This week, the federal trial against Sean "Diddy" Combs began in New York. Combs is facing charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, and he has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Combs' defense attorney, Marc Agnifilo, is using a familiar tactic to describe the hip-hop mogul's relationship with one of his accusers, his former longtime girlfriend, singer Casandra "Cassie" Ventura.
"There was hitting on both sides," Agnifilo said in court. "We're going to take the position that there was mutual violence in the relationship."
This concept, often referred to as "mutual violence" or "mutual abuse," suggests that both parties in an abuse case engaged in abusive behavior. This idea was also brought up in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial.
But Loyola Marymount University law professor Laurie Levenson said "mutual abuse" is not a legal defense of abuse.
"You won't find in the law books a mutual abuse defense. What you'll see are defendants arguing, 'Well, I really thought that the victim was consenting because they were doing it to me, and therefore I could do it to them,' " she said.
"[But] it is not okay in the criminal law world to abuse somebody and then say, 'Well, they're at fault, too.' "
Bev Gooden, author of Surviving: Why We Stay and How We Leave Abusive Relationships, believes the idea of "mutual abuse" goes against the very definition of abuse as well.
"Abuse is about a pattern of behavior designed to maintain control over another person," she said. "Abuse is about power, it's about control, manipulation, not just physical violence or aggression. And so even if both people engage in harmful behaviors, one is typically the abuser controlling the situation."
Gooden added that it's critical to understand the power dynamics at play to be able to differentiate between abuse and fighting back, even if they look similar.
She said, "I find that what often gets labeled as mutual abuse is more accurately a trauma response… The thing that I always say is that trauma responses can cause harm. And I think that's what the public is seeing when they see someone lashing back or lashing out at the abusive partner - [but] that's not the same thing as being abusive. Harm is not abuse. Conflict is not abuse. Abuse is about power and control. It is a pattern, not just messy behavior on both sides."
But why would Combs' defense concede that his relationship with Ventura was violent at all? Levenson thinks that the defense is trying to reframe this "mutual violence" as a consensual part of the sexual relationship – a strategy she saw in the case of former Dodger's player Trevor Bauer.
"Trevor Bauer, back in 2021, he was accused of abusing [someone] with various harmful and physically painful sexual activities. And his defense was, 'Well, that's just the way we have sex,' " she said. "And in fact, that case ended up being dropped."
Gooden said kink is not abuse. Practitioners are adamant that enthusiastic consent is central to kink.
"Now [Bauer's case] wasn't as extreme as what's being alleged here against Combs," Levenson added, "but I think the defense is trying to reframe this as, 'Gee, that's just how the world of rock 'n' roll works, and these people wanted to be part of it, so they're not truly victims.' "
Gooden added that this narrative might be especially palatable for the public, who might be fans or admirers of a celebrity like Sean Combs.
"We often have a hard time believing that someone we hold in high esteem could be abusive, that the same hands that create art can also create terror," she said. "That's really hard to sit with, and I empathize with people who are working through that, 'cause I've been there. I think a healthier way to deal with that hurt and confusion is to accept that someone can be good to you and still hurt someone else."
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