Whenever he was angry with me, my ex-boyfriend would get clumsy in bed – an elbow in the ribs, a hip grinding into my thigh.

The first time it happened I thought it was an accident, and it may have been. After that, well, I wasn’t so sure.
Having grown up on a diet of women’s magazines relationship advice, I tried talking to him in a calm and rational manner. Was there, I wanted to know, something we needed to discuss? He apologised, but denied any wrongdoing, and I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
Me, I don’t believe in violence. I can’t bear to see people get hurt. I’ve burst into tears watching the news more than once. I don’t even like fictional brutality – I can’t watch graphic movies, except through my fingers; butcheries freak me out; I get upset when my housemate’s cat does what cats do and catches birds and mice; I don’t even like to kill insects.
Having said that, hit me and I’ll hit you back. This isn’t an eye for an eye – it’s more of an automatic reaction, like the knee-jerk reflex caused by a sharp tap to the patella. I’m not sure why this is. Like most girls I was raised to believe that violence is both unladylike and unacceptable.
I distinctly remember the first time anyone slapped me in the face. I was twelve and the aggressor was the headmistress, a nun by the name of Sister Michael. She slapped me; I slapped her back. Three times. I didn’t mean to, it was instinctive. I nearly got expelled, and although my parents were not thrilled at the prospect of that, they didn’t force me to apologise either. I think my father was secretly delighted that his lessons about sticking up to bullies had paid off.
Not that long ago a man I was seeing slapped me in the face playfully while we were at the pub. It wasn’t painful, but again, instinct took over and I hit him back. Unsurprisingly, it ruined the evening; it pretty much ruined the fling as well.
Boys are socialised not to hit girls, and girls are socialised not to hit anyone. For the most part we abide by these rules, but they don’t necessarily apply during sex. Plenty of people enjoy a little, or perhaps a lot, of pain during sex. The smack on the arse, the crack of the whip, the body pushed down and rendered immobile by force – there’s a fine line between pleasure and pain. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that as long as both parties are in agreement as to what is acceptable. At other times sex can get a bit rough – there’s nothing wrong with that either.
Sex injuries are fairly common too. Mostly these are pretty minor – pulled muscles; friction burns; a bang to the head against the headboard; bruised knees; and cricked necks.
However, because of this, rough play is a nebulous area and what is acceptable may be traversed either accidentally or on purpose. If someone elbows you in the breast, or scrapes your penis with their teeth, it is probably by mistake, but not always. So when my ex bit my nipple too painfully or kicked my shin I thought it was by accident; but when he hit me – hard – on the side of the head, supposedly in the throes of passion, I slapped him back.
Urban legend has it that punching a person on the back of the head during rear-entry or anal sex will cause both the vaginal and anal passages to tighten up. This is called the ‘donkey punch’ and is extremely dangerous – you can kill or disable someone doing this. Nor does it work. If you want someone to clench, ask him or her to do so.
I don’t think this is what he was attempting since he hit me with the flat of his hand on the temple, but I knew our sexual relationship had moved beyond rough play into physical abuse. He’d hit me, I’d hit him back – neither of us was an innocent party any more.
I was ashamed for both of us. Would I ever have hit him if he hadn’t hit me first? No, of course not. But I’m not sure it really matters. Either way a line had been crossed.
Most of us regard violence towards a partner as inexcusable, but despite that, domestic abuse is worryingly high, in Ireland and around the world. It’s hard to know what the exact figures are as domestic abuse – particularly female-on-male violence – is massively under-reported. A 2002 survey of women attending GPs found that two out of five of them had experienced violence at the hands of a sexual partner. The Irish charity Women’s Aid puts the figure at one in five women and has found that domestic violence occurs at every social, economic and educational background.
Women are not the only ones who suffer domestic abuse. In 2005 the National Crime Council and the Economic Social Research Institute published the results of a large-scale study of domestic abuse in Ireland. They found that 29 percent of women and 26 percent of men suffered either severe or minor domestic abuse.
On March 14 this year, the Irish Times reported on a conference on domestic violence held at University College Dublin. While physical abuse may happen at all levels of society, figures from America have found that it is twice as prevalent in disadvantaged areas. What’s more, domestic violence increases at times of economic hardship, which means that under our current state of high unemployment and job uncertainty, levels of partner abuse are likely to rise.
The best thing that can be said for a punch in the face is that it’s straightforward. There’s no sugar coating it – it’s physical abuse, pure and simple. With passive-aggressive sexual violence there is always the doubt that it was genuinely an accident.
When I started asking around I realised I wasn’t the only one who had experienced this, nor were women the only victims. Pushed out of bed; a fist in the face while stretching; a knee to the crotch; pulled hair; an elbow in the stomach; a knee in the side – all done “accidentally-on-purpose”. What’s more, because physical abuse is so frowned upon, those who commit this type of aggression may fool themselves into thinking they are not doing anything wrong; and because victims are in an intimate relationship with the aggressors, many will cling to any excuse rather than face the truth that the person who supposedly loves them is abusing them.
Physical abuse, even the kind that doesn’t leave bruises, is physical abuse. Physical abuse during sex, when you are naked and vulnerable, is not only abuse, it’s cowardly and underhand. It’s not a crime of passion committed in anger, it is cold and premeditated and shows utter disrespect for your partner.
It may not land you in hospital, it may not be the kind of violence that the Gardaí can prosecute, but there are no mitigating circumstances by which this behaviour can be excused or downplayed. If it’s happening to you, walk away, and don’t look back. There is no other remedy.
I was young, foolish and in love when this happened to me. I’d like to think I’d be wiser these days. I’d like to think you would be wiser too.