Abuse video sparks 'she started it' excuses online

The video that justifies violence with the 'she started it' excuse

A video circulating on social media shows a couple in the middle of an argument that ends in physical assault. It could be just another news story, but it is not: the debate it generates is not about the violence, but about who caused it. The question "but didn't she start it?" is no minor detail: it is the same machinery that for decades has turned victims into culprits.

At least three readings coexist in the reactions to the video. The first, and loudest, ridicules the aggressor: his virility is measured, his manhood is questioned, he is reduced to an object of scorn. The second, more unsettling, looks for mitigating factors: the woman supposedly started the confrontation, and the man was merely responding. The third shifts the focus to the psychological violence that, according to several comments, women also exert in relationships. All three share something: none of them talks about the victim.

The most revealing detail of the conversation is not the video, but the direction it takes. From condemnation to the joke. From the joke to justification. Within barely ten comments, the discussion goes from "this is a crime" to "you have to see the guy's penis." That drift is not accidental: it is the mechanism by which an assault stops being a fact and becomes a spectacle. And when the spectacle ends, responsibility has evaporated. The "she started it" excuse needs no proof because it is not an argument: it is a social reflex that turns force into reaction and the victim into a provocateur.

The video shows how control is maintained in a relationship, true, but not in the way its author expected. It shows how the social environment goes about manufacturing the aggressor's alibi. And it leaves an uncomfortable question: if a blow can be debated based on who receives it, what violence is left that cannot be justified?