This was when I was unsure of myself in my transition and I will refer to this person in a gender neutral manner.
I had an ex who was into polyamory and on paper it sounded good. One of the first dates we went to a restaurant and they immediately want to flirt with someone else. They would always show interest in other people even on dates and everything was about sex. Other sexual partners of theirs would insult me because we were together. I was starting to get more uncomfortable with polyamory.
Later on we got involved with another polyamorous person who clearly was only interested in them. She was extremely rude and yelled at me at one point. My ex would ignore how she treated me. I started dropping hints of breaking up and my ex made me think they would change. They went on lying and cheating and when I found out, they accused me of being bipolar and immediately had a list of people they would date after me. I always asked their input before I made big decisions but I clearly didn’t get the same courtesy despite being accused of using them.
Now I know this isn’t all polyamorous people and I’ve been much happier without my ex. A fog lifted after they left and I feel sure of myself and the love for my hobbies again. Was I being gaslit?
I generally agree with everything you’ve said, but I really don’t think framing abuse as a fetish is right, it both diminishes abuse, and frames fetishes as something harmful and non-consensual.
I disagree. I don’t think there’s anything inherently good or bad about fetishes. It’s what you like, whatever turns you on. There are people who’s fetish is to be humiliated, and in those situations it would not be abuse, but that’s not what we’re talking about.
What happened to OP was abuse, and I called it that. They abused OP because it was sexually and emotionally gratifying to abuse OP. That is a fetish. I don’t think using either term accurately affects the other at all.