But boys aren’t treating girls badly because they have sex; they’re treating them badly because we live in a culture that encourages disrespect toward girls. A man who dislikes women as a group does not change simply because he becomes intimate with one particular woman, and telling girls that love is the key to ending a man’s hurtful behavior plays into many of the most pernicious myths about abuse. If we tell young women that having a boyfriend is the way to stay safe and be respected, what do they do if their boyfriends become unsafe? Most stay. Most believe in the Boyfriend Story long after it starts to hurt.

February is Dating Violence Awareness Month.
Start with this, and probably this, too; we’ll be back with more.
Love,
BG

I take it that by now most people with a pulse have seen The Dark Knight at least 1/5 as many times as my 18-year-old brother, not counting IMAX. Still, no spoilers here, except maybe of your jaunty “ain’t love grand?” mood. The Onion’s AV Club recently took up a topic from one of The Dark Knight’s IMDB boards — one that took what we over here take to be a bit of a disturbing turn. The question at hand: “Is The Joker ‘sexy’ — too sexy, in fact, to be an effective villain?”

Um, quick bio: The Joker is a deeply disturbed killer who shows no remorse for his actions. He takes perverse pleasure in chaos; he will go to any length to bring it about. My father, quaintly, compared The Joker to the Phantom of the Opera. Sure, some of us — uncomfortably — do find The Phantom a bit arousing, but he, let’s recall, is motivated by love. We know his sorrowful backstory; we develop sympathy for him, trapped as he is in an unbearable soundtrack. The Joker, by contrast, appears out of nowhere, backstory-, alias-, and fingerprint-free, motivated by nothing other than pure eeeeeeevil, to wreak havoc upon Gotham. No tragic story, just an appetite for destruction and a terrible hair day. So…”sexy!?” Yikes.

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Here, your weekly installment of Ask Lynn, the advice column penned by BG’s alter ego at MSN.com (powered by Match.com). This week, we meet Torn-Up Tanya, who presents us with still another age-old dilemma: “Steve — or Mark?”

Steve: Emotionally abusive but penitent and up-for-counseling ex. Wants her back.

Mark: “Sweet,” “awesome” new guy she met, sorta by mistake, very soon after the breakup.

Whom should Tanya choose? (Hint: Maybe … Ed?) See what Lynn has to say, and then come back here to comment!

This week on Oprah.com (via Men’s Health): The five best cities to meet men over 35. (They don’t say how much over.) Here, we’ll spoil the slideshow: the winners are … San Jose, Salt Lake City, Raleigh, San Francisco, and Arlington “FUN CENTRAL”(tm) TX. Hmm! Perhaps our own “Feeling Rejected” should consider becoming (if she’s not already) a massive Rangers fan?

P.S. While we’re on the website, props to Oprah for addressing abuse in relationships. Say what you want about her weepy (or jumpy) couch confessions, or Dr. Phil, you can’t deny that when she talks, people — including people with something they need to hear — listen.