Try and get hold of a copy of the Lundy Bancroft book, Why Does He Do That. I found it eye opening.
And do you know, I think lots of men are socialised to have a sense of entitlement which means they just take or do what they want because they never were asked to consider other people. But some end up with a sense of entitlement to do literally whatever they want around another person as well, and your ex’s Clare’s Law disclosure mentioned stalking-type behaviour, didn’t it, and you have mentioned sex. So he feels, at some level, entitled to coercively control his partners and to take sex when he wants it. That shows a fundamental lack of respect for you as a person, and I do think a lot of men fail to see women as people with personhood and all that that means, in the way they see men as people.
for example, say you’re in a pub with a book, reading. Some men will think they can come and talk to you. They’ll just do it, and you’ll feel rude if you don’t welcome them and their interruption. Or if you’re comfortable to say sorry, I’m reading, please don’t interrupt- they’ll be angry and aggressive or insulting.
Some men persist in chatting a woman up until she says she has a boyfriend- so he won’t accept her no on her own behalf, he’ll only accept it when she explains that she ‘belongs’ to another man. He respects the male ownership rather than the woman’s personal autonomy.
do you see what I mean? I think the controlling and abusive ones just take it further than the others. But it all stems from that fundamental way of viewing women as adjuncts to men’s lives and personhood, rather than people in their own right with autonomy, preferences, choice, and skills.