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xenuffisenuffx-blog · 7 years ago

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Brandon Fuller: A warning

Who is Brandon Fuller?

Brandon Fuller is musician in the bay area punk scene and involved in political activism. He has a history of violence, intimidation, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, gas lighting, and general disrespect for women. Per the request of the survivors of his abuse he is now involved in an accountability process and this tumblr exists to make the community aware of what is being is asked of him.

https://www.facebook.com/brandon.fuller.186

https://www.instagram.com/brandamaged/

Why is this coming out now?

The 4 women previously thought their incidents with Brandon to be isolated. As they became aware of each others events and the undeniable patterns in his behavior they decided enough is enough and that there is no space for this behavior in our community.

Our Experiences

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Brandon

We dated for four years. You were one of the first people I met after moving here in 2009 when I was 21 years old and I thought I had met a nice guy.

Being so young when we met I missed all the red flags I can now see so clearly. From the start of that relationship you demonstrated misogynistic, controlling and toxic behaviors. You showed a jealousy towards any close friends especially male friends and even jealous behavior towards my best friend and brother. Right away you demonstrated antagonism towards women and had something negative to say about almost every woman associated in the scene. You often chalked women up to being “drama queen gossips”, referred to women as “sluts”-trying to fuck their way into the scene or “heartless succubi” who just used everyone. You very much only seemed to respect women in their relation to men in the scene and not on their own merit. You very much tried and were successful at keeping me from making connections with women you told me were “bad influences” and I should stay away from. This was especially true regarding your ex girlfriend, and anyone she was close with. You were very successful at poisoning me against her and keeping us at arms length which I now believe was a deliberate act on you part to try to keep her from sharing her past experiences with me.

To this day I lament the friendships that could have been and the years I lost with women I now know to be amazing human beings I didn’t let into my life because of you.

I recall one night early on in our relationship trying to talk to you about this behavior and how I didn’t like your sexist vocabulary and you flew into a rage and yelled and stormed out of my house and only came back later after I was forced to apologize for hurting your feelings. You had no interest in listening to me and had no interest in questioning any of you behaviors or toxic ideology. This tactic of shutting me down when you didn’t want to hear what I had to say using volatile behavior and guilt were to become staples in our relationship.

In the last year of our relationship I was struggling to get a handle on a depression I have dealt with on and off my whole life. I decided to go off of hormonal birth control to try to get a better handle on my emotional and physical health. When we talked about this you had no interest in using condoms and were also uninterested in my other suggestion of being careful and pulling out or sustaining from sex. Low and behold I very quickly found myself pregnant. You automatically put all the blame on me and made me feel like I was entirely responsible-as if I got myself pregnant.

Through my brief pregnancy and ultimate choice to have an abortion you were completely unsupportive. You didn’t help with any cost or go to the multiple appointments I had to do before I could even go In for an abortion. You inferred it was my problem and I had to deal with it alone. Though you often skipped class for trivial things like playing video games and smoking weed, on the day of my abortion school suddenly became a priority and you said you couldn’t make it. I had no one with me all day. You turned something that is a relatively mundane and common occurence in many women lives into a traumatic and scaring experience. You did nothing in the subsequent days and weeks to support me and I felt alone, abandoned and unloved.

After this happened I decided to get an IUD so I wouldn’t have to go through with this again. For those who have had IUDs they know it takes months for you body to adjust to them. During this time sex was very uncomfortable for me and I lost all sex drive. You were very demanding and coercive and I often gave into sex that I didn’t want to have because I felt bullied and you made me feel guilty for not having as high of a sex drive as you. Even though you knew I was disinterested or uncomfortable you would still initiate sex regardless of what I was feeling. There were times when I was in obvious discomfort and you would fuck me anyway never checking in or reacting to my body language or silence. I regard all sex during this time as non consensual and coercive. You would complain that I wasn’t “into it” enough and act like I owed you a performance every time. I can not recall you ever voicing concern over how I was feeling or how my body was healing, it was always about how you felt and what you wanted or weren’t getting.

This came to a head one night after expressing how I was disinterested In having sex and rebuking you several times telling you to get off me and not to touch me. You then stuck your dick in my mouth without my consent and tried to force me to give you oral sex. I pushed you away and said something to the regard of “what are you doing, stop.”

