Cersei said to Ned that Robert hit her "once or twice before", so it's not a regular thing. I suppose the years of spousal abuse come for from the fact that he raped her when he was drunk. And I'm far from excusing Robert's behaviour towards Cersei in general, even though for my life I can't feel sorry for the woman.

But, yeah, I agree with you, fandom focuses just way more on the cruelty towards women while more easily dismissing the violence against men (or boys, in this case).

What I love about ASOIAF, though, is how unreliable all narrators are, and the most interesting thing about the books is to see through the appearances and see what's behind. So it just irritates me when people take the obvious at face value, even when it's wrong.