Hit me again. Hit me harder. Tell me I’m worthless. Threaten my life/my safety/my finances/my future. No, really. I want you to. That’s why I stay.

Oh, sorry. I was just lost in your woman-blaming, misogynist rhetoric about me—a victim of violence, a female abused, someone who stays.

So, socioeconomically, I don’t fit your typical profile of a woman who loves a man with an iron fist. Growing up with a silver spoon in my mouth, I was told abuse happened to other women. Poor women. Pathetic women. Promiscuous women. Not well-educated white women from the western suburbs of Chicago. No-ho-ho-ho-ho-o-o-o. When it happens to us, it’s a crime!

Or, at least that’s what you led me to believe until I started wondering aloud if I was that exception—that lone case of middle class domestic violence. And that’s when I joined the ranks of the “poor” and “pathetic”—the women who whine to steal your sympathy, who have babies for the welfare money, who summon crocodile tears on command. Yeah, I had it wrong all along. Abused women like me choose to be violated because we like it.

That’s what you’re saying, right? When you look at a victim of violence and explain the reasons why we deserve it? Why it was our fault? Here are a few more things I’ve learned about myself thanks to you:

• When I wear a skirt, I’m asking you to rape me
• When I’m pregnant and alone, I’m an irresponsible slut
• When I am your wife, I give you universal consent to fuck me
• When I loudly defend myself, I am disrespectful and in need of discipline
• When my children and I live in fear, I am a bad mother
• When I am poor and searching for answers, I’m a lazy welfare queen
• When I feel anxious and depressed, I’m a self-pitying martyr
• When I hold my head in my hands, I’m manipulative and passive aggressive

Wow, if it weren’t for you woman-blaming misogynists, I might think I’ve been rendered a statistic in a sea of systematized violence. But now you’ve helped me see that I’ve chosen this fate. I chose it when I decided it be a woman, right? Because when analyzing the epidemic of weepy witches like myself, it’s the only tie that binds. Rich or poor, white or brown, married or single–that’s not really the issue. The problem is my conniving little vagina—pumping me full of hallucinogenic hormones. Putting a taste in my mouth for mistreatment. Setting the stage for my soap opera of self-deception.

So, please—hit me again. Hit me harder.

I’m not crying because you punched me/raped me/degraded me. I’m crying because I’m a vindictive little bitch.

I’m not staying because you threatened to kill me/enslave me financially/slowly decimated my self-esteem.

I’m staying because I’m a pain-seeking masochist. And I’m not dying because you choked me/shot me/beat me to a pulp. I’m dead because…

You believe this bullshit.