Sometimes, things in life happen that may "coincidentally interfere" with plans or ideas of the future.
In other words, I'm sure Rihanna never planned to have this Chris Brown incident "recorded into" her history, but it happened, and the past cannot be changed, and that's just the way it is. Now, she developed an idea (or agreed) to write / sing a song that coincidentally just happened to somewhat be related to that experience. As a result, it automatically makes her look bad in some ways....
I personally really hate when these type of coincidences happen in my life - where an unfortunate past incident messes up or changes the look of something I decide to do in the future, and I believe that just because the past incident happened, I shouldn't be unable to display or present whatever idea or creativity I come up with later on down the road, regardless of how much it "ties into" a past incident.
Another more extreme example of a "coincidental interference" would be: Lets say you're a tv program comedian and within your script, you have a scene where a plane or something crashes as a joke, resulting in a hilarious outcome. You work hard on this tv audition/play for weeks and months, knowing damn well that you've come up with something you know is a guarantee to make people laugh. Then, the day before your episode/part makes a big debut on television, there's a tragic plane crash. You know planes have crashed multiple times in the past, and plane crashes are a common occurrence, but JUST BECAUSE one just crashed yesterday, you cannot publicly use & display any comic script or joke that has a plane crash in it or else you'll automatically become "the bad, insensitive guy".
Anyway, that's a more drastic example of a coincidental interference, but bottom line is this; Just because Rihanna had a beating incident in her past, I don't think this means she shouldn't be allowed to talk about, sing about, or express anything that may in some way relate to that, especially if no one would have a problem with it if it were someone else doing exactly what Rihanna's doing. She was a victim of an unplanned abuse that was highly publicized, but this doesn't mean she should be "prohibited" from writing/singing about whips & things as she pleases.
She should be free to do any reasonable form of entertainment as she pleases without it being tied to any particular unfortunate past incidents - unless she is performing an act that's intentionally supposed to be related to the incident. If I'm a victim of a home invasion, me randomly deciding to include a joke or scene related to robbery within a script as a form of entertainment later on shouldn't lessen the seriousness of the traumatic incident I've experienced.
