The University of Michigan has released a list of relationship behaviors that it considers violent and abusive — including “withholding sex.”
“Discounting the partner’s feelings regarding sex,” “criticizing the partner sexually,” and “having sex with other people” are also examples of “sexual violence,” according to the list.
The school also offers definitions of domestic abuse. Under the section for “verbal or psychological abuse,” it states that not only is “insulting the partner” considered “abuse,” so is “ignoring the partner’s feelings.”
Janet Bloomfield, social media director for A Voice for Men, explained the dangers of such broad definitions of “violence” in an e-mail to the College Fix.
“When things like ‘withholding sex’ and ‘ignoring a partner’s feelings’ are framed as a pattern of behavior that is abusive, they are not only pathologizing normal relationship behaviors, but they are opening the door for vindictive or spurned partners to make allegations that can have profound effects for the accused,” she said.
— Katherine Timpf is a reporter at National Review Online.