Several surveys of doctors' surgeries and arrests suggest that violence against male partners is almost as frequent as violence aimed at women.
When Derek* set eyes on Rachel* in a bar on Shaikh Zayed Road, Dubai, he thought she was stunning. "I thought she was very pretty," he says. "She seemed really three-dimensional — really intelligent, refined and well-educated."
Even a year later after Rachel left him quite literally reeling, he still treasured this enduring impression. By then, though, it was impossible to overlook their relationship's destructive nature.
"It had started affecting my sleep and self-confidence," he says.
Given his height, muscular physique and devotion to rugby, one would expect physical confrontations between Derek and his girlfriend to be one-sided. And they were. He was lucky to avoid permanent injury.
"There were two or three occasions where she caught me by surprise," he says. "The last time she hit me she had keys in her hand. It drew blood and I had to go to hospital. I think she may actually have fractured the orbit of my eye — it took six weeks to heal."
It is hard to guess how many other Dubai-based husbands and boyfriends take similar beatings. But in London the arrest last Wednesday of Sun editor Rebekah Wade put emphasis on an issue that arouses academic perplexity and contradictory reactions worldwide.
The police were called to Wade's house at 4am. Her husband, Ross Kemp — a popular TV actor — refused medical attention for a cut lip. However, on the basis of his evidence, his wife spent a night in a police cell before being released at noon.
Typically, the media reaction was contradictory. Despite leading campaigns against wife-beating, Wade came in for fairly muted condemnation. Kemp was mocked for failing to live up to his " hardman" image — especially as the actor who plays his brother in a popular soap opera " Eastenders" was attacked by his ex-partner a few hours later.
Past cases of celebrity husband-bashing, such as that of Lisa Minnelli's ex-husband David Gest, have also been treated without the seriousness of an assault on a female partner.
But both the gravity and prevalence of domestic assaults on men is hard to assess. Several surveys of doctors' surgeries and arrests suggest that violence against male partners is almost as frequent as violence aimed at women. In some areas of the United States, for example, over a third of arrests for domestic violence are of women.
However, this is one area where many feminists and chauvinists are in whole-hearted agreement — neither is comfortable with the idea of men as innocent victims of female violence. Indeed, one academic study ingeniously suggested that violence against husbands was justified on grounds of their "emotional unresponsiveness".
In any case, in Dubai Derek is certainly not alone. Compared to some residents he can actually count himself lucky.
"We get a few of these cases," says psychiatrist Dr Raymond Hamden of the Comprehensive Medical Centre. "We even had a case where a woman had stabbed her husband and beat him up so badly that when he came to the clinic we had to call the police — even though he didn't want us to because he was so afraid of her."
Even now, in fact, this husband is hardly safe. Shortly after this incident his wife hired a lawyer to prevent him continuing treatment and ensure his files were handed over to her.
"Violence against men is the same as violence against women," says Dr Hamden. "But usually when men are abused we see worse injuries. Maybe we only get to see the severe cases — or possibly women compensate for a lack of power by hitting harder and cutting deeper."
But an estimate of how often they hit can only be extremely approximate. Professionals in Dubai certainly encounter husband-battering but it seems less frequent than wife-beating.
"We rarely get a husband or boyfriend in physical abuse — maybe emotional or psychological," says Dr Azar Katouli, a clinical psychologist at Dubai's Community Health Centre. "Many women are caught in abusive relationships."
On the other hand, a global tendency for spousal abuse of men to be underreported may be enhanced in this region.
"This is an international problem. Men are being abused but it is not macho for them to admit to it," says Dr Hamden. "Men will not admit to being abused by their wives. It is seen as undignified in Arab culture.
"Even within the United States, legal attitudes vary from state to state," he says. "In the northern parts of the States if a woman hits a man and the man hits her back, it is an equal type of situation. But in the South, he's not a man if he hits her back — even if she has a gun."
"What is unfortunate and unfair is that if he responds in any shape or form — even in a life or death situation — then in certain parts of the United States the reaction is, ‘What a jerk! He hit her back! '," he says.
But whether the victim is male or female, escape from the abusive relationship is difficult. Dr Hamden's client is presumably still living in fear. In retrospect, Derek is surprised at his own ability to sustain a situation that was causing him loss of sleep, stress and a spiralling loss of self-esteem.
"I decided two or three times that that was it — which was when she would apologise and do everything she could to get my sympathy," he says. "Every time she attacked me, I thought, ‘That's good. We've worked through that issue'. The direct effect was that I was proving to myself how resilient I was."
Amazingly, even after the assault that fractured his orbital bone, he refused to admit defeat. It was only a few weeks later, with the strong suspicion that she was also seeing another man, that he decided enough was enough. For once, he also stayed away.
"It was only at the end of the relationship that I found out about her previous boyfriend," he says. "I found out he had been through exactly the same arguments, fights, broken crockery — it was quite eerie."
So Derek's advice for anyone whose partner becomes physically aggressive, is get out as quick as you can. The violence will escalate. And when it does, you can expect little sympathy.
"It was a question of control — she always wanted her own way," says Derek. "When I talk to people about it, they say, ‘Well, that's women for you'".
* Names have been changed to respect privacy
Recognising the signs
1. Exaggerated need to control/dominate.
2. Learned response to stress.
3. Extreme emotional dependence upon victim. Relationship addiction.
4. Violence gets results – if only temporarily. She gets her way.
5. The violence "feels good" – if only temporarily.
6. Lack of conflict negotiation skills. Lack of cooperative decision-making skills.