This was something I couldn’t ignore any longer and I broke up with you soon after. Your sense of entitlement to my body was truly staggering and I have been trying to reclaim a sense of ownership over my body and my sexuality ever since. I have learned that I never owed you anything and my body is mine alone. Consent isn’t something given one time and never discussed again. It is something reflected on throughout a sexual relationship and can be redefined and retracted at any point by any party involved.

These are all things no “nice guy” would do. I hope you can reflect on your behavior and chose to do better in the future.

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Brandon,

We first started hanging out over four years ago. My first red flag was that you refused to use condoms, even though I told you multiple times that I did not feel comfortable/did not want to have sex without them. The fact that you kept pressuring me to have sex without them even after I had addressed this with you showed a complete lack of respect for the boundary I had set.

When I ended up pregnant, you first said that you wanted to support my decision to terminate the pregnancy by getting me to/from the appointment and checking in on me in the two week period afterward when I was healing. However, it was difficult to get a hold of you in the week before the appointment in terms of making plans, and I began to doubt that you would follow through on your end of the deal. When I expressed my frustration to you via text a few days before the scheduled procedure, you came over to “talk.” You told me that I wasn’t your girlfriend, that I wasn’t even your friend, so you didn’t want to deal with this “drama” anymore. I was very emotionally distraught after you said those things, so I was completely bewildered and upset when you bent me over to have sex with me. I do not consider this encounter consensual. After this I was in complete denial. I tried to put it out of my mind and act like it hadn’t happened as I went into survival mode trying to arrange a new mode of transportation and support only a few days before the procedure. Then it happened again.

I called you out via text about a week after the abortion to voice my frustrations with your lack of responsibility during the whole thing. A few nights later, you texted me saying you wanted to come over. I thought this meant you had changed your tune and were actually coming over to check on me like you had originally promised to do. After I had let you into my apartment I realized you were just drunk and wanted sex. I didn’t want to have sex because it was too soon after the abortion to do so without a risk of complications. However, I felt scared and pressured because you can be aggressive when you don’t get what you want. I do not consider this encounter consensual either. It was physically painful as I was still healing from the procedure and I did end up with complications that delayed my recovery. Your lack of empathy in that regard was horrifying.

Just because I had consented to you in the past didn’t give you free and open access to my body whenever and however you wanted it. Just because I had consented to have you over to my house did not mean I consented to have sex with you. Just because we ended up continuing our sexual relationship after that doesn’t negate the fact that what happened in these two instances was non consensual sex. This is something you need to take accountability for.

I confided in a friend about the pregnancy, abortion, and your lack of responsibility. (I didn’t describe the non consensual encounters to her, as I was too traumatized to come to terms with what had happened until years later). When you found out I had talked, you threatened me. You told me that I was not to talk about it to anyone else, that I was no longer welcome in the community, and that I was no longer to come around “or else.” I feared the “or else” part meant physical violence against me if I did not comply. This threat worked; I was terrified to go out to any space or event I thought you might be at, and I was scared in my home and neighborhood because you live so close to me. I still am. When I finally got the courage to go out again, you feared the threats you used to keep me quiet and hidden wouldn’t work, so you spread rumors that I was a stalker, that I was mentally unstable, that I had threatened you. That way, if I did talk to anyone about what happened, it would only sound like the gossip of a madwoman thanks to your smear campaign. After this followed years of similar behavior, verbal and mental abuse, gaslighting, etc., which you used to keep me isolated and under your control. Verbal and mental abuse is just that, abuse, and you need to take accountability for that too.

