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Chapter 10 When the Hand That Slaps Is Female Fighting Addiction Dorothy M. We were sitting in the car. Fiona, my romantic partner, was telling me she was an active crack cocaine user, and I was reeling from the shock. My thoughts were jumbled, “I am living with a crack-head, who is this person I thought I knew? What am I going to do?” I don’t “do” addicts—most of my friends knew not to introduce to me to any—so how did this woman—someone I had affectionately referred to as my “partner for life”—sneak addiction into our lives, more specifically my life? In a fog of fear and disbelief, I heard her frantically explaining that she was in trouble with her drug dealer because she owed him money. I tried to regain my composure by jumping into “problem-solving” mode. I had enough love and support for my partner—and money for that drug dealer—to rescue my partner from her addiction and its consequences. The first order of business included paying off that leech, but I was scared to meet him face-to-face, so I gave her the money. Big mistake. When Fiona returned to the car, I found out that she had simply bought additional drugs rather than paying off the alleged debt. She had lied to me. I felt duped. A monster had taken control of my baby! I asked her to give me the drugs. She refused. I begged her. She still refused. Then, I slapped her. She ignored me. I slapped her again and again. After each slap I demanded that she give me the drugs—and after each slap, she refused. With each slap, I thought about how I was going to beat that monster out of her until it freed her and me from its deadly grip. I wanted to hurt the monster. I wanted to kill the fear of knowing that a monster was sharing my home. Despite beating the monster repeatedly, the monster was still there. The monster was my partner, 151 152 Dorothy M. and I was beating her. I let her go; she got out of the car, and she left. And when she left, she left with my dignity, my self-respect, my feminist reputation, my apologies, and worst of all, she left with the drugs. The monster still lived, but now I wasn’t so sure if it lived in me, her, or both of us.1 Battered, Black and Blue: Ghosts from My Past How could I live with myself after repeatedly slapping my partner? I am a feminist. I am a woman-loving woman. I am also a health advocate and, paradoxically, a “lesbian battering” advocate and educator. So, what’s a politically sophisticated feminist like me doing in a repulsive, unfeminist situation like this? Feeling hopeless and depressed, I wondered how I was going to continue teaching women about lesbian battering when I had become the batterer.2 I would be run out of town or, at the very least, ostracized by the same-sex, loving community that had become my cherished adopted family. Although open about my sexuality in the gay community, I was closeted outside it. I felt alone and ashamed. My reputation as a Black-powerful-feminist-warrior-woman, and the fact that I had also fallen in love with a “crack-head” woman, embarrassed and silenced me. Shouldn’t my politics have kept me from ending up in this kind of predicament? Sibling Abuse I am familiar with battering. I was battered weekly, almost daily, by my older sister, Beth. Beth was overweight, had short, coarse hair and a chronic skin rash, and was considered “too dark-skinned” to be pretty by the White folks’ standards of beauty that most Black folks had come to accept. I, however, was considered pretty by those same standards. I had long hair of a finer texture than Beth’s, a slightly European nose, and my Daddy’s dimples—traits that garnered lots of attention from relatives and extreme jealousy from Beth. Perhaps the contrast in our appearance left Beth longing for the days when she was the only child and, by default, got all of the attention. To make matters worse, Beth was teased mercilessly by other children at school about the wigs my mother made her wear in the hope that they would help Beth’s hair grow. Beth was also a target for bullying by...

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