If Chris Brown were to beat Rihanna, resulting in her death, would Rihanna herself be complicit?

It's an interesting question to me. Domestic violence advocates don't seem to recognize that some women choose to engage in high-risk romantic relationships.

• If a guy he cruised were to beat OP, resulting in his death, would OP himself be complicit? It's an interesting question to me. Hate crime advocates don't seem to recognize that some gay men choose to engage in high-risk sexual relationships.

• No, the victim should never be blamed in a case of domestic violence. Is she an idiot? Yes. But she is not in any way responsible for violence done to her. What bothers me is the terrible example she is setting for teenage girls.

• R1, that is a faulty analogy. We all know CB has a history of violence and Rihanna is taking her chances.

• Rihanna chooses to spend time with a man who violently attacked her and bashed her face in. She said it was entirely his fault in that Diane Sawyer interview and she was right. If he beats her again (I don't think they are a couple) and she stays then I say don't fucking complain. She's not some unwed mother of three with nowhere to go. She posts nasty pics of herself, there are violent themes to her music. It's entirely possible she's one of those women who enjoy getting abused and there are a lot of women like that. S&M.........

• Yes. She, unlike most women, has the power/money to escape an abuser. She is a fool and YES, he may hit her and even kill her and that is his fault. But, she is allowing him a chance to do this. Her fault. Lots of stupid young women and men will think abuse is okay. She is a waste of space and a shame to all women.

• Not any more than R1's mom dropping her on her head.

• If he kills her, I hope she is charged in her own death. See how much sense that makes?

• I think R1 was trying to make a point. I got it. No, OP, Rhianna would not be complicit. She's an idiot to take him back, though.

• Yes, she is setting a terrible example. It's pretty much inevitable that he will pull the same shit again. This does mirror reality though. Many women, most, go back to their abusers. Maybe the drama will end up helping those women already in abusive relationships.

• He was just trying to slap the nasal out of her. Shame it didn't work.

  Yanni

• R1= homophobic idiot. Anyway, I felt horrible for Rihanna the first time but that sympathy went away once I learned she ran back to him. When he beats her up again, if anything, I'll take his side.

• Duh, obviously Rihanna would not be complicit in the criminal sense. I mean philosophically. When someone of means chooses to stay with an abuser, they're sort of accepting the abusive aspect of the relationship, as well as the loving aspect.

• If I burn myself on a hot over more than once, is it my fault or the oven's fault?

• Trick question with R13. It's obviously Obama's fault.

• If you intentionally stick your hand on the burner, it's your own fault.

• Didn't it take Tina Turner 20 years to leave her abuser?

• Victims of abuse frequently go back to the abuser. When they don't they often end up with another abuser. This is a pattern with the victims of abuse. Rihanna may not have received any counseling after she was attacked. Brown did not just slap her around or man handle her he beat up her face. He received plenty of support and continues to from his crowd.

• I don't know Rihanna's background, but I'm pretty sure there must have been abuse there. Girls who are abused grow up believing it's part of love. The reason women go back to their abusers is that they don't know how to break the cycle, and they want to believe their abusers when they say they won't do it again. They also believe they deserve it, that they aren't quite good enough. That's why their fathers abused them and that's why the men they love do it too. They think it's about them, not the abusers. I've never seen a woman break the abuse cycle on the first try. She'll usually go back and see whether he has changed. When he hasn't, hopefully she will eventually leave him. The next relationship will usually be somewhat abusive but to a lesser degree and she'll get out faster. It's a gradual process for most women. Actually, I think Rihanna is a very good example. It's only a matter of time until he does it again and then everyone can see what happens. Chris Brown is a great example too. He's a rabid dog. It doesn't matter how sexy he is, he's a mad dog. Girls have to learn that just because a man is good looking, that doesn't mean he isn't venomous.

• [R16] Yes it did. Every time I hear about Chris Brown I immediately think of OJ.

• R17, do you think that "pattern" applies to all women? I always thought most women who go back to their abuser it's because they're trapped by him financially. Rihanna had the means to get herself counseling. I don't think most abused women have the resources Rihanna has.

• The trap is emotional, R20. There is often a financial component, where the woman is not capable of supporting herself and any children she might have, but the main trap is emotional.

• [R20} see [R21]. He is right, the biggest component for going back to an abuser is emotional as part of a psychological profile.

