Do these women understand the risks? That is the question that Julie Bindel posed in the Guardian today. I think that her answer boiled down to ‘not really’. (Feel free to correct me!)

Except, there’s something about that answer that doesn’t sit right with me. There are many reasons that women, and men, end up in abusive relationships. There are many reasons why people get involved with ‘bad boys’ and men who have crossed the line into actually dangerous.

A lot of the time it has nothing to do with ignorance of the risks. Women who date local criminals or paramilitaries, women who make the choice to click the link and get involved with ‘hunks working out topless in the [prison] gym’ know there is a risk implicit in the relationship. Especially with prisons, the thrill of dating someone dangerous in a safe setting is part of the draw surely?

Like keeping a pet lion. It’s so dangerous to everyone else, but it loves you and that makes you special. Until it eats your face.

I am not saying that women go to the prison dating website and decide, ‘I’m going to date that nice domestic abused who killed his last two partners and will beat me up everyday.’ I am saying that there is a flaw in implying, even in passing, that women get into these relationships because they don’t know the danger.

Why? Because basically you are saying that no woman who understood it was dangerous would get into the sort of relationship we are talking about. That education can inoculate against a bad relations, and if only it was that simple.

So, I think that most women who go to meet or write to or date some topless jail hunk probably know it is a risky decision. As Bindel notes about one woman, ‘she was convinced she could change him.’ And haven’t we all gone into relationships thinking we do that, whether it is their time-keeping or their drinking or whatever?

People, not just women, rationalise away bad stuff to get what they want.