I finally found my voice and stood up to you regarding your behavior in January of this year, and we agreed to meet in person to discuss it. However, I don’t feel like I was able to address all these issues with you due to you immediately beginning to yell and shut me down as soon as you walked in the door. I asked you to leave, and when you wouldn’t I felt threatened, so I started yelling back. You attempted to lie to my face, telling me that we had only slept together a few times, and you tried to isolate me again by telling me you would have me physically removed from shows and events if I made you uncomfortable because you “control your scene.” Needless to say this was a fruitless conversation, and this encounter made it clear to me that you had no intent to address or take accountability for your actions. Your aggravation and aggression during this discussion was traumatizing, so afterwards I went “no contact” with you. In February I sought help from a mental health care professional after suffering from panic attacks and terrible anxiety, and was clinically diagnosed with PTSD from years of dealing with your abuse. I’m currently in counseling to help navigate through it all. I will most likely need years of therapy, and even with all the therapy in the world, my experience with you is a scar that I will carry for the rest of my life. I am one of multiple women who you have traumatized in a similar fashion. I hope this letter clarifies the issues you need to address, Brandon, because this pattern needs to end here.

- Dina

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Brandon

In 2015 when I lived in Oakland with Caitie and Kevin, you spent the night and you and I hooked up a couple of times. The last time this happened we had been drinking and I started to feel sick. I pushed you off of me and rolled over to go to sleep. You got up out of bed walked around to my side of the bed and proceeded to shove your dick in my mouth as I was trying to sleep. I pushed you away from me again, feeling sick and defenseless. After this I blamed myself. Angry at myself for putting myself in a position where I couldn’t defend myself or stop something I didn’t want to happen. I had clearly stopped sexual activity with you and you proceeded anyway. If you couldn’t use one part of my body to climax then you tried to use another. I told My best friend about the incident right after. I shortly after moved to Richmond and quit drinking. Though we ended up in some of the same spaces I rarely saw you and when I did, I didn’t speak to you except maybe a hello. You as well never contacted me again after that incident. I tried to just pretend it didn’t happen and move on but as I found it increasingly more difficult to do so and struggled with it while seeing you around, this friend brought your behavior with Dina to my attention. We commiserated and debated talking to you in person but we were scared of your anger and volatility that we have both witnessed from you in the past with others and us individually. As other incidents with other women came to the surface I feared a fight breaking out at manic which could potentially ruin the show. Jose’s aggressive behavior at the Sunday show made me even more uncomfortable about talking with you in person as well as you slandering me saying I needed counseling. It showed me you did not want to take accountability. I hope this can lay out for you exactly where trust and consent were violated so you can work on this aspect of your behavior in therapy.

-Andy

****************************************************************************************************Brandon’s Statement

“I am aware that I have hurt a number of women. Regardless of when, I am confronted with the undeniable pain I have caused and am recognizing that I need to be accountable for my actions. In some way, shape, or form, during sexual encounters I have crossed these individuals’ personal boundaries and engaged in levels of non-consensual sex. I have made past partners feel emotionally coerced and have also been emotionally neglectful in times of need and verbally abusive in past relationships. This is never acceptable and it is absolutely necessary that I am accountable to anyone I have harmed and to my community. Part of this accountability requires that I take a step back from playing music to allow space and time for people to heal. Through my own initiative as well as community input, all upcoming shows have been cancelled. It is important that I take the time to seriously reflect on my actions and per the request of those harmed I am currently seeking counseling so that I can begin to unravel how my actions can directly contribute to systems of oppression. I must respect the requests of my community as well as recognize that it is my obligation alone to dismantle my own harmful behaviors. If you have any questions you can reach out.”

The Beginning of Mediation

“Brandon was given a list of requests as a part of his accountability process. He is being asked to not visit several different bars and venues in San Francisco and Oakland (listed below). Additionally, it was made clear that the survivors are not currently interested in dialogue or interaction with Brandon so if they end up in the same space or social situation, Brandon is to leave without question and respect their space. It was also asked that Brandon seek out and begin attending therapy to address his patterns of harmful behaviors regarding non-consensual sex, intimidation, violence and/or threats of violence, refusal to wear condoms and general lack of respect for women who he is involved with. Brandon agreed to respect these demands and to take part in this process to work towards healing for those he has hurt and to address and change his harmful behaviors. It is planned to have a three month and six month check-in to discuss progress, lack there of or any other relevant changes.”

This list includes:

Golden bull

Eli’s mile high club

St. Mary’s Pub

Bender’s

Knockout

Thee Parkside

Doc’s Clock

Molotovs

Gilman

Elbo Room (SF and Oakland)

Uptown (SF and Oakland)

- The mediators

Contact

for questions, concerns, statements, and general information please email [email protected]

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