• Hopefully he'll move on and start dating Taylor Swift

• Thanks R21/22, I guess I just see women being able to escape that emotional trap when they have the resources, and Rihanna has the resources. You had a traumatic childhood? Well go get therapy. Many women can't do that and I feel for them, but when they can and they choose not to, then I stop caring.

  r20

• What is the attraction that women have to bad boys? Does it make them feel more feminine?

• [quote]Didn't it take Tina Turner 20 years to leave her abuser? She lived in a pre-feminism world where you stood by your man no matter what. He was also responsible in part for her career. Neither of these conditions apply to Rhianna.

• Rihanna is successful, true, and wealthy beyond her imagining. But her brain and her emotional make up is still the girl from Bafrbados who grew up in an emotionally and physically abusive environment. Her father did this, most men did this that she knew as a child growing up in the islands. She had brothers, and physically had to fight them, even thru adolecense. I think part of Rihanna was shocked at the public reaction to Chris Brown's behavior. I also think that if she had not got some "counseling" from her manager, agent, etc., JayZ & Beyonce, and most important, the threat of Revlon and all her endorsements pulling out, she wouldn't have left him in the first place. The fact he was charged with a crime and convicted for something she saw as commonplace in her life experience surprised her to say the least. I've noticed recently that Rihanna seems more modest in her personal attire. I also see that while she & Chris are dating again, there is something different. Maybe they are trying to be more mature. It doesn't matter. The real Chris Brown is a nasty, disgusting animal, and he will beat on someone again, as soon as he is in a relationship where he feels proprietary and possessive enough, or feels he needs to assert his dominanace that way. The "word" on Chris Brown is that he is a dead man if he beats on Rihanna again. Rihanna is an investment and JayZ will not stand for it. Rumor has it Chris got Rihanna involved with drugs. He does drugs. She has also been drugging off and on for the past two years, since before it happened. This will not end well. of the objective was that Rihanna was pressured to help him rehab his image. He is a talented songwriter and a lot of guys were hoping to work with him. But his image is still crap in the wider world. To the extent she is associated with him it won't help her unless she projects a more mature, modest image. The S&M stuff has to go.

• Next time he beats her ass I hope no one calls the police. What a waste of their time.

• I think r18 nailed it. There is a steep learning curve for many women.

• What R2 said. Verbatim.

• Did Chris grow up with his natural father? Maybe he also witnessed domestic violence as a child.

• I grew up in an abusive house hold. Got beat by my father (belts, fists, whatever was lying around) all through my teens years. Hell, in college I even dated a guy who ended up beating me up. However, that was it. Never had any contact with him again after a restraining order. And yes, I also took therapy to deal with my past. I don't understand why women who were abused never take any responsibility for their current actions. So what if Rihanna was abused when she was little, when she is going to be expected to take responsibility for her current actions? I have no pity for her. I'll save that for women who can't escape their reality.

• R25 Women feel they want a challenge, they want excitement. They also feel they can change a bad boy.A nice guy is boring AND can't defend them the same way a bad boy can. Though many women find out that a cheating,abusive and lying bad boy is annoying after awhile. Needless to say, Rihanna is one stupid woman. If he beat her once don't think that he won't beat her again.

• Yes. Girl is just plain dumb! I'm taking odds on whom gets beat first..... Hope Solo or Rihanna?

• So, what is the purpose of psychiatry and counseling? Apparently, if you do something bad, you will continue to engage in the same behavior no matter what. Try this. Chris Brown's actions were publicly exposed, he went to court and to a year of anti-violence counseling. Rihanna is satisfied he got (and may be continuing to get) help. Why aren't you?

• R35, maybe because we read his recent tweets.

• She's from the Carribean. Enough said.

• I've posted this before but my friend was horribly molested by her grandfather as a child. When she finally started dating she inevitably fell for guys who beat her. I never understood it until we were at a bar one night and this guy kind of zeroed in on her and talked to her, got her number etc. When he got up to go to the bathroom a woman ran up to the table and said "Don't go home with him! He beat up my roommate so bad she was in the hospital for 4 days." It's like abusers can smell a victim.

• r16 turner wasn't as famous as Rerun or whatever her name is. She only had one hit with Ike and then had to wait till the mid 80s where she only had a few more hits, before she faded away. Like many of that early 70s, she was more famous in people's minds than in reality.

