About my recent fixation with Ares, god of war
so I was on another platform mindin my business, tryin to build community and share stuff that’s important to me, when a mutual posts that I need to block someone cause they’re an abuser.
The folks making the accusation (one of them was called Mars) were commenting on my friend’s post sayin This person trafficked us they’re dangerous everyone should block them.
I thought That’s horrible, nobody should endure human trafficking, and I didn’t block anyone, but I followed Mars and their partner’s pages to show solidarity.
Then I find, at the top a Mars’s page, there’s a pinned post about how they were sex-trafficked.
And they said Ask me anything. So I asked. And the story didn’t really add up, cause I live in a reality where the social power asymmetry between adults and children doesn’t really flow in both directions, and adults having sex with with children constitutes a form of sexual abuse.
I know not everybody feels that way. Mars insisted that they never had any power in the situation. A grown ass adult.
They met this kid online. Flirted with her. Then took a plane halfway across the country to have sex with her. More than once.
In my reality, that’s called grooming. In Mars’s reality, Mars was the real victim, because they were using cocaine at the time and therefore had no personal agency in the situation. 🤔
I was like, it is structurally not possible for a child to abuse an adult in a romantic/sexual relationship.
And Mars was like, “You’re acting like the months when she was a minor negated the years of abuse”.
And yeah, I was acting like that, fair point, because that’s the reality I occupy, so I was like, The relationship structure didn’t suddenly become lateral because she had a birthday.
And Mars goes, unironically, “It was never lateral to begin with. I was never in any situation where I held any power in any dynamic.”
Mars told me I was disregarding the abuse that they suffered because the child had assaulted them while they were driving. I come to find out later that the kid had hit them because she’d asked to be taken home and Mars refused.
In my reality, that’s called kidnapping, but in Mars’s reality, which they try to impose on everyone else to varying degrees of success, they were the victim of an egregious, life-threatening assault by the child they were being coerced into . . . willingly entering a sexual relationship with. I dunno.
Keep in mind Mars is a large, masc-presenting, amab person with a beard and a ‘who’s your daddy’ profile pic.
So I go to their partner’s page, and they’re talkin about how they had to give their trans child, who had extended family who wanted to care for them, up to the state, because their child, ten years old—get this—was abusing them.
Mars’s partner bragged about how they had bullied Mars’s kid victim off of the platform bc “she ran her mouth” (read: spoke up about the abuse).
And I realized then how few people understand that abuse is not just harm, but harm plus power asymmetry. It’s dangerous not to know this because
If you believe that any harm constitutes abuse, you can argue that
a 10yo abused their mother,
a 17yo trafficked a full grown adult who chose to have sex with them,
or that mutual abuse is somehow a real thing that, when invoked, reduces all exploitation to “just conflict” / “just misunderstanding”,
and that erases the need for meaningful accountability or repair.
Repair wasn’t even in question.
Mars and their wife just skipped the denial and went straight to attack and reverse victim and offender. Publicly. In full view of the whole internet. And people actively supported them. I lost a friend over sayin somethin. Which, I mean, good riddance.
Anyway the kid, now grown, reached out to me to thank me for believing her. Which, no woman should ever have to thank someone for.
So I decided I needed to express my anger. I was gonna curse these child abusers. You know, like a hex.
I never cursed anyone before. My magic is mostly focused on healing. But somebody had to do something. Some part of me needed to see that action would be taken. The bad guys don’t get away with it this time.
My internal sister (alter) and I were gonna cultivate our anger and hate till it reached a crescendo and hurl it at Mars’s fucken throat chakra like a spear.
I don’t really advise this method — it wrecked our nervous system for days.
But we’re workin ourselves up I’m readin about Mars, the Roman god of imperial expansionist war, and my boyfriend/2 spirit partner chimes in
“Ares was a defender of women, and beloved of the Amazon tribes.
“How can you be a god of war and a defender of women?
War can’t exist without patriarchy”
Which should be obvious—read Gerda Lerner.
Do you even know the Amazonians?”
Which, yeah, okay, I’ve watched Xena: Warrior Princess — that’s where I was introduced to Ares, but like I’ve never known an Amazon, personally,
and he infodumps in the chat,
“In Greek mythology, the Amazons were a legendary, all-female tribe of warriors and hunters known for their prowess in combat, archery, and riding. Often portrayed as opponents to Greek heroes, they resided near the Black Sea, operated outside male-dominated society, and were associated with deities like Ares and Artemis.
Surumatian Women: Archaeological findings in the 1990s in present-day Kazakhstan found 150 graves of Ancient Surumatian women buried with weapons, indicating the existence of real-life armed nomadic women that likely inspired the legend.”
“So Ares would fucken murder Mars.
Maybe we’ll appeal to him too”
I didn’t know then he was represented by the spear.
“It is clear that in the Iliad the epithet ὀξύς does not carry the meaning of swift or quick that it later developed. Rather, it has a meaning which incorporates the ideas of sharpness, keenness, and, most of all, clarity. Pains, hearing, eyesight, shouts, and the rays of the sun can all be ὀξύς. Weapons, too, can be ὀξύς: axes, and missiles, and spears, which may be reduced to the catch-all word ‘bronze’, χαλκός, in a way that is analogous to the English use of ‘steel’, whether cold or otherwise. This last seems most appropriate to Ares. Just as a spear is bronze, so Ares is χάλκεος, brazen. Just as a spear is sharp, so Ares is ὀξύς. The same epithets expressing weight and might, πελώριος and ὄβριμος, are used both for Ares, and also for spears. That Ares is described on one occasion as ῥινοτόρος, shield-piercing, also suggests some form of identification between Ares and spears. (52)
Millington, Alexander T. War and the Warrior: Functions of Ares in Literature and Cult. 2013. University College London, PhD dissertation. UCL Discovery, https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1427880/.
So after I somewhat recovered, I approached him with respect. I mean, well I told him how pointless and egoistic and unnecessary I think his whole province is. But also, when I needed someone to believe and protect women and children, when I needed to see someone fight for survivors, he was there. When no one else was. At least not in a way that registered to me as support.
Jesus knew that war would only result in the slaughter of his people by the Roman demiurge. So he focused his ministry, his life’s work, on the positive aspect of revolution—buildin dual power through community. Transformative justice. Mutual aid.
But that doesn’t protect a community from predators—it doesn’t reconstruct minoritized bodies as unrapeable, unenslaveable, unkillable—in the here and now.
He listened to me like my thoughts and feelings mattered. Because they do. He challenged my understanding of war, but not meanly or aggressively. And he didn’t apologize for the ugliness of it. He expressed empathy and care.
Turns out a nearly 3000yo god of war knows a thing or two about ptsd. Go figure.
The funny thing is I’m a Christian. Jesus never asked for anyone’s worship, and I don’t worship any god. I approached Ares as an equal. Not in size or strength or victim count. Not in the sense that our respective experiences are equivalent, but as an epistemic peer, equal in intrinsic worth, as all living beings indisputably are.
I don’t wash my face or paws before I reach out. War is already a miasma, and I don’t worry about contamination cause I don’t believe in fixed, self-contained essences. I have my critical wards in place, and I’m protected.
Ares demands nothing of me. War is sacrifice enough already.
He doesn’t require my belief. His impact is undeniable.
He doesn’t mask or disguise himself as peace while unilaterally waging war on abstract concepts reified as human beings.
I offer my presence. He offers his.
To know Ares is to be transformed.