why can a “perfect boyfriend” also be an abuser?

the word monster it is also pronounced by Dr. Elena Garrido, forensic and clinical psychologist and professor at the UAB. He says that as a society “we prefer to believe that they are monsters”, that they live apart, from everything and everyone, and that they respond to the myth of the rapist in the hood. But I deny that it is not so. That they are people who know how to gain the trust of others. In fact, Ricondo explains that they then take advantage of this “climate of trust” to commit the attacks. And the response of the victims may be, “I won’t say it because no one will believe it.” They are “kind” people, who know how to be “the perfect husband”. “They even have a feminist discourse,” adds Garrido. It must be remembered that exemplar was the adjective that Gisèle Pelicot used to describe her husband, the man who for a decade systematically drugged and raped her and allowed nearly a hundred men to do it.

For this reason, according to Ricondo, many times the answer is the “surprise”, either of the environment or of the partner of the moment. And remember the “I always said hello” that neighbors usually say to another neighbor they have stopped for some reason. In fact, according to Antonio Andrés Pueyo, professor of psychology and professor of criminology at the UB, this pattern is repeated in more than one type of crime. Now, they all agree that it is virtually impossible to make a robot portrait of a sex offender. “It doesn’t exist, you can’t label them. They are of different ages, of different classes,” argues Dr. Garrido. “We have to demystify the profile, they are among us,” adds Ricondo, who remembers that 80% of assaults are committed by people the victim knows. At the same time, he also denies that there is a victim profile.

In this sense, Pueyo introduces another element: that aggressors are not born with this condition. “People are not one way and always behave the same, they have transitory attitudes,” says the expert. There is no evil identity, he says, but a life that explains it. Attitudes that are given, according to the professor, by a “biography” that can be marked by shocks, bad moments and also periods of drug addiction. He points out, for example, that powerful people sometimes end up being corrupted by the same power.

The power

And it is power relations that end up explaining these behaviors. Because according to the experts, there is no uncontrollable sexual impulse behind sexist aggression. “It is not done for pleasure or desire, but for power. Because he likes to exercise power over the woman,” says Ricondo. “They express their violence and sexuality in a dysfunctional way,” adds Garrido. This may also explain why he can maintain a violent attitude towards certain women and with others, such as his partner, behave in an exemplary manner.

According to Garrido, these two sides of the same coin do not, in most cases, correspond to a mental disorder. The psychologist argues that they know how to hide when they get home. “You are aware of it, there is no disconnection from reality. You integrate the violence and conceal it afterwards”, explains the doctor, and remembers that human beings know how to “sectorize spaces where one behavior is appropriate and another is not”. This leads abusers to behave in one way at home, with friends or family, and in a completely different way with certain women. In turn, Pueyo does point out that these two very marked behaviors could in some cases coincide with a dissociative disorder.

All in all, the three experts agree that for the environment, the fact that information like that of the Errejón case comes out generates a “shock” that is accentuated precisely by these two sides. “Until recently, this would not have happened,” says Ricondo, and celebrates that the anonymous complaints have ended up being the way for him to explain himself.

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