"It wasn't as bad as it looks on tape. . . . It happened years ago.  I apologized."

By now everyone with access to media has read this response from Aransas County, Texas, Court-at-Law Judge William Adams to the video of him and his then-wife whaling the tar out of their teenaged daughter with leather belts.

Daughter Hillary Adams has said that her mother was emotionally abused by Adams and should not be held accountable for her actions on the tape. That's fine, but the mother certainly appears to be a more-than-willing participant.

Clearly I'm not the only person who watched the video with shock and pangs of recognition.  I was raised in a household verbal and physical abuse were the norm.

My father was a successful doctor whose patients adored him, a brilliant raconteur, and a talented pianist. He also was a self-pitying, rage-filled alchoholic who smashed doors and furniture, and lashed out with whatever words and objects he could command.  Sometimes it seemed his malice and violence knew no bounds. 

I have two sisters who are ten and seven years older than myself, and they were his most frequent targets.  Once he made my eldest sister, then 16, stand in the shower fully dressed for a date, as punishment for opening the door to a friend who had shown up unannounced. On a bright Sunday morning a few years later,  he grabbed one of her high-heeled shoes and drove the heel into her forehead before storming out of the house.  I remember riding in the car to meet our pediatrician at the Montrose Children's Clinic. I played in the waiting room while she got stitches.  

When I was nine, my mother, my second-eldest sister, and I met our father at a Mexican restaurant where he arrived drunk and in a mood and proceeded to pour his iced tea into my sister's plate, then stab her in the wrist with a fork.  I remember this particular incident in Kodak-color detail, and I know my sister did nothing and said nothing to provoke him. She knew better. We all did. The abuse continued until he finally divorced my mother when I was ten. I was glad when he moved out.

He died when I was 23.  Several years later, during a therapy session, my therapist said, "Pretend I'm your father. Tell me how you feel."  I sat there stupefied, unable to say anything. Until that moment, it simply never had occurred to me that I could stand up to my father. 

 So when I saw the video of Judge Adams (and his wife) screaming at and thrashing their daughter, it brought back memories.  I'd love to know just how Adams apologized.  In my experience, abusers don't apologize. They terrorize, then everyone gets back to tip-toeing around the abuser's anger.

If you've seen the video, how do you like the cavalier approach of this sadist -- in my opinion that is what Judge Adams is -- in telling reporters, "It wasn't as bad as it looks on tape." Really? Cameras capture exactly what appears in the lens, no more, no less, and that camera captured one hell of a beating. 

How about the part of the video (2:12) where the mother yells, "You turn over like a 16-year-old and take it like a grown woman!" Meanwhile, Judge Adams cries, "She's disobedient! Give it to her!"

Particularly telling is 3:07, where Adams excitedly yells, "I never got my licks in on her! Get on your fucking stomach on the bed, now!" This plays less like parental discipline than a rape scene in an egregiously bad movie.  It was at this point that I queasily wondered if the man had a woody.

I read quite a few of the comments  about this video on various sites and wasn't terribly surprised--just disheartened--by the number of remarks along the lines of  "I don't see what the big deal is. She disobeyed, they're parenting." And  "I was whipped growing up, and I turned out okay!" I bet you did.

This videotape was made in 2004.  For those who question "why now" about its release, I have a good guess.  I'm guessing that as an adult, Hillary Adams has finally gotten enough distance from her abusers to feel safe about outing them. I also read one blog that suggested revenge as her motive for releasing the tape. Who cares? Does knowing her thought process render the images and sounds on that tape any less horrifying?

Stephen King coined the darkly wonderful phrase "home correction" to describe domestic abuse. When I was growing up, we didn't talk about it, and there are many families today that live in mortal danger at the hands of an abuser.  Vengeful or not, I don't believe for one minute that releasing that tape was an easy decision for Hillary Adams. But I'm grateful she had the guts to do it.