New British crime: controlling behavior

Bad ideas from Sweden and Japan do not necessarily come here, but England seems way ahead of us with its feminist nanny state laws, and we usually get their bad ideas. Here is the latest:

If ‘controlling behaviour’ is made a criminal offence, no relationship is safe.

I have always thought that otherwise sensible people can turn into complete nutcases around their partners. Relatively mellow people can become obsessed with the most insignificant nonsense when it involves their other half. This is because relationships involve the development of a peculiar, often pretty weird dynamic, which often only makes sense to those involved. I thought this was all pretty normal and had been part and parcel of relationships since the dawn of time. Last week, the UK government made it clear that it thinks I am wrong.

UK home secretary Theresa May announced that a new offence of ‘controlling and coercive behaviour’ is to be introduced to combat the threat of ‘extreme psychological and emotional abuse’ within relationships. Examples of this so-called abuse include: ‘preventing the victim from having friendships or hobbies; refusing them access to money; and determining many aspects of their everyday life.’ The new offence follows the government’s expansion of the official definition of domestic violence in 2013 to include emotional and psychological harm (under the new category of ‘domestic abuse’).

The latest move was justified on the basis of a consultation over the summer. The government said that 85 per cent of those consulted were in favour of reforming the law on domestic violence.

Really? 85% want the government to oversee and micro-manage how a couple influence each other in a relationship? I doubt it.

I posted about this UK law before, and got these comments:

Justin said...
My thoughts exactly. When I heard they were making "emotional abuse" a crime, my first thought was, holy shit, WAAAY more women than men are emotionally abusive. Emotional abuse and controlling behavior are a female specialty.

Quartermain said...
I have the feeling that the law would only enforce unilaterally.

Yes, as a practical matter, men are not going to call 911 to complain about a controlling wife, and no one is going to take them seriously even if they do. There are not any limits to what women will complain about.

For an example of female manipulation, here is a current letter to the Slate advice columnist:

Dear Prudence,
My girlfriend is what you would call “judgy” and it’s seeping into our personal life. She’s constantly saying my behavior is not normal, which includes such things as the way I stock the fridge. When she doesn’t like my opinion or the way I’ve phrased something, she proclaims that we’re going to have a new restriction about what I’m allowed to say. When I was a grad student and took longer than she liked to study for an exam, she called up my friends to find out how long it took them to study. When she was mad that I couldn’t go out on a certain weekend, she took down all the photos of us in her apartment. How do I put an end to this judgmental and controlling behavior? I feel like I’m on eggshells. We actually have a good time together until I say the wrong phrase, don’t abide by her schedule perfectly, or don’t meet other expectations.
—Tiptoeing

I have never heard of a man doing this sort of nonsense.

One reason that women get away with ridiculous complaints is the white knight phenomenon -- there is always a man to stick up for a woman no matter how unreasonable she is. Not sure if it is some hormonal response or misplaced chivalry, but they are despised in some quarters for doing it.

Speaking of manosphere jargon about male-female differences, CH quotes:

GAME is all the techniques and strategies to get better with women, including negging, cold reading, push pull, frame control, but also self improvement topics like working out, better posture, career development. The RED PILL, in contrast, is the deeper understanding that women are not sugar and spice and everything nice, that they in fact have a strong need to be sexually overwhelmed and dominated, that they are fundamentally emotional and childlike, that their concept of truth is not the same as that of men, and that their core nature is not to be loyal. The red pill teaches men to love and appreciate women as they are, not as we want them to be.

These concepts are widely misunderstood. They are rooted in scientific knowledge about human nature, and evolutionary psychology response to it.