Signs of Intimate Partner Violence: Bruises, Marks, and Scars

The consequences of extreme coercion, control, and abuse can have a lasting impact on the lives of those involved. The impact of physical force and abuse is deeply significant, and meaningful beyond the actual pain it inflicts, as it creates a brutalising relationship between the perpetrator and the victim. This dehumanisation develops as the aggressor repeatedly attacks the body boundary of the other person, harming their body and also terrorising their mind. The objectification of another person can be a means to assert one’s own status and sense of agency; the victim is the powerless ‘body’ whose injuries are secondary to the gratification of the aggressor, and his need to vent rage and inflict pain. The marks and bruises he leaves on his wife, partner, or child may be seen as tributes to his power to use their flesh as he sees fit. He may distance himself from their pain or, worse, enjoy it, feeling a sense of power, control, or even sexual pleasure.

Tattoo depicting domestic violence and survival

Source: shutterstock

The parts of the body that are hurt are significant. Some batterers avoid hurting the face, as this can lead to questioning by external agencies, and result in detection or even arrest. Thus they take care to mark only those parts of the body that are not seen by the public—under clothes or in intimate areas. Websdale (2012) describes how men who go on to kill their partners often use strangulation, without leaving marks; this is often accompanied by sexual assault. Others will use rolled-up towels or other weapons that are unlikely to leave marks. The nature of bruising is a clue as to how injuries are sustained, and carpet burns, cigarette burns, and finger-bruising marks or imprints in sensitive areas of delicate skin (such as the inner thigh or upper arm) are telltale signs of physical violence. These traces show that force was used in holding or grabbing, and that this was of sufficient strength to damage the skin.

Such marks can be left in assaults absent of empathy for the victim, but the main aim is not to leave visible evidence of injury. Some violent men I worked with described the thrill of feeling soft flesh under their fists as they punch their partners in vulnerable areas, like the stomach, and how their sense of power excites them and motivates them to hit again. These feelings of excitement signify disavowal of the pain and distress that they cause as they see the victim as an object, to be tormented and abused. The marks they leave may be incidental as the main aim is to inflict pain on and dominate their partner’s bodies, with little concern for subsequent bruising.

For others, marking or defacing parts of the bodies of their victims is the intended goal. The typical image of domestic violence is of a man raising a fist at a woman, whose face is bruised. Her black eye serves as both the physical and symbolic evidence of his ownership of her body, and his power to mark it as his. The power of the emblem, the fact of the bruise, is significant. It speaks silently of the abuse inflicted. The woman’s face has been altered, and the marks may endure for some time. Some choose not to go out in public; others try to hide it under makeup or dark glasses. The bruised woman may be ashamed of the judgment of others, the questions that may be asked, and the incontrovertible evidence that she has been harmed. The violent partner may feel satisfied that he has successfully controlled and restricted the movements of "his" woman, and she will now be less able to attract others. He may believe he achieves longer-term aims through this act of defacement, as well as venting his rage. The bruises and swollen skin are seen as evidence of power.

When the perpetrator is persecuted by an inner sense of an "alien self" (Fonagy and Bateman) or feelings of shame and helplessness—incapable of leaving a mark on the world—he may seek evidence of potency through violence to another. In this way, he projects his sense of helplessness and shame onto another. The triumph or excitement gained from leaving marks is not often disclosed, but perpetrators I have worked with will sometimes admit to it, as well as to attendant feelings of shame, guilt, and distress. The soft, vulnerable skin of children and women can bruise easily, and marking this may offer a violent partners a sense of power.

Disfigurement and mutilation of victims can be deliberate. In the U.K. in 2011, Shane Jenkins gouged out the eyes of his partner, Tina Nash, in his final assault on her, one she believed was an attempted murder. The 32-year-old mother of two had been beaten until unconscious and subsequently blinded. She described waking up with a sense that she was being buried alive, "suffocating under darkness." Later she said all she looked forward to was sleeping, because only then could she see her children’s faces again, in her dreams. Jenkins told her during this 12-hour-long assault that she would be left blind and never see her children again. As he had intended, his was the last face she saw.

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