Sometimes abusers engage in humiliation as an intermediate form of abuse because of the rage and contempt they feel toward the victim, and yet they do not want to engage in physical or ‘real’ abuse.
Serial killers and many abusers often end up having to work themselves up to their ultimate actions.
Before a serial killer kills the first time, for example, they may engage in stalking or ‘peeping’ at individuals that would later be considered potential victims.
Abusers start with using their soft influence and intelligence to convince a victim to change their thoughts/mind/actions/feelings before demonstrating (and escalating into) outright violence.
The Gottman Institute identifies “contempt” as one of the predictors of divorce, but it is also a bellwether of abusive behavior
…contempt for the victim being a kind of ‘permission’ they give themselves to ‘punish’ the victim or escalate their own behaviors. Safe people divorce when they start to despise the person they are with, but an unsafe person may begin to engage in humiliation of the victim, both in public and private.
…this humiliation being driven by the abuser’s contempt (and possible rage) but they haven’t worked themselves up yet to actual physical abuse yet.
So you see humiliation of the victim by the abuser as they start to identify the victim as someone who they are ‘allowed’ to physically abuse.
This degradation is used as an intermediate form of abuse as their psychological barriers of harming the victim are eroded.