• R39 thinks no one ever heard of Proud Mary.

• Proud Mary was a remake done by Ike and Tina Turner specifically for the black charts. It was their only hit. But it was a recent remake. No one associated Proud Mary with Ike and Tina anymore than they associate Bridge over Trouble Water or Spanish Harlem with Aretha Franklin. Who remade those for the black charts, but they also crossed over.

• The Ike & Tina version of Proud Mary won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Group in 1972. That hardly seems recent.

• [quote]Women feel they want a challenge, they want excitement. So do gay men.

• R31, Chris Brown's stepfather physically abused Chris' mother.

• I thought I had read, in all the stuff during/after the OJ trial, that one reason Nicole stayed with him was, frankly, the sex. Could be the same thing with Rihanna/Chris Brown?

• Yes, she would be complicit in engaging in risky activities that resulted in her death. But it wouldn't exactly be her fault that Chris Beat her severely; he is responsible for his own actions.

• Rihanna is a skank. She's the current princess of pop and probably thought she could do anything she wanted. Soon her career will be over. The sooner the better...

• You also have to take into consideration the culture she comes from, many men beat their wives on the islands and it's considered normal. Rihanna's mother herself has talked about how she was physically abused by Rihanna's father.

• R1 and R2 are correct. She's a fucking moron and clearly a neurotic masochist but she's not responsible for anyone else's actual violence. Brown, like any violent criminal, is solely responsible for choosing to use his fists on another person.

• I am absolutely tired of people complaining about Rihanna and Chris Brown, how is it any of your business at this point? Yes you can have an opinion, but people are acting as though she doesn't have a say. She can stand up for herself. People need to move ON. Why don't people help people who want out of abusive relationships instead? Shit.

• Blaming the victim won't help break the cycle.

• That bitch would resurrect herself and go right back to suckling Chris Brown's dick....and Chris Brown would still be pretending he's straight.

  BITCH

• Chris Brown was practically a kid when he beat her. The physical abuse won't happen again, Marys.

• She's trash. He's trash. They're both trash.

• "I've noticed recently that Rihanna seems more modest in her personal attire." It's very common for pathologically jealous, psychotically abusive men to insist that their women dress modestly. They want to limit her appeal and accessibility to other men, and are tormented by the thought that if he ever lets her out of his sight she'll cheat on him the way he's cheating on her. She's a fool, and if he'd beaten up a stranger that way he'd still be in jail. But since it was "domestic", the law just gave him a dainty little slap on the wrist.

• Did Chris grow up with his natural father? Maybe he also witnessed domestic violence as a child. [quote]…An 11-year-old Brown made a promise to his mother. He vowed that he would go to jail by age 15 for killing his abusive stepfather. "I just want you to know that I love you," he told her. "But I'm gonna take a baseball bat one day while you at work, and I'm gonna kill him." Brown's parents had separated when he was seven. When his mother remarried, she moved her son and his new stepfather to a trailer park. Then his stepfather shot himself in the head. The shot went straight through the eyes. He survived the suicide attempt but was permanently blinded.

  http://jezebel.com/5885776/everything-you-need-to-know-about-chris-brown

• Rhianna obviously gets off in getting smacked around, if she goes back to her abuser. A very stupid no-talent woman.

• She's clearly an idiot.

• Maybe he tries to beat her up and she gets a pistol and kills him.

• Here's the thing. Maybe I like to play at running across the freeway dodging cars. One day, I get hit by a car, but survive. I have a choice. I know running across the freeway puts me in danger, and I was lucky I didn't get killed. I can stop, or I can say that was close, but I love the sense of danger, and I survived so I'm going to do it again. Continuing to run across the freeway almost guarantees I'm going to get hit again, but I do it anyway. I'm almost compulsively drawn to it. When I get hit again,I die. Is it my fault? Yes, to some extent it is. I put myself in harm's way. I took the risk, knowing the likely outcome. So I am responsible to a certain extent, and so is Rihanna. As sure as God made little green apples, Chris Brown will kick her ass again,maybe kill her. He's a brutal person. I think his tantrums and his violent outbursts are exacerbated by drugs. A few months ago I saw photos of Rihanna completely drugged out, like a walking zombie. She complained about not being able to stop losing weight. So you have two drugged out messes and the comparisons to OJ & Nicole are apt.Personally I think it's more Bobby Brown & Whitney.

• Oh please the woman was named after a Fleetwood Mac song and not even the good Fleetwood Mac, but after Stevie (a girl with a boy's name) and Lindsey (a boy with a girl's name) joined. No wonder she's so fucked up.

• Why do people with so much success and so much freedom do such stupid things. She's in a cage with an animal.

• Wait, are people saying Chris Brown shouldn't be allowed to date any woman ever or just Rihanna? Why no complaints when he's with that Karuechewhatsthaname chick? Ike Turner and Bobby Brown went on to marry other women, should they have been stopped?

• I like this Chris Brown better

  http://fansshare.com/celebrity/photos/floydmayweather/floyd-mayweather-floyd-money-mayweather-181502383.jpg

• No, jerk at R63. This is about Rihanna. To summarize, Rihanna was dating this monster, and the night before the Grammys, where they were both supposed to perform, he beat her up. He bashed her face into raw meat, bit her, choked her until she lost consciousness, then left her by the side of the road, and drove away. Later on, he called her assistant not to find out if she was OK, or if she got home, but to find out if anyone knew about it. He was told the police had been called & an ambulance took her to a hospital, so he lawyered up. Rihanna knows from first hand experience what happens when Chris has a temper tantrum. All those other girls he dates know it too, now. They can say no. They chose not to. They figure it was a special situation specific to Rihanna, and they will not have the same experience. Everyone involved in this situation Rihanna, Chris Brown, and whoever dates him is engaged in magical thinking. I am sure he beats other women. He probably pays them off. Or threatens them. Or both.

• I honestly think a lot of this anger towards Chris Brown is because Rihanna is beautiful and they're mad that she's with someone else who is black. Get over it.

• [quote]I honestly think a lot of this anger towards Chris Brown is because Rihanna is beautiful and they're mad that she's with someone else who is black. Get over it. Ah, no...because he's trailer park trash that beats-up on women.

• I just don't believe that R67, there's certainly a racial component to it. Rihanna is a grown ass adult and she's made it CLEAR that she'll do what she wants to, so shouldn't people move on? Good for her for ignoring people trying to control her life and tell her who is and isn't good for her.

• Trauma bond. Happens to the smart, the rich, and the male too.

  http://ezinearticles.com/%3FTrauma-Bonds---Understanding-Exploitive-Relationships%26id%3D3553450

• Abusers come in all colors and economic levels. The only place I see race possibly entering into this, is that I sense a higher level of either resignation to this behavior, or acceptance of the reality among certain ethnic groups. Not saying they condone it at all. Just saying they recognize it as behavior that is sometimes self-hatred turned outward, the kind of self-hatred that is particular among oppressed minorities who have suffered an inordinate amount of descrimination. There can be any number of different reasons for abusive behavior. We can have a thread discussing them. But in this thread, the question was whether Rihanna would be complicit in her own death. So IMO, this thread is centered on Rihanna, or generally, victim complicity.

• So, r67, is he allowed to date other women or not? And why isn't Rihanna, an adult, independent, headstrong (by all accounts), woman capable of knowing what's best for her and making her own decisions? And why is it that people like you who only know CB and Rihanna from blogs and TV so keen on deciding who should be with whom? Get a hobby.

• I know there were never any pictures but Sean Connery said "Sometimes women need a good smack" and he's a fucking hero.

• OP = man; no woman would ever be so stupid.

• It's a reflection of society: violent men and the women they abuse. Most people don't think it's a big deal. A lot of men/women think this kind of one way abuse is "normal". Didn't Rihanna's dad beat her mom? There's your answer.

• Chris Brown was practically a kid when he beat her. The physical abuse won't happen again, Marys. And he was practically a kid when he through that chair through a window. And he was practically a kid when he got that tattoo of a woman's battered face. And he's practically a kid when he gets into nasty twitter wars over nothing and then deletes his twitter account and then starts it all up again. I'm guessing when he dies of old age (if the meth doesn't claim him first) he'll still be practically a kid. Quit making excuses for this abuser. And to whom is Sean Connery a hero? Yes, there are plenty of abusive fucks who get away with it, and Chris Brown is now another one. He still has a career. He still has Rihanna. It was all just a speed bump on his road to continued famous douchedom. And FYI, we can talk about them, criticize them, and call them out for bad behavior. You think either one is exempt because celebrity shit doesn't